My first encounter with Mama, Mrs Hannah Idowu Dideolu  Awolowo, was on November 5, 1983 after the Presidential election, which Papa AWO contested and was perceptibly rigged out.

Mama had accompanied her husband the symbol of progressive politics in Nigeria on a visit to the Nigerian Tribune’s new office complex at Imalefalafia Street, Oke  Ado in Ibadan. The Tribune office had just moved from Yemetu Adeoyo area,  Ibadan to the new site. It was an historic visit which, according to the then Administrative Manager of Tribune, the late Mr Olumuyiwa, was Papa’s second visit since he founded the newspaper House in 1949.

Before that event, I had had close contacts with the sage
in my major assignment as the Tribune reporter that covered  his Presidential electioneering campaigns in 1979 and 1983, which he contested on the platform of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). I traversed the length and breadth of Nigeria with Papa AWO during those memorable periods. It was fun all through, being embedded in the campaign train of the greatest progressive party ever to emerge in the political history of Nigeria.

In the new Tribune office complex  Papa AWO, flanked by Mama, moved from one office to the other as they inspected the facilities so far installed. The inspection tour of the complex was about to end when Papa suddenly sighted me and called out my surname. Mama’s attention focused on me immediately and I could see a look of surprise on her.

”  So you are Folu Olamiti, “Omo Baba” (Papa’s  God Son), she interjected. For me, it was an encounter of a lifetime, more so as Mama from that time developed special interest in me. From then on, I must pay courtesies to Mama specially each time I went to Ikenne for one assignment or the other and enjoyed her warm hospitality. Indeed, the passing away of the Sage in 1987 made the bond between Mama and Me grow stronger. Mama drew me closer each time, leaving me with a strong determination to be absolutely loyal to Tribune just as I increasingly became a caucus member of the Awolowo’s family.

The situation remained so till July 3, 2015 when Mama entreated me to visit her in Ikenne. For me, the visit was divinely inspired. This is because a week earlier, I had a dream and saw Mama spotting a sparkling white apparel and looking every bit resplendent as she ushered me into the larger family sitting room. As I settled down for our usual mother and son discussions with eagerness to tap more from her wisdom, I woke up.

After the dream, I put a call to Mama and Her secretary picked and handed over the receiver to Her. I felt Her usual strong and clear voice immediately. She was excited to hear from me and we fixed the appointment for 2.00 pm.

Mama was ready and waiting for me. She looked splendid in a native dress. Typical of Mama, she was seated on the dot of 2.00 pm while I was 15 minutes behind schedule. The guilt of arriving late for the meeting hit me as I sighted her seated in her favourite corner of the spacious sitting room. Then I thought about the impressive ways she usually arranged her time and schedules. She was ever smart and mentally alert. You could hardly fault Mama on any plan she drew for engagements with people or groups. Even in Her old age, she usually worked round the clock

I had had the privilege of paying several visits to Mama, yet my last visit  was touching and memorable. She beckoned on me to move closer. Almost immediately she intoned; ” Folu I have aged. My legs are weak. They can no longer support my body. My hearing is impaired and my eyes are also fading. “I interjected quickly and said, “Mama there is nothing to worry about. Your complaints are traits of old age”.
I assured her that age notwithstanding, her elements; most especially her mental alertness was still intact. I prayed with her and expressed conviction that she would live to clock 100 years while the world would love to celebrate that rare grace. Mama seemed not to follow the track as she kept a low tone in response. Then she broke into silence as if to communicate some doubt and premonition on what was to come.

Mama dozed off for few seconds and became awake only to shift her thoughts to Tribune. She expressed joy on the rising and flourishing status of the Tribune titles. She was full of hope that the management would be able to keep the flag flying for long.

She said: “I am indeed happy with the resounding progress the Tribune titles have attained. It gladdens my heart and lifts my soul. I hear that the paper is one of the best in the country today. A few weeks ago, I traveled to Ibadan to formally commission the multimillion Naira printing machine they just bought. Though I was feeble, I was wheeled into the Production Room and I laid my hands on the machine to bless it for effective performance. I prayed for the entire members of staff and those who had contributed one way or the other to the success story. I assure you Folu that even when I cross over to the next world God will continue to grant my heart desire to keep Tribune going stronger and stronger”

From her countenance, one could see that the concluding part of that statement was more than just a wish. It was a fervent prayer to God to preserve and sustain Tribune long beyond her time.

On Monday 16 November 2015 ,Mama symbolically made her last appearance at the Tribune House in Ibadan. It was also the 66th year anniversary of Nigerian Tribune – the oldest surviving newspaper in Nigeria – a newspaper long ago nicknamed by Papa as ‘Apamaku’ (never say die newspaper). Mama’s lifeless body laid there as hundreds of both Tribune Staff and other well wishers  bid her farewell in the premises of a newspaper she toiled and labored to nurture to greater height.

