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By Sunday Ani
Former Head of State, Gen Yakubu Gowon has said that late Chief Obafemi Awolowo believed in the unity of Nigeria and did everything within his powers to keep Nigeria one during his lifetime.
He said the late sage, as a Federal Commissioner for Finance, contributed immensely to the prosecution of the 30 months civil war which was fought solely to keep Nigeria one.
He stated this during the 30th annual Obafemi Awolowo Foundation lecture held virtually on Sunday, March 6.
Gowon, also the Special Guest of Honour at the event, noted in its 30 years of existence, the Foundation has continued to make an impact as a think tank in Nigeria’s search for transformational leadership. He said the foundation has not only created room for quality engagement of good governance, but it has also established a leadership prize to encourage excellence and distinction in service to society. “These are some of the values that Chief Awolowo embodied in his lifetime service to Nigeria. As a leader, he displayed a heart that was consistent with courage and commitment. It is said that evil that men do lives after them while their good deeds are often interred with them. But the reverse is the case with Chief Awolowo. As a politician, lawyer and statesman, he loomed large, not just in Nigeria but also in Africa and the world at large. His good works became the standard of excellence in the annals of our nation,” he said.
He commended him for making free education and health the core of his programmes as a political; the programmes that the federal government under him adopted for the whole country between 1974/75. “History will be kind to him,” he added.
He also described Awolowo as a visionary and transformative leader, who pursued and demonstrated that leadership was not a rocket science.
He also commended the chairman of the occasion and former President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama for accepting to grace the occasion without an argument. “It only shows the strength of the cultural and political ties between Nigeria and Ghana,” he stated.
In his remarks, former President Mahama noted that as a journalist, lawyer, politicians and statesman, Chief Awolowo was humble, modest, resilient and has unquestionable love for Nigeria.
He lamented that those values that Chief Awolowo embodied were conspicuously lacking not only in Nigeria but in Africa as a whole. “His unquestionable love for Nigeria is among the values that are lacking in Africa today. What we are going through today was what the western world that we admire today went through in the past but their value of love for one another and selflessness are what differentiate them from the Africans,” he said.
He charged Africa to analyse the phase that the world is going into having gone through the era of global village, climate change, epidemic and currently COVID 19 pandemic, so that Africa can fit into the new world.
Participants at the virtual event included former governor of Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola; Dr. Josephine Soboyejo; the Obi of Onitsha, Nnaemeka Achebe; Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal; Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi; Minister of State for Health, Olurumibe Mamora, former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, former Governor of Ondo State, Segun Mimiko, and Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammed Saad Abubakar among others.
