TODAY is the 35th anniversary of the transition of the sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. A sage is “a profoundly wise person; a person famed for wisdom.” A sage is also he that is “venerated for the possession of wisdom, possession of judgment and of experience.” That is what my dictionary says ‘sage’ means. In life, and since his death, anywhere Awolowo’s name is mentioned, you see ‘sage’ attached firmly to him. Is there any other Nigerian so ve`nerated with that appellation? Awo earned it. In all his engagements with Nigeria, he left no one in doubt that he had wisdom; that he possessed judgement fired in the crucible of experience.
I call him Nigeria’s scientific prophet; a seer and a social scientist. Thirty five days before his death, Awo took a clear look at Nigeria and declared that “our stars have been dimmed by incompetent rulers.” And, today, the darkness lengthens; the only song in town is about the next elections. We are processing another opaque object to block the nation’s rays. A profane president and an irreverent political class are feeding taboos to our sacred institutions. The CBN governor is in partisan politics; he derides the law and is campaigning for votes. That is a very violent violation of values – a moral, legal and political extension of the devaluation misfortune they inflicted on the naira. Godwin Emefiele has told his critics to wait for his god for more details. While we wait, someone has cynically asked the chairman of our electoral commission to also come out and join the presidential race. It won’t be a shock to us; nothing shocks us. Those observing our ways won’t be surprised either. We do not get ourselves bothered that every promise in Nigeria has ended in disappointment; and that every dawn has left the country in darker darkness. But nothing that troubles Nigeria today came as a thief in the night. There were enough warnings.
A particular day 36 years ago, Chief Awolowo spoke on Nigeria and the humdrum at its sacred temples. On Friday, February 28, 1986, Samuel Cookey, a professor of political science, wrote Chief Awolowo on behalf of the military government. He was seeking the sage’s contributions to that government’s search for a new order. The professor got a reply. Awo told Nigeria, through Cookey, that its aberrant ways would always lead the lost from dank alleys to despondent depths. He spoke deeply on why the search for safe flight and safe landing was fruitless. A direct quote of the sage’s reply to Cookey will speak better: “I do fervently, and will continue fervently to, pray that I may be proved wrong. For something within me tells me, loud and clear, that we have embarked on a fruitless search. At the end of the day, when we imagine that the new order is here, we would be terribly disappointed. In other words, at the threshold of our New Social Order, we would see for ourselves that, as long as Nigerians remain what they are, nothing clean, principled, ethical, and idealistic can work with them. And Nigerians will remain what they are, unless the evils which now dominate their hearts, at all levels and in all sectors of our political, business and governmental activities are exorcised.”
The prophet was very accurate; he was also scientific in his conviction and conclusion on what Nigerians would make of their future. He continued, firmly: “But I venture to assert that they will not be exorcised, and indeed they will be firmly entrenched, unless God Himself imbues a vast majority of us with a revolutionary change of attitude to life and politics or, unless the dialectic processes which have been at work for some twenty years now, perforce, make us perceive the abominable filth that abounds in our society, to the end that an inexorable abhorrence of it will be quickened in our hearts and impel us to make drastic changes for the better. There is, of course, an alternative option open to us: to succumb to permanent social instability and chaos.”
Read the above immortal words very carefully again. Thirty six years ago, Papa Awo spoke those words about “the filth that abounds in our society” and “the evils which dominate the hearts of Nigerians.” You and I know that not only has everything in that statement come to pass, the evil he spoke about has metastasized and the filth has grown to compete with Everest. Every sector is ruined; every effort cursed. Every striving towards “a new order” has been a deeper journey into darkness. Most tragically, in the years following Chief Awolowo’s warning, we took a plunge and chose the worst of the options; we ticked “permanent social instability and chaos.” See Nigeria of 2022: Schools are closed; kidnappers are kings; kings are kidnappers; they rob the market to gild their palaces; pregnant women give birth in captivity; airlines to stop flying in utter surrender to the ravages of aviation fuel and its abhorrent costs. Nothing works here apart from the crimes of banditry, partisan politicking and kidnapping.
Extraordinary insight and understanding go with philosopher kings. Great leaders don’t wait till tomorrow to save tomorrow. When Chief Awolowo turned 72 on March 6, 1981, he spoke about the security troubles we face today. That was forty-two years ago. He told the Nigerian Tribune in a birthday interview that he suspected that the enemy was already planting seeds of insecurity in the North-East. He said because of the ethno-geographic peculiarity of that area, it was possible for the enemy to “establish posts in every part of the place and put in up to 10,000 people who are well trained.” He warned that “if they launch against us, we may have about half a million soldiers but soldiers can only fight against pitched soldiers on the other side and not against guerrillas who are scattered all over the place, burning houses, killing this, killing that, raping women” everywhere. The sage then called for definite, proactive steps to prevent the worst from entering Nigeria through that corridor. His call went unheeded. Today, thousands have perished, millions displaced and more millions ruined. Children of those who ignored his words are today in government paying billions to bandits and dispatching prayer warriors to North Africa in search of medicine to fight murderous insurgents. Things are getting worse and the ones coming into government after the present will fiddle the more as their Rome burns. The campaigns have started.
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https://tribuneonlineng.com/2023-remembering-obafemi-awolowo/
