By Mike Awoyinfa and Dimgba Igwe
Another great son of Africa was Chief Obafemi Awolowo. As a young officer in Ibadan, I knew Awolowo. And of course, one knows about Awolowo with all the political events that were happening in the country at the time—whether in the North or in the East or in the West and in the nation as a whole. He was certainly a well-known political figure and personality. We respected him as the premier of the Western Region in the ‘50s. And when I finished my training of course, it was Ibadan that I was posted to. And so, he was the one running the show as premier with the British governor. Later on, it was changed to Sir Aderemi, the Ooni of Ife. That was how one came to know Awolowo. And of course, our loyalty has always been to the government of the day. Just as we are loyal to the federal government, we are also loyal to the state government.
We in the military are not involved in politics. Since we are federal army, our orders will come from the federal government. And of course, it is also to give support to the law enforcement agency in the state when called for. That is our main role in the West. The premier and the government in the West cannot give direct instruction to us, but they can request for support from the centre. And we would be given the go-ahead to give support to the security forces in the state, mainly the police. My very close contact with Chief Awolowo was in the mid-sixties after all the political crises that the West went through—Operation Wetie and then the trial of Awolowo, his imprisonment and the military intervention. Of course, by that time he was in prison and after having the serious problem that we had in the country politically, especially what happened to the Ibos and then they had to go back to their state. It got to the stage that when I came into office, I had to find a solution to some of the problems that we were having in the country. And certainly, the case of Awolowo was one of the things that one needed to do in order to give the country a fresh sense of belonging—after the death of the premier of the North, the Sardauna of Sokoto, the premier of the West, Akintola and of course the prime minister Tafawa Balewa and the finance minister Ekotie-Eboh. That was the time that something had to be done. The political situation was so muddled up and we wanted to see if we could put it right. One of the things we had to do at the time was to think of the release of all political prisoners. Certainly the biggest of them was Awolowo in Calabar. And of course, there was Chief Enahoro and many others. So we thought one of the best ways of dealing with the problem was to ensure that we allowed all these political prisoners out. Not to go and start politicking but at least to have a rest with the hope that in the near future, we are able to give them the opportunity to start playing their game of politics. So that was how it came. It was really part of our decision to lower the political temperature and tension, which certainly became part of our advantage.
Certainly there was jubilation in the West by all Yorubas, especially the supporters of Chief Awolowo. There was for me therefore more or less acceptance of my government by the West. There was an acceptance by the pro-Akintola group earlier on because Fanikayode, who was then deputy to Akintola during that coup, was brought to Lagos. He nearly missed being killed. Because he was brought here by some of the coup plotters to the officers’ mess and I got information and I went there and I gave him an opportunity to come out with his hands up or else they would do anything to him. So at least we gave him the opportunity and he came out with his hands up. He was quite bloodied. I don’t know how he got so. Probably he must have been either mishandled by those who did the coup. I don’t know why he was brought here but probably he must have been brought here for a purpose. We got him out at least safe and sound. Later on, one of the officers Banjo came and took him away somewhere even though I had given instructions that he should stay there and he cannot be removed from there. And of course, the soldiers who were in charge there were in serious trouble because they allowed him to leave the place. Because we needed to find out how he came about being brought there and why he was brought there. It would have given us clues as to who are the coup plotters and why they plotted. From the beginning, we had the support of the Akintola group and now of course we got the bigger Yoruba group that was pro-Awolowo to support us by the release of their leader. And I can assure that that was done sincerely in order to reduce tension and political temperature in the country. So, that is how my very close association with Chief Awolowo started.
Then when I came into power in July, 1966, one of the things that we had to do was to start thinking of getting civilians into the government in order to help us run the government. This was in June 1967. And one of the things we had to do was to choose most of the political leaders from the various parties and some senior public servants such as Dr. Dikko and Yahaya Gusau and mix them up with the top political leaders like Chief Awolowo from the Action Group, Chief Enahoro, J.S. Tarka, Aminu Kano and people like Briggs from Cross Rivers all representing various shades of opinions as well as the states we had newly created in the country. The idea was for them to help us politically, to talk on behalf of the government and on behalf of the nation to their people. And also for them to gain experience on how the government is run the military way, the discipline that we impose on ourselves. Otherwise what are you going to teach Chief Awolowo about running government? But at least, I brought him in. I sent a request to him if he would help us. We were requesting them to come to help us so that we can be able to really deal with this situation also politically. And you needed their political sagacity and experience which certainly became very helpful to the government.
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