STORMS COME AND GO, WRITES Kay Bligen in her poem, “Life Must Go On”, laughter turns into frowns/but life must go on”.
As the last member in the family of HID Awolowo to see her brother alive, 22-year old Tola was devastated. So was her fiancée, Kayode Oyediran, who had also been with Segun earlier the day before he died. A certain emptiness enveloped the lovers in the months that followed the death of their brother and close friend, respectively. But life must go on. Tola would have been the only one left in the house but for her mother that needed to relocate temporarily to Ibadan and the many women and other members of the family who came to live with them.
Meanwhile, one of the remarkable things about HID was her attitude to young women and marriage. As someone who got married at 22, she believed (still believes) that any young woman who fails to marry between 22 and 24 exposes herself to the possibility of engaging in osi (fornication). She repeatedly told her daughters this. Some of her granddaughters revealed that she “harassed” them too with the same attitude before they got married. Therefore, in spite of the crisis, and in fact, because of it, HID encouraged Tola to get married as soon as possible. She already had a fiancée, who is from a reputable family and had qualified as a doctor. Having lost a child, she was eager for more grandchildren.
The couple too felt they were ready. But they were planning to get married in England. However, HID persuaded them against this. There was no way she could leave her husband who was undergoing trial to travel to the UK for a daughter’s wedding. Life had to go on, but they could as well get married in Nigeria. They agreed.
The wedding was held in November 1963, about four months afterSegun’s death. Though it was a modest wedding, it was a happy day for Hannah, happiness that punctuated the serial grief she had endured since ObafemiAwolowo was served with a restriction order about 17 months earlier.
Seven days after he lost his appeal, on July 8, 1964, ObafemiAwolowo was transferred to Calabar Prison. HID was very sad when she heard this. This will mean that she will no longer be able to visit him regularly. As she read the newspapers announcing the transfer, she cried again, as she did only eight days ago when he lost his appeal.
She went on her knees and prayed hard for the safety of her husband in the new prison, given the fears he had expressed in his last letter to her. She asked God to continue to give her the strength to cope with the existing challenges and the new challenge of the distance between her and the new prison where her husband had been transferred.
As Tola and KayodeOyediran started their family, their imprisoned father had father-in-law, respectively, was eager to see his new grandchildren. HID, the couple and other family members were eager to see him too.
Those who travelled with HID to Calabar included Kayode and TolaOyediran, their two-daughters, Oluwakemi and Yewande, Motunde (Segun) Awolowo, who was living with the Oyedirans, and Awo’s Chief Private Secretary, BiodunFalade, and his assistant, Dairo. They travelled in a convey of two cars. When they arrived, the joy of the meeting was almost marred by one of the warders who shouted at Awolowo when he was about to sit down, “Prisoners are not allowed to sit on chairs meant for free people”.
Again, HID was overwhelmed with emotions as she witnessed the attempt to humiliate her man who was undoubtedly the most accomplished political office-holder of his generation.
“You should show more courage”, responded Awolowo, ignoring the warder. “I thought you have been wonderful. If you break down like that, what do you expect of others in your team?”
The very important prisoner was meeting three of his four grandchildren for the first time. His first grandchild, Segun’s daughter, Funke, was not there, because she was still living in England at that point with her mother, AdeolaMajekodunmi (nee Fasanya). All the grandchildren were born after he was incarcerated. HID was the only grandparent they knew on that side of the family. Therefore, the grandfather was eager to hold them in his hands and cuddle them.
Motunde and his cousin, Kemi, both toddlers, were however, not eager to embrace this “Strange” man. When Awolowo tried to hold them, they recoiled from him. Perhaps the two cousins took a cue from each other, because, as Professor Oyediran notes, Motunde (Segun Jr.) and Kemi “were rather like twins growing up”, even though the former is six months older than the latter.
“I don’t know why”, recalls their aunt and mother, respectively, Reverend (Mrs.) Oyediran, five decades later. “They didn’t greet him.
He tried to entice them with everything, but no, they wouldn’t let him hold them……That really hurt him because that was the first time he was seeing them”.
It was only the nine-month old baby, Yewande – who is now called Yemisi – who eagerly opened her arms to embrace her grandfather. He placed her on his laps talking to her with joy.
“Yemisi was so friendly with Papa. She sat on his laps”, discloses Mrs. Oyediran.
Both grandfather and granddaughter seemed to have enjoyed that moment together. It was no wonder that when Awolowo returned from jail about a year later, it was the same Yewande who again eagerly embraced her grandfather. Awolowo was holding her in the photographs published in the newspapers upon his release.
Before they returned to Ibadan from Calabar, HID got a call from her cousin warning her not to return to Ibadan through Ilesa because riots had broken out with arson experiences in many cities and towns in Western Nigeria. She was advised to travel through Benin and Ijebu-Ode. The riots, particularly the arson that attended them all over the Western Region were later captured as Operation Wetie! (Operation wet it – or douse it). Houses and persons suspected to be collaborators with the unpopular Akintola administration and NNDP were doused in fuel and set on fire.
When HID and her party reached Ijebu-Ife, they ran into the rioters. But once they recognized her, they hailed her with shouts of “Awo!” and let her convey through. It happened in other towns.
“At each point when the mob identified me, there were shouts of “Awo!” and I was given free passage….” HID discloses.
One day in 1965, HID was travelling to Ikenne from Ibadan on the old road (before the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway was constructed) and found that the students of the Christ Apostolic Church Grammar School, Iperu were rioting. It had been two years since her husband was jailed and she was having to carry so much burden, including the campaigns for the coming elections. But even in those circumstances, she remembered that one of her relations’ kids was in the school. She asked her driver to drive through the rioting students into the school premises. When she got there, the teachers recognized her.
“The boys had locked the girls inside our hostel. I was surprised when someone came to call me that Mama Awolowo was looking for me. They asked for OluremiOdubogun. Given the situation, once everybody saw it was Mama Awolowo, they let her take me away. She said “go get all your things”, discloses Caroline OluremiSotire (nee Odubogun).
When they got to Ikenne, HID dropped Oluremi with her mother, Elizabeth Adelana, who also knew Oluremi’s mother well.
“She dropped me with her (HID’s) mother, Mama Agba, in Ikenne. She then called my parents in Lagos and told them the situation. My mother was older than her. Mama said she would enroll me in Mayflower(Tai Solarin’s school in Ikenne). I was admitted there. But I couldn’t cope at Mayflower. I didn’t do well and I used to fall sick regularly. Mama then took me to Ibadan Grammar School…..”
The riots in the Western continued, despite all efforts by the federal and regional government to stop them. The massive rigging of the 1965 regional elections was the last straw for the people of the region. Akintola and his constituents had carried their offering beyond the altar…..
TO BE CONTINUED
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