Key speakers at the Chief Obafemi Awolowo commemorative birthday symposium on Thursday were unanimous that the country needed the welfarist policies of the late sage to move the country forward economically and politically.

Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun, and his Kaduna State counterpart, Nasir el-Rufai, as well as a former Minister of Education, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili and Prof. Segun Gbadegesin, who extolled the virtues of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, said the current crop of politicians had a lot to learn from the former Western Region premier.

At the event organised by the Awolowo Foundation with the theme: “Awo, Then and Now: Politics, Economics and Education” held at Efunyela Hall of the late sage’s Ikenne country home, the speakers urged the country to accord top priority to education.


 
El-Rufai, while saluting Awolowo’s political sagacity, said his Action Group’s programme for the Western Region was a clear lesson of practical demonstration of the late politician’s fertile thoughts.

The former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory said, “As a political colossus, he galvanised the west with a disciplined and thoughtful political organisation that supplanted the hegemony of the Northern Peoples Congess.

“The Action Group had a programme that was one of the clearest expressions of pragmatism and vision. And in power, he had the discipline and governance orientation to tough out the obstacles to his party’s policies.”

He noted that three decades after Awolowo’s   death and over 60 years after he introduced free and qualitative education to the Western Region, the positive effects of the programme had continued to attract good comments, because he stood for the common good of his people.

El-Rufai said, “It is conventional these days to salute the thinking and the comprehensive execution of the free education policy. Sixty years after that signal policy, the consequences still echo in the dynamism of the professional classes and the political consciousness in the West.

“He resisted higher taxes in order to fund the programme.

“Chief Awolowo stood his ground for the common good. It is a lesson for political office-holders, an admonition to do what is necessary, important and consequential, rather than the merely popular.”

El-Rufai noted that the late sage, shortly after the civil war, had recommended to the Gen. Yakubu Gowon administration to deploy new wealth from oil to building human capital through the implementation of a nationwide free education programme, but the government did not act.

The governor added, “Nigeria as a whole is still paying the price for that error.”

In his keynote   address titled, “Envisioning National Progress, Building on the Legacy of Obafemi Awolowo”, Gbadegesin bemoaned the hypocrisy of some.

The professor of philosophy said, “Today, there are original disciples of Awo. There are also second and third generation followers. They all take seriously the man we all know as the sage, the avatar, Baba, philosopher and politician-benefactor, one of his kind.

“The irony is that while they all accept him as their political leader, study his words and try to emulate his deeds, and look forward to a reunion with him someday. But while here on earth, they would rather not get together to push the agenda he bequeated to them.

“They would rather be like the proverbial snakes who wander around alone until they become victims of their loneliness.”

Amosun said the symposium would serve as a wake-up call to the current crop of leaders that there was a need to take care of the masses.

He said, “There is lot to be done by me and other governors for the masses. That was what Papa stood for. We will continue to learn from what Papa did.”

Ezekwesili said, “When nations spend what they have not earned, they ruin everything and everybody. Awolowo believed economic growth would tackle poverty, disease and want.”

She said if Awolowo were alive today, he would be angry with the number of Nigerians living below poverty line, which she put at 62 per cent, quoting figures from the Bureau of Statistics.

The Executive Director, Obafemi Awolowo Foundation, Dr. Tokunbo Awolowo-Dosunmu, said that the symposium was moved to Ikenne instead of its normal Lagos venue to honour “Papa and Mama in a special way.”

Chief Olanihun Ajayi; Founder Latter Rain Assembly; Pastor Tunde Bakare, former chairman, All Progressives Congress, Chief Bisi Akande; Senators Adegbenga Kaka and Olorunnimbe Mamora, and Prof. Femi Osofisan were among the personalities on the occasion.