Overview
Obafemi Awolowo was a lawyer, writer and politician who led the Western Region as its first Premier and built one of Nigeria's most durable political traditions. He was Yoruba, born at Ikenne in what is now Ogun State.
Biography
Awolowo worked as a teacher, clerk and trader before qualifying as a lawyer in London, where he wrote Path to Nigerian Freedom. He had earlier helped organise the Nigerian Produce Traders' Association and the cultural group Egbe Omo Oduduwa, out of which the Action Group emerged in 1951.
As Premier of the Western Region from 1954 he introduced free primary education, opened a network of schools and teacher-training colleges, established the first television service in Africa in 1959 and expanded regional health services, funded largely by cocoa revenue. He was jailed for treasonable felony in 1963 after a bitter split in his party, released in 1966, and served as federal commissioner for finance and vice-chairman of the executive council during the civil war, where the funding of the war effort without heavy foreign borrowing is credited to his ministry. He stood for president in 1979 and 1983 without winning.
Notable achievements
- First Premier of the Western Region, from 1954
- Introduced free universal primary education in the Western Region
- Established the first television service in Africa, at Ibadan in 1959
- Federal commissioner for finance during the civil war years
- Author of Path to Nigerian Freedom and other works of political thought
Legacy
Awolowo's programme of regional welfare spending remains a reference point in Nigerian policy argument, and the political tendency he founded outlasted him. His federal politics, his part in the collapse of the First Republic and his conduct during the civil war are still debated, and assessments of him differ by region and by generation.