The world is a marketplace
ChieF Ayo Adebanjo, who is also one of the closest people to Chief Awolowo, described H.i.D as “a modern Nigerian heroine”. He added “It is important to emphasize that it is impossible to write about the life and achievements of the late Chief obafemi Awolowo without alluding to the significant role played by Chief (Mrs.) H.I.D Awolowo. She…stood by her husband through thick and thin”. Sir Olaniwun Ajayi agrees with his friend and life-long loyalist of the Awolowo Movement. He argues that when the totality of what H.I.D was able to accomplish in her public and private lives is considered, the only conclusion that can be reached is that “Mama is a heroine”. Chief Ebenezer Babatope, a life-long Awoist, popularly called Ebino Topsy, concludes: “Study any aspect of Mama’s life, whether as a wife, a business woman, a politician, above all as a mother, indeed, any aspect, embodied in it is a noble lesson, worthy of endearment and complete admiration to all and sundry”.
Ofeimun adds that one of the important things most people miss about the symbiotic relationship of Obafemi and Hannah Awolowo was the ways they allowed each other to dominate different aspects of their shared lives. During meals, breakfast and dinner, particularly the latter which they ate together regularly, H.I.D sat at the head of the table.
States the poet:, “Awolowo never sat at the head of the table. She was the boss of the house and there is a sense in which that was very true because no matter how much Awolowo dominated everywhere, you could not do anything about her equal dominance of that environment”.
AFTER THE MASSIVELY RIGGED NOVEMBER 1965 legislative election in the Western Region, Wunmi Adegbonmire and Stephen Adebanji Akintoye, both 30-year olds, visited H.I.D Awolowo in her Oke-Ado home. The young – eventually, life-long – Awoists were despondent. They had both fully supported Mrs. Awolowo’s campaigns around the region in the previous and as well as that year. They were particularly helpful in her campaigns in the Ondo Province. They were both fervent party loyalists who were sold on the impending victory of the alliance between AG and NCNC – that is, UPGA – which would have led to the release of their leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Adegbonmire, the University of Ife-trained activist, had risked his life selling the semi-legal newspaper, Tribune, owned by the Awolowos. On his part, Akintoye, a University of Ibadan history graduate, had risked his job in the high school and his safety in Ibadan by following H.I.D around Ekitiland. Both had become Awolowo’s supporters since their student days.
First, their dream of victory died with the massively rigged federal parliamentary electionsof December 1964, which was boycotted in some parts of the south. With that they fixed their hope on the November 1965 legislative election in the Western Region. If the alliance could not wrest control of the federal government from the NPC-NNDP alliance (NNA), it could at least defeat Akintola’s NNDP in the Western Region. Only the victory of the AG over Akintola’s party, (in)famously called Demo, matched Adegbonmire and Akintoye’s understanding of triumph of right over wrong and good over evil. Anything less would test their faith in a providential of order of the universe.
Therefore, when AG and UPGA lost both elections, both men were convinced that there was no Higher Order in charge of justice in the world.
No less than two thousand lives had been lost in Akintola’s desperate bid to retain power. Yet, he and Balewa and their alliance remained in power at the Federal and regional levels in the North and West. They had even increased their shares of the federal and regional legislature. The NPC won 162 out of the 312 seats in the House of Representatives. The NNA alliance had 198 altogether, while AG had lost no less than 52 of its seats in the federal house.
When they visited H.I.D late in 1965, the two couldn’t be more miserable. As they discussed the turn of events, as Adegbonmire reveals, she mentioned “God would soon hand down his own judgment”.
Though both were Christians, in unison they asked the wife of their leader to save her breath.
“Where was God when all these happened?” they queried.
But the woman who is known universally as one who never loses her cool, counseled the young men to “trust God” and “not…lose faith in Him as He would surely intervene on the part of the just”.
Less than a month later, those who were responsible for testing the young men’s faith had been removed from power – and silenced.
Adegbemire, who died at 77 in 2012, and Akintoye, now 80, went back to H.I.D apologize for their “unbelief”.
Three and half decades later, Adegonmire, whose sobriquet was “Omo Ekun”, submitted that this “great woman”, who has been taught by experience that “life is made of marble and mud”, is deeply religious.
“Mama’s Christianity is vigorous and muscular and robust”, argued Omo Ekun.
Indeed, as stated above, H.I.D’s faith is a fundamental aspect of her life. While she embraces the earth and its fullness, including in the literal Yoruba sense of the world as a market place, she has also approached it as a journey, one that constantly demonstrated that “heaven is home”.
From her childhood as someone brought up by an Apostolic mother and an Anglican father through her years as a chorister at St Saviour’s Anglican Church, Ikenne through the years of tribulations and glory with Obafemi Awolowo, H.I.D’s faith has been fervent. As her late husband attested, her unwavering devotion was the central reason why he didn’t abandon the Christian faith in his adult life. Her Christian faith was also critical to her endurance in the years of personal and political tribulations, as Adegbonmire confirms. Same is true of how she brought up her children, grandchildren and the way she has helped in shaping the lives of her grandchildren, as they all affirm.
TO BE CONTINUED
EBINO TOPSY – 0805-500-1735 (SMS ONLY PLEASE)
and then