Therefore, in the reckoning of the late sage, no person ranked higher than this magnificent woman in his struggles and imperishable accomplishments.
By the time I met her in , most of her great deeds were past. Gone were the days of power and its perilous struggles and giddy glory. But she carried with her the dignified halo of the born leader. In her expansive sitting room, where the legendary Chief Awolowo once held court, she was surrounded by the memorabilia of her life-long romance with power and arduous journey to prominence.
Mama and Chief Awolowo paid a steep price for their service to the Nigerian people. Both in public and private life, she subdued great obstacles to reach her goals. She once told us the story of why she named her first child Oluwasegun the Lord has granted me victory. She was an only surviving child and her mother too was an only child. Obafemi Awolowo, who proposed to her, was also an only son he has a sister who lost his father at Therefore, they could not marry for many months because of opposition from extended family members who thought the marriage may be plagued with childlessness because of the personal history of both lovers.
But Awolowo was a stubborn suitor and eventually they married on Boxing Day in Victory won. But that was not the end of the story. The new Mr. Awolowo were living in Ibadan where her husband was a produce buyer, journalist, trade unionist and nationalist agitator.
Awolowo was building his country home in Ikenne and it was the practice that his wife would always travel there to supervise the construction. She was on such a trip when she fell into labour, though the pregnancy was not yet up to term. It was her infinite devotion to her husband that gave us the titan, Awolowo, and made him perform the wonders of the West. There was no hospital in sight, no electricity and no modern facilities. Dideolu had her baby boy prematurely and he was put on a cushion of freshly picked cotton and moved to Ibadan.
He survived. Hence his name, Oluwasegun. It is noteworthy that Segun Awolowo became a lawyer like his father. He died suddenly during the crisis of the s. His only son, Segun Awolowo Jnr, is now a visible player in the power loop of Abuja. But few months after Oluwasegun was born, Awolowo became bankrupt when his produce buying business collapsed.
His much cherished house in Ikenne was sold for 20 pounds and his car, his dresses and books went under the hammer. He was dreaming of going to the United Kingdom to study law, but this had to be deferred. Throughout all these years of privation and reversal of fortunes, his wife, the great H.
D, stood by him. Fortune smiled on the family after almost a decade and Awo travelled to the UK in to study law leaving his wife with the children. By the time he returned with a law degree, he realised the burden his wife carried, taking care of the family while he was away. His restriction formally began on June 1. HID had started to bear the heavy burden of the crisis engulfing the Western Region. She too had been under immense pressures to mollify her husband as the AG crisis erupted.
Some wanted her to persuade him against taking a principled stand. They wanted her to convince him to compromise with his adversaries in the region and the rest of the country. But she refused. She was convinced he was fighting a just cause. She had watched the events unfold, not from the ring side.
She was at the centre of things. She was resolved that no matter what happened, she would stand wherever her husband stood. They started their mutual life together with little or nothing and they rose together to the pinnacle of power in the Western Region and as Leader of Opposition. She will remain steadfast, come rain or shine. What they wanted to achieve was to isolate him, and cast him as a belligerent, intransigent and disruptive element who should be avoided by all.
But they realised that to be able to vanquish Awolowo, he had to be quarantined. They had assumed that the restriction would help to diminish him and reduce his popularity.
Therefore, a decision was taken that Awolowo had to be moved to an inaccessible place. After they considered a few options, Majekodunmi ordered that the isolated island of Lekki not too far from the Epe beach was the best place to restrict the man. There was an abandoned Government Rest House there. On June 19, , shortly after noon, the order for restriction in Lekki was delivered by a British officer of the Nigerian police force to Awolowo in Ikenne.
From experience, Awolowo knew there was nothing to eat in the island apart from fish. But he had little time to prepare for the journey. Therefore, Hannah went to work with the women assisting her.
Within three and half hours, she was ready to accompany her husband to Lekki with sufficient provisions for feeding him there. She would have none of it. She would go wherever he went, unless she was legally prevented from doing so. Even though she was ready to brave the odds, yet Hannah kept asking herself what her husband had done to deserve being tossed around like this.
They were both despondent as they drove out of their house in Ikenne. There was uneasy silence in the car. After a while, Hannah broke down in the car and wept. But her husband hugged and consoled her. She eventually took care of herself. She even began to smile and so they began a discussion about their destination.
He was trying to make light of their burden. What can we do? Go there, we must. The decree has come from His Excellency, the Administrator…. He acknowledged that and added that he had called the Administrator to tell him about his rheumatic pains which were usually acute in that part of the year, the raining season.
How cruel! Instinctively, they knew they were in this together. After shedding tears as they left Ikenne, she stilled her nerves and figured out in her mind how to take command of the space they would occupy and make their time there as convenient as possible in what would clearly be an unpleasant environment…. Obafemi and Hannah Awolowo with a white couple. When they moved back to Ikenne, it was obvious to Hannah that her husband was being tossed around in preparation for something more sinister.
For a young lady who had never known want all her life, marrying this promising young man was a gamble. At his point, Obafemi was hovering between striving and thriving. He had experienced much turbulence in his short life. Even though he started out with a lot of opportunities under the watch of a father who had invested much hope in his future, the death of his father seventeen years earlier, that is, in April , meant that Obafemi was pushed hither and thither in the course of life until he became a man.
However, the meticulous and prudent young man did not plan to bring his beautiful wife into a matrimony beset by financial worries. But realizing that he could not make enough money from this to travel to England to study law, he got into motor transport business and produce buying. Hannah and Obafemi Awolowo arriving at a campaign rally in the Second Republic. In the season, the profit was good enough for his business associates to either get the profits due them or for such profit to be ploughed back into the business for further gains.
