On this day in 1987, Obafemi Awolowo, Nigerian lawyer and politician died…
Chief Obafemi Jeremiah Oyeniyi Awolowo, GCFR, was a Nigerian nationalist and statesman who played a key role in Nigeria’s independence movement, the First and
Second Republics and the Civil War. He is most notable as the outstanding first premier of the Western Region but was also a successful federal commissioner for finance and vice president of the Federal Executive Council in the Civil War and was thrice a major contender for his country’s highest office
Awolowo is best remembered for his remarkable integrity, ardent nationalism, principled and virile opposition, and dogged federalistic convictions. His party was the first to move the motion for Nigeria’s independence in the federal parliament and he obtained internal self-government for the Western Region in 1957. He is credited with coining the name “naira” for the Nigerian standard monetary unit and helped to finance the Civil War and preserve the federation without borrowing. He built the Liberty Stadium in Ibadan, the first of its kind in Africa; established the WNTV, the first television station in Africa; erected the first skyscraper in tropical Africa: the Cocoa House (still the tallest in Ibadan) and ran a widely respected civil service in the Western Region.
And his wife, Hannah Idowu Dideolu Awolowo died on September 19, 2015.
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