It goes without saying that the best honour those Mama left behind in Tribune can give her is to continue to work harder and ensure to keep the company’s flag flying and NOTHING should be allowed to truncate this lofty legacy of the Awolowos.

Mama touched my life a lot. She saw me through the still and turbulent waters during my 32 years sojourn in the Tribune. Of note was the management crisis that rocked the Tribune in 1997 and which prematurely edged out a Managing Director , two executive directors including me and a chief accountant. Not only that, the boardroom politics polarized the entire members of staff. Those tagged “Olamiti boys” were shoved out.

However Mama was not comfortable with the Board’s decision and few months after she started pressing for my recall. She strongly believed I deserved better treatment. When the decision to bring me back was finally ratified, I insisted that a consultant should be engaged for the re organization  and repositioning of the company.

I remember Mr Allan Olabode of the 21st Century Communication was brought in from Lagos and shouldered the responsibility to rebrand the titles to meet up with the ongoing wave of change in the media world. The rebranding got a boost when Gaius, a man with creative mind came up with a logo which is still the face of Tribune to date.

Olabode began a recruitment exercise that culminated into an interview exercise chairmaned by the late Mr Tunji Oseni. Interview session was held in Lagos and  witnessed by the Publisher, late Chief Wole Awolowo and Dr Mrs Tokunbo Awolowo Dosumu. The outcome of that interview brought back majority of the “Olamiti Boys” who today are the backbones of the re-branded Tribune titles.

However one of them who did not return with the team but is still part of the family is Professor Wale Adebanwi. My recall tallied with Tribune’s 50th year anniversary. The celebration of this event also marked a big turning point for the Newspaper till date.

Having watched and interacted with Mama for decades, I can conclude that she was a woman of clean heart. She found it difficult to hold malice against anyone. She abhorred indolence, hypocrisy and liars. She was a symbol of purity, as she always ensured that her surroundings remained clean and spotless. I never witnessed any occasion where she raised her voice against anyone even in anger when provoked. If She felt She was right on an issue, she stuck firmly to that  position. And if she wanted something done she would press till it was done.
Her strong point was her ability to sustain the political dynasty of Chief Awolowo. That accounted for the reason AWO’s residence in Ikenne remained a Mecca before and after the exit of Papa AWO for great politicians from both sides of the divide in Nigeria. I found It amazing how politicians trooped to Ikenne to tap political wisdom from the woman Papa described as a “Jewel of inestimable value”

Incredibly, Mama allowed many around her to fly on the wings of the name Awolowo, which she guarded very jealously till she breathed her last. Domestic staff in Ikenne will not forget Mama in a hurry. Many of Mama’s staff came in as bachelors and spinsters, but today, they are married with Mama picking up the bills of their children’s education up to university level.

Let me sum up by saying Mama “rere” (Good mother) is gone and never to be seen and heard again, but the legacies which she left behind will continue to live so loud after her.

For me, Mama, in death seems to be echoing the words of Apostle Paul to the people of Corinthians as captured in 2 Corinthians Chapter 13 verse 11:

” Finally, brethren, farewell, be perfect. Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace and the God of love and peace shall be with you all. May the gentle soul of Mama continue to rest in peace. [myad]

As I celebrate with the former president on the occasion of his 58^th birthday, it is also important that I render a dispassionate analysis of the most defining legacy he left for Nigeria— a legacy of free and fair elections. A feat that is rare in Africa and rarer still in Nigeria. In March 2015, former President Goodluck Jonathan lost in the somewhat controversial elections, congratulating the presumed winner even before the full results had been announced and abdicated his right to contest the outcome of the election in a court of law. By so doing, he became the first incumbent president to lose election in Nigeria’s history and the first major presidential candidate since the fourth republic to decline any legal challenge of his loss in court. Not many in the whole of Africa, wielding so much power as incumbents have ever so willingly surrendered their mandates.

Indeed, contrary to what many think, a walk through history would clearly suggest that incumbents have lost elections in Nigeria before, the only difference being that the incumbents rigged the elections and used that fraudulent premise to remain in power. Factually, Nigerians have never really been democrats. From the 1^st republic, almost as soon as democratic elections were introduced by the colonial administration, harassment, intimidation and much later outright rigging became the stuff of Nigerian elections. The call for the scrapping of the then “Native Authorities Police” was engendered  by the use of the police to intimidate and harass  supporters of opposition parties in the then Northern region, some of which led to sustained periods of violence in Tivland in 1960.