Things were even better the next business season. Now he must have considered the fiscal comfort which Hannah would enjoy after they were married. Obafemi had enough in this season to proceed to England for his life-long ambition to study law. His decision to delay his journey was made even more sensible by the forecast for the cocoa season shared by most people in the business.
After making lots of profits in the following year, he projected, he would sail to the London with his wife to begin a new life. Obafemi and all others engaged in the business of produce buying were terribly wrong about the forecast for the following year. Cocoa business experienced a slump and not only did he lose everything, he also became terribly indebted. Therefore, as he exchanged vows with Hannah on Boxing Day of , all he held onto was hope for a better future and a firm belief in the goodness of God….
He was inflexible. She was not feeling too strong this afternoon in June , so I spoke with her as she reclined on a sofa chaise in her room. Will you be able to cope with this stubborn man if you marry him? As an only child, her mother was over-protective when it came to the choice of a spouse.
She was happy that she wanted to marry an Ikenne young man so that she would not be taken too far away from her. But she wanted an easy-going and unassuming man.
Most of those who knew him in Ikenne only knew him in his younger days. He never suffered fools gladly and was eager to pick a fight with anyone who threw down the gauntlet.
When Hannah returned to Ikenne from Lagos in , the cute 13 year-old that left the small town five years earlier, had become an attractive year old young woman. She was turning heads in the small Remo town. Her beauty was complemented by her charm, modishness and cosmopolitan skills.
Even though Hannah was unaware of the young Ikenne man living in Ibadan who had moved from public letter-writing into transportation business and then produce-buying, he was aware of her. He knew of her family background and had heard so much about what a beautiful, amiable, conscientious, and disciplined lady she was.
The skills he had deployed as a public letter-writer came in handy in the process of expressing his affection for Hannah. Hannah was not interested in a relationship; she was not even interested in dating a man she had not met. There were a few others who had expressed interest in her.
They were mostly non-Ikenne indigenes. Even though the latest suitor was an Ikenne indigene, she was still not interested.
But the letters continued to arrive from Obafemi in Ibadan. One day Mr. Olutunda spoke glowingly about this man. Olutunda promised to bring the suitor as soon as possible. He sent a message to Obafemi in Ibadan. It was a message of optimism, or more precisely, of possibility. Here, at last, was the man behind the sweet words. And here was the object of his desire, the much-sought after beauty. Obafemi introduced himself and added that he was the one behind the letters.
He had come to re-affirm his craving for her love. He asked for her hand in marriage. Having satisfied her curiosity, Hannah again repeated her rejection of his request for a relationship that could blossom into marriage. She told him she had someone else in her life. It was just a ploy to shake him off. He had written to me, as was the pattern in those days…. I rejected his offer saying there was a man already in my life. It was an old war-camp turned city-state which became a trado-modern city.
It was not only that she would be wasting her skills, she had become used to earning money on her own and not depending on anyone, including her father; therefore, this new regime would mean total financial dependence on her husband. More important, she was already being put under some social pressure because she was yet to conceive.
She was not tending a pregnancy or taking care of a child. It was an untenable position for a young married woman in late s Nigeria. Yet, as pledged, she had to abide by the wishes of her husband. She visited Ikenne regularly and therefore was open to being constantly taunted alternatively by those who advised her against marrying the rascal and those who advised Obafemi not to marry an abiku.
However, regarding the issue of whether his wife should work, the transporter and produce-buyer was convinced that, as in the tradition of his people, it was his exclusive responsibility to take care of his wife.
At that point, he could not imagine that it was possible for his wife to combine the administration of the home front with commerce. He would learn later that she could do so brilliantly and still support him in his proposed political life. One day I want to be one of the first class lawyers in this country. Contrary to the doubts, on January 20, , the Awolowos welcomed their first child, a son.
He was named Olusegun, a telling name, the full meaning of which was Oluwasegun God is victorious. It was a strong response to their traducers…. Because of her charm, humility, generosity and ever-ready sympathy and helpfulness for others in distress, she is beloved and respected by all our friends and acquaintances….
Since he read Robert G. In all this period, Hannah remained a steadfast Christian. However, he eventually returned to Christianity. Her constant admonitions and steadfastness did more than anything else to restrain me from going beyond the point of no return…. Given that she belonged to the Liyangu family, one of the three ruling houses that could access the Akarigbo throne, and the Obara family, also one of the three ruling families of the Alakenne throne, her heredity held the potentials for a significant social and political life for her husband.
She also has a matchless capacity for recollection and detail, an intrinsic facility for identifying and understanding the social order of things and a unique aptitude for tracking loyalty and treachery.
Therefore, within the first five years of their matrimony, it was already evident that theirs was a perfect harmony that blended. For a few months short of fifty years, they were to enjoy a mutuality that melded so well as to become storied….
She and three soon to be four kids were not going to depend on a man who would be struggling with his studies in the UK for subsistence in Nigeria.
She was going to exhibit her entrepreneurial skills while he was gone. She will be so successful before he returned that he would be convinced that she should be allowed to operate a business. That money formed the foundation of what turned out many years later to be a multi-million naira business empire called Dideolu Enterprises and Ligu a shortened form of Liyangu Stores.
She used the twenty pounds to start a business in buying and selling. She bought some agricultural items such as tomatoes and onions from traders who brought them from the north of Nigeria. She also bought some food items from the north and resold them. With her natural talent for business, in no time, Hannah was doing very well.
He later told me the money reached him at a time he had no money. But the law student assumed that his forbearing wife had again displayed her eagerness to sacrifice everything for his success. He wondered how we would survive now that I had returned the money. Wetin we call dis foto, Di University say dem don set up committee to look into di mata well-well.
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