Born at Ijebu-Remo in western Nigeria on 6 March l909, Chief Obafemi Awolowo attended Anglican and Methodist schools in Ikene and Abeokuta before he became a largely self-taught journalist and trader. He organised the Nigerian Motor Transport Traders Association while he was working as an editor of the Nigerian Worker and founded the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria in l943. While in England studying law during l944-47, Awolowo founded the Yoruba cultural and political group, known as the Egbe Omo Oduduwa and published his Path to Nigerian Freedom (1947), recommending a federation in which each ethnic group enjoyed a certain measure of local autonomy He returned to Ibadan to practice law while launching himself into local politics. His Egbe Omo Oduduwa became a powerful force in western Nigeria, sweeping the elections of l951 and carrying Awolowo himself to victory in his native constituency (Ijebu-Remo). He became premier of the Western region in 1954 and headed the federal opposition in 1959. Political squabbles in western Nigeria during the early l960s led to Awolowo’s imprisonment but he was re-elected as soon as he was released from jail. In 1966 he was formally elected chief of the Yoruba. He not only played a prominent role in Nigerian politics for many years but was a prolific writer. His books included The Autobiography of Chief Obafemi Awolowa (1960), My Early Life (1968), Thoughts on the Nigerian Consitution (1967), The People’s Republic (1968), and The Strategy and Tactics of the People’s Republic of Nigeria (1970). He died on 9 May 1987.
AWOLOWO, Obafemi
