She was flying in a helicopter with her husband on a campaign tour of the Ondo area of present day Ondo State in preparation for the forthp the job…. To return to his law practice”.
In the First Republic, she was there as Obafemi Awolowo’s pillar of support. Indeed, as Sir Olaniwun Ajayi discloses, the wheelbase Mercedes-Benz number WR 1455 that Awolowo drove around the Western Region for his campaign was owned by his wife. Again in the Second Republic, H.I.D was there beside her husband whenthe first campaign was held at Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos. She was on the campaign of Lateef Jakande for the Lagos governorship Jakande’s wife had been one of H.I.D’s assistants. Therefore, there was an extra bond with the man popularly called LKJ, apart from his involvement with the Tribune.
Awolowo’s private secretary in the years preceding and immediately after the start of the Second Republic, Odia Ofeimun attests to the crucial private role played by H.I.D in the success of her husband as a political leader.
“When I started work as Chief Awolowo’s private secretary in 1978, I remember that she had actually relocated in Ikenne…. But then as the political race began, she also started moving back to Park Lane (Apapa) and not staying as much in Ikenne. Because, given her commitment to her husband, I think she could not leave him to face the political weather on his own. She really had to be between Ikenne and park Lane. Chief Awolowo worked out a programme for himself which took him back to Ikenne every Thursday and then he returned on Sunday to Lagos. In some cases, she may not come with on Sunday”, say Ofeimun.
“I met Romanus Ibegbulem as his Personal Secretary, in charge of practically everyday things. My job as a Private Secretary was distinct from a personal secretary. I was in charge of the office, anything having to do with politics, files and the rest of it…. Mama never interfered with the relationship between you and your boss, which means she was not my boss and she never acted so. She simply created an environment which made it possible for people to do what they had to do. She knew that you will be invited to do things for your regular boss, so she never added to your work. And whenever she had to, she did it very sparingly. If there was something to do in the house there was always enough people to do it. Part of the enormous respect I have for her is that, in defence of her husband, she also protected the interest of those who worked with her husband”.
With her skilled management of her time in the context of her husband’s public obligations, H.I.D was such a great asset to Awolowo during the campaigns.
“(W)e campaigned together”, H.I.D narrates. “It was a very tough campaign in 1979. But we did it together. On some occasions, if he went to the North, I went to the South. Campaigning was touch… We used to travel by helicopter and by road… It was a very expensive campaign”.
It was on such a trip on the helicopter that the experience described above happened.
However, in the 1979 elections, while the UPN won in all the five states making up the old Western Region (Bendel, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo and Oyo States), but the party was only able to win some senatorial or state assembly seats in the other parts of the country. Awolowo also lost the presidential election. He headed for the courts and lost the cases. The Supreme Court affirmed what many saw as the flawed verdict of the lower court which gave victory to the candidate of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), Alhaji Shehu Shagari based on a mathematical calculation of 122/3 of the federation.
“We actually had more support in the north in 1979 than we had in 1959”, comments H.I.D “(In) Kaduna, for instance…. the party won two senatorial seats there although one of them was miraculously denied the UPN after the result(s) had been announced on the NTA the previous night”.
But the support In the west was “overwhelming”, as H.I.D describes it.
In the five states, UPN candidates were elected as governors: in Bendel State, Ambrose Folorunsho Alli, a professor of medicine; in Lagos, Lateef Jakande, a famous journalist and former Managing Director of Tribune who was jailed alongside Awolowo; in Ogun, Bisi Onabanjo, also a famous journalist, in Ondo, Michael Adekunle Ajasin, a member of the AG and retired school principal; and, in Oyo, Bola Ige, a lawyer and former national Publicity Secretary of the AG.
In the intervening years between 1979 and 1983, H.I.D focused on her business while spending time with her grandchildren, as described above. She also looked forward to the next election circle in 1983 when her husband planned to run again for the presidency.
If the 1979 elections were flawed, as H.I.D argues, those of 1983 were worse.
“After that, Papa thought that the country deserved the kind of President it got”, writes H.I.D. Consequently, Awolowo announced that he “would not force himself to serve a nation he loved so much…. From that time until his death, Papa devoted his time to reading and philosophy”.
As evident in the First Republic and in the intervening years, the Second Republic again provided an opportunity for H.I.D to demonstrate he unflinching love for her husband and innate capacity for providing the required support for his political career.
As one of the closet associate of her husband and the man who led the legal team that challenged Shagari’s victory in the 1979 presidential elections, Chief G.O.K Ajayi, attested before he died “Awolowo was a great leader that made things happen in the political sphere while Mama H.I.D provided the needed backbone that saw to his success”.
TO BE CONTINUED
and then