At the end of the 1959 parliamentary elections, it became obvious that a coalition between Dr Nnamidi Azikiwe’s NCNC and Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s AG could form a majority government with their combined seats of 89 for NCNC and 75 for AG totalling 164 seats in a federal parliament with 312 seats of which Tafawa Balewa’s NPC had won 148 seats. For reasons of nation building Dr Nnamidi Azikiwe chose to enter a coalition with the NPC and a government in which Balewa emerged prime minister was formed. But by the time the next elections became due in 1964, relations between Dr Nnamidi Azikiwe and Tafawa Balewa had collapsed irreconcilably. The lingering crisis brought Dr Nnamidi Azikiwe’s NCNC and Chief Awolowo’s AG together who for the first time merged their parties and registered a new party then known as UPGA.  A merger between the NCNC and AG was sure to lead to electoral defeat for Tafawa Balewa. To forestall that he entered a coalition with Ladoke Akintola and they both orchestrated a massive electoral heist primarily in the Western region and parts of the North. The heist gave both Tafawa Balewa and Akintola a rigged victory in an election they surely would have lost had it been free and fair. The sham elections subsequently set off a wave of violence (wetie) in the Western region that eventually truncated the 1^st republic.

The 2^nd republic didn’t fare much better as Shehu Shagari’s NPN rigged elections all the way. By 1983 the art of rigging had been perfected by the Shagari administration with an electoral heist that gave him total victory. The crisis emanating from the rigged elections led to the military coup that ousted him in December 1983. Again like the 1^st republic, if free and fair elections had been held Shehu Shagari would probably not have been re-elected. With the annulations of the still born June 12 1993 elections, Nigeria commenced another democratic experiment in 1999. Like all previous republics, the 4^th republic under the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo who in his own words determined elections to be a “do-or-die” affair was notorious for election rigging, godfatherism, thuggery and lawlessness. Obasanjo had  himself originally emerged the candidate of the party in 1999  through rigging, when after having lost the primaries in his ward—at which stage he should have dropped out—his military backers  rigged him into power. Once in power, Obasanjo worked with the electoral umpire to unleash a rigging campaign across the country. It was in the Obasanjo era that a notorious godfather; Lamidi Adedibu so brazenly used thugs to remove an elected governor, Rashid Ladoja in Oyo state. Earlier attempts to remove Chris Ngige in Anambra state with thugs had failed.

Rigging, lawlessness and recklessness in Obasanjo’s era was so widespread  that the 2007 elections was described by international observers as the worst they had ever supervised anywhere in the world.  The short-lived Shehu Musa Yar’Adua administration continued with the Obasanjo rigging system until his demise. It was only when President Goodluck Jonathan came to power in 2010 with clear promises of electoral reforms that Nigeria’s electoral landscape radically began to change. For the first time incumbent governors and individuals lost in free and fair elections to popular candidates. Professor Atahiru Jega widely reputed to be credible was appointed INEC chairman. In 2011, President Goodluck Jonathan stood for and won elections adjudged by international and local observers to be one of the freest and fairest elections ever conducted in Nigeria.  As the 2015 elections approached the apostles of “do or die” democracy and election rigging that dot the landscape, sensing his disadvantage  put all kinds of pressure on him to manipulate the elections but he refused.

Even as the clouds of defeat became increasingly ominous, he still refused to interfere or manipulate the electoral process declaring as he always did that his personal ambition was not worth the life of any Nigerian. In the end, in spite of every possibility to change the course and outcome of the elections,   he opted for a free and fair election and congratulated the winner even before the final results had been announced. For a country where all preceding leaders since the 1^st republic had rigged elections and for a continent where leaders most often  rig elections and remain as president for life, Goodluck Jonathan is the first  Nigerian and one of Africa’s very few democratic presidents.

He achieved a rare feat, defying monumental pressure from pro-rigging hawks in a country whose people are fundamentally undemocratic. Anyone who still harbours any doubt about the undemocratic nature of the Nigerian society should closely review the 2015 elections and witness the intimidations, bigotry, abuse, violence and even threats of genocide that went along with it. Even with a Buhari victory and in spite of the change slogan, the post-election period has continued to be clouded with recriminations; winner takes all triumphalism, hate speech and exclusion of those who didn’t vote for Buhari/APC. It is in this kind of patently undemocratic Nigerian environment and the added hailstorms of Nigeria’s  ethno-religious  contradictions  that Goodluck  Jonathan an incumbent president  with immense powers, stood against the buffeting winds and organised free elections leaving an indelible legacy as Nigeria’s first democratic president in the country’s chequered history.

Many do not yet appreciate the full scale of this selfless sacrifice in attempting to end Nigeria’s circle of electoral corruption, but when all the heated emotions have died down, the myths/lies laid bare and the dust have cleared from our eyes, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan would indeed have his place in history as Nigeria’s first democratic president.

Lawrence   Nwobu

Email: lawrencenwobu@gmail.com [myad]