Papa’s ideals can’t die —Professor Omolewa

Professor Michael Omolewa , former permanent delegate and Ambassador of Nigeria to UNESCO, speaks with Laolu Harolds, on the giant strides of Chief Obafemi Awolowo in the education sector.  

I think the first thing that we should remind ourselves of is that Chief Awolowo had a solid foundation. He made sure that he invested a lot of his time on building himself up as a knowledge-base pioneer. After his primary education, he decided to study by correspondence, and through that, he was able to have a B.Comm (Bachelor of Commerce) by self-study, at home. From, there, he decided to travel to the United Kingdom to read Law. So, by the time he came back to Nigeria, he was already a confident educator and educationist who believed very firmly in the quality of education.

Then, the second thing you want to talk about is that as soon as he came back, he formulated his own vision of education. He knew that he could not do it alone; he got very competent personnel as ministers, as public servants. He surrounded himself with quality personnel, the likes of Professor Oyenuga, Professor  Sam Aluko, and then he got himself the first Chemistry graduate in Nigeria, Chief S. O. Awokoya. Not only was he the first Chemistry graduate of the University of London in Nigeria, he was a very successful science teacher in Abeokuta Grammar School, and also principal of Molusi College.

So, he recruited him from Molusi College, and made him the Minister of Education in Western Nigeria; and then he sent him to Ghana to go and learn from the experience of Kwame Nkrumah’s government that was already implementing Universal Primary Education (UPE). That was the type of person that Chief Awolowo was: he got people who were focused and who were exceptionally brilliant, experienced and committed. And then, Chief Awolowo discovered that he was going to achieve very little all on his own and in company of very few academics and professionals; so, he decided that the Action Group would make education a core of the programmes of that party. And so, you would remember Chief Awolowo for seven major things in education. The first is the Universal Primary Education that made education mass-oriented. It offered access to education to people who would never have seen the four walls of the classroom because of poverty or because of alienation and other constraints. So, the Universal Primary Education that was launched in 1955 became the core of the achievement of Chief Awolowo. The products of that UPE are everywhere till today, and they all remember Chief Awolowo as the one that was used to make them have access to the basic, fundamentals of education.

And then the second thing that Chief Awolowo did was that he was not only dealing with primary school children; he was interested in the education of the adults. So, he instituted the Aworerin. That Aworerin was a booklet of humour. It had stories; adult learners liked to read and enjoy it. So, everybody was encouraged to begin to read and write, so that education became a tool that could support the development initiatives of Chief Awolowo.

The third (thing), of course, is well known: the institution of higher education. He made the University of Ife a model – a model in quality; a model in originality of curriculum; a model in terms of the recruitment of the best staff, led by Professor Hezekiah Oluwasanmi. You had to be somebody before you could have access to the staff of the University of Ife.

The education at Ife was so original that it was aimed at preserving the indigenous knowledge of Africa. So, they had agriculture; they had medicine, traditional medicine; they had all those things that were very unique to Ife. And that’s why when the university was eventually renamed Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), for many of us, everywhere, OAU became what you called ‘Oba Awon University’ (King of all universities); oba in terms of quality staff; oba in terms of original curriculum; oba in terms of quality delivery; oba in terms of research, and quality.

And then the next thing was that because he believed that education was basic, he also funded education. He made sure that education did not only prepare people, but that education was also used to produce human resource. It was a human capital programme, so that you wanted the best as civil servants, the best as teachers, and the best as researchers. So, he funded education.  And then, he made provision for the grants and scholarships. Scholarship programmes were made available to people who would never have dreamt of higher education; and they trained in all areas – engineering, medicine and so on; and they were so grateful to Western Nigeria. That was a dream of Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

Let me conclude by saying that Chief Obafemi Awolowo surrounded himself with competent people, committed people, focused people; they were intolerant of corruption; they were elegant people; they were patriots. They committed themselves to life-changing experiments. We’re talking of people like (J. F.) Odunjo; we’re talking of people like Oshuntokun. They were up there, motivated by Chief Awolowo.  His legacies remain; his ideas remain. Many of the ideas can be reinvented; they can never die. His ideas can never die. In fact, his name cannot die. Chief Awolowo is a symbol of greatness, vision, sacrifice, genuineness, originality of thoughts, selflessness and caring for people.

Chief Awolowo never bothered about where you came from. As long as you were relevant and loaded, he would use you. He would encourage you. That is why they say Chief Awolowo is like a tree that remains, an iroko tree, unshakeable, first among equals; the first and the very best.

And you remember that in his own account, he said that the most important thing education will also achieve is discipline; that while all others would be going about doing things that satisfied the flesh, and acquired things that were only temporal, he spent quality time thinking, reflecting, doing. That is why his political party was called ‘Action Group’. It was a group for action, for experimentation, for clear, decisive, innovative programmes and activities that would impact not just the nation but the whole world.