Obafemi Awolowo

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Chief Obafemi Jeremiah Oyeni Awolowo, GCFR (Yoruba:?b.f? ; 9 May 1987) was a Nigerian nationalist and statesman who played a vital role in Nigeria's independence movement, the First and Second Republics, and the Civil War.

He was one of Nigeria's first truly self-made men.

As a young man, he was an active journalist, editing magazines such as the Nigerian journalist, as well as others.

After obtaining his bachelor's of commerce degree in Nigeria, Obafemi Awolowo became Nigeria's first premier and later federal commissioner of finance and vice chairman of the Federal Executive Council during the Nigerian Civil War.

He was twice a leading candidate for the country's top office.

He began his career in Ogun State, south-western Nigeria, as a nationalist in the Nigerian Youth Movement in which he rose to become Western Provincial Secretary.

Awolowo was instrumental in the emergence of Nigeria's democratic social laws.

Awolowo was Nigeria's first Premier and Minister of Local Government and Finance, and the first Premier of the Western Region under Nigeria's parliamentary system from 1952 to 1959.

He served as the Opposition's chief from 1959 to 1963 in the Balewa government.

He was detained under sedition charges in 1963 and was not pardoned by the government until 1966, after which he assumed the position as Minister of Finance.

Awolowo was the first individual in the modern era to be branded Leader of the Yorubas (Yoruba: Asiwaju Awon Yoruba or Asiwaju Omo Oodua).

Early life

Obafemi Awolowo was born in Ikenne, in Nigeria's present-day Ogbo. David Shopolu Awolowo, a fisherman and sawyer, and Mary Efunyela Awolowo were the only sons of David Shopolu Awolowo, a poet and sawyer, and Mary Efunyela Awolowo. He had two sisters and one maternal half-sister. Awolowo's father was born to a captain and member of the Iwarefa, the leading faction of the traditional Osugbo clan that ruled Ikenne. Awolowo's father was one of the first Ikenne natives to convert to Christianity in 1896. Adefule Awolowo, Awolowo's paternal grandmother, was a devout worshipper of the Ifá. Obafemi was a reincarnation of her father, according to Adefule, Awolowo's grandmother (his great-grandfather). The conversion of Awolowo's father to Christianity was often in contradiction with his family's faiths. He has often chastised followers of the god of tinypox, Obaluaye. Obafemi died of smallpox on April 8, 1920, when Obafemi was about eleven years old. He attended various schools, including Baptist Boys' High School (BBHS), Abeokuta, and later became a tutor in Abeokuta, where he later qualified as a shorthand typist. He served as both a clerk at Wesley College Ibadan and a reporter for the Nigerian Times. He had been working on various business ventures to help raise funds to travel to the United Kingdom for further investigation. Following his education at Wesley College, Ibadan, in 1927, he enrolled in London as an External Student and graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Commerce (Hons). He came from the United Kingdom in 1944 to study law at the University of London and was welcomed into the Inner Temple by the Honorable Society of the Inner Temple on 19 November 1946. Awolowo founded the Nigerian Tribune, a private Nigerian newspaper, in 1949, which he used to spread nationalist awareness among Nigerians.

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