Senator Solomon Adeola (Lagos West)
In the annals of Nigeria history, no leader has played a more pivotal and salutary role in positive development as our late sage, Pa Obafemi Awolowo. Among foremost Nigerian national leaders, Pa Awolowo not only had the most impactful effects on human development through his free education policy, but also founded a progressive political tradition for his people that is still dominant in the nation at large. I am proud to have imbibed and followed religiously the progressive
political tradition of Pa Awolowo. Pa Awolowo was also an erudite scholar that documented his thoughts in great books that are still relevant in addressing challenges facing the nation today if only contemporary leaders can implement his great ideas.
It is small wonder that decades after his demise, his legacies in government, private enterprise like Tribune, education and principled stand on national issues have endured. As a Yoruba man of Ogun State descent, a Lagosian like Pa Awolowo, one is proud to have Pa Awolowo as a leading light and a role model.
Honorable Wole Oke, member, House of Representatives
Sincerely speaking, I was very young when Baba Awolowo, the greatest hero, passed on, and I never believed that somebody like him could die, until he passed on. From then, death means nothing to me again. From all we read about him when we were growing up, he was like a god. From all parameters, when you talk about constitutional development, the framework that has brought all of us together as a nation, you find the footprint of Baba Obafemi Awolowo there. When you talk about federalism, you see the handiwork of Chief Obafemi Awolowo there. Even when you talk about regional government, as it were then, you will also find the hand of Chief Obafemi Awolowo there.
When you talk about cultural development; even when you talk about information and technological development, sports, you know how the Liberty Stadium Ibadan came about (the First in Africa), you know how the NTA in Ibadan, (the first in Africa) free education; when you talk about human capital development, when you talk about sound political economic management recorded, you find out that the achievements of Pa Obafemi Awolowo are unbeatable.
I can say, with all sincerity of purpose, other than in the area of technology innovation like we have today in the GSM, and digital broadcasting, I have not seen much progress that we have made. We are still stagnant at that stage, politically speaking, constitutionally speaking, legislatively speaking. I have not seen much progress that we have made as a nation.
So, for a long time to come, I sincerely doubt if there will be anybody like him, except the fact that the elite conspired against Baba Awolowo from becoming the president of Nigeria, a nation he believed in; a nation he jointly fought with other patriots to secure its independence.
Paba was an embodiment of knowledge, transparency in public finance, and uprightness. He was a very objective politician; and those are the virtues that someone like me have borrowed from his politics: selfless service to the nation. Those are the things I have taken from the sage.
Chief Jim Nwobodo, former governor of the old Anambra state
As a governor, I was quite close to him, I gave some of the birthday lectures. And I think he meant a lot to many Nigerians. And his greatest achievements was that he introduced universal free education in the Western Region, and all westerners who benefitted from it gave testimony to that fact. He is still very well remembered and highly respected.
Segun Oni , former Ekiti State governor and national vice-chairman, (South) of the All Progressives Congress, (APC).
I personally will always believe that the leadership that we didn’t have, that we denied ourselves of because of our ignorance but that would have made a difference between where Nigeria is now and where it would have been is the leadership of Obafemi Awolowo.
If you benchmark Nigeria with countries like Malaysia, and so on in the 60s, you will see that where they are now is far from us, and I believe that if we had been fortunate to allow ourselves to utilize our best for our most important job, we wouldn’t be so far from wherever the likes of the Asians Tigers are.
So, we have lost a lot; but it doesn’t mean that we also cannot recoup the past. What I will say about the future is that the people who will make the best of the future must not hold on too firmly to the past.
We must begin to loosen our grips on the past, otherwise the future will elude us. All these beliefs, this phobia about ethnicity, about regional tendencies and so on should begin to fade if we want a Nigeria that will catch up with those giants that we are looking at in front.
Let us not hold on too rigidly to the past; let us create situations where we would challenge the future. And I am sure Nigerians are some of the most resilient people that you can get anywhere in the world.
And if we decide to do it and challenge ourselves and we put less impediments on the ways of our leadership, we will get there.
The late sage was a stickler for normative fiscal federalism, as against the distortion which has created mutual ethnic distrust and agitation for restructuring and in some cases, outright balkanization of the amalgam, by groups like Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) which believe that they are being shortchanged.
and then