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. But I replied that I was working and that home was alright…. Characteristically for a man who was a stickler for details, by the time Hannah sent money again, he started raising questions. What is the source of the money, he queried? She always sent me good news every week about herself and the children; but when I returned home I leant that she had passed through many anxious times with four children the oldest of whom was only five when I left home, and the youngest of whom arrived four months after my departure….
Also, he must have realised at that juncture, more than ever before, that he had found gold, the inestimable value of which will become much more apparent in their future together….
Exchange of letters continued between the couple in the two years and four months that Obafemi spent in London. He eagerly gave him details about his life in the UK, including the formation of a pan-Yoruba organisation, Egbe Omo Oduduwa A Society of the Descendants of Oduduwa — Oduduwa being the popularly-acknowledged progenitor of the Yoruba in Before he returned to Nigeria in December , Hannah had sent money to her husband four times.
It was a measure of how well she was doing in her business that she could take care of four children, expand her business and yet send money to the UK. By this time, she had given birth to their fourth child, a daughter, Ayodele. Therefore, she was bearing a heavy burden, which included not only feeding the family, but also clothing everyone and paying the fees of two of the kids in school. Obafemi, HID and one of their grandchildren. He returned to Nigeria the next year to the embrace of his wife and four children, Olusegun, Omotola, Oluwole and Ayodele, the last of which was born while he was away on December 29, Tokunbo, was born after his return on February 20, ….
By the time Ayodele and Tokunbo were ready to travel to the UK to study, Awolowo was already in jail. Her fierce loyalty to her husband, which became increasingly evident over the years, even after his death, meant that she regarded her life and possessions as all in the service of her soul-mate. She took care of the home and concentrated on her business while doing her part to entertain guests and complement her husband during official events. Therefore, she was guided by what she thought a woman in her position should embody.
She knew her husband was going to be a politician and usually women constitute some kind of obstacles, but she vowed that she will never be the reason for her husband not doing what he had to do.
If they had to travel together, she stood by the car and waited for her husband, her husband never had to wait for her. Hannah also supported her husband morally and financially. Their houses in Ibadan and Ikenne were not places of influence peddling for her. On the contrary, she gladly fed the people, both the distinguished and the hoi polloi, who visited constantly. She stood unflinchingly by his side for almost fifty years. Hannah Dideolu constantly replenished Obafemi Jeremiah.
At the same time, she was a powerful influence on him in many ways. She was very loyal; she gave papa peace of mind. Even Hannah herself has never articulated this publicly.
It is perhaps one of the reasons why people, including even some members of their immediate family, fail to understand the deep and abiding love between the two and their unbroken bond, a space on mutual love and enduring trust into which not even their children and grand-children could intrude.
All the surviving children and the grandchildren all attest to this, affirming what Ofeimun articulates. If they took a stand on something, they both subscribed to whatever it was. Hannah Awolowo quietly announced to her husband around eight in the morning on November 2, He was shaving at a wash-basin just by the side of the door to his bedroom. He still had shaving foam on his chin.
Hannah went down the stairs to fetch Lynn after her husband asked her to lead him upstairs. He was accompanied by one Ezekwem, also a police officer. At this point in , some British officers remained in the police force. Most of these British police officers and the other British officers in the civil service who were holdovers from the colonial era saw themselves as agents of the imperial order charged with ensuring the perpetuation of British interests in Nigeria.
Awolowo was generally regarded by these officers as a major stumbling block to the continuation of British suzerainty in Nigeria at the end of colonial rule. Few holdovers of the colonial era had greater loathing of Awolowo than Lynn. This morning, the insolent operative of the ascendant order in immediate postcolonial Nigeria, Lynn, carried a malicious smirk on his face that even his nervous smile could not conceal.
Brazen liar, Hannah Awolowo must have thought as she listened to the conversation! He had been harassing the couple and their family incessantly for many months now. In fact, Lynn had brought bad news. You are not obliged to say anything, but whatever you say will be taken down and may be given in evidence at the trial. Mrs Ayo Soyode l and Awo r discussing law with her father. Hannah too was reviewing the events of the last few months in her mind since the declaration of a state of emergency in the Western Region on May 29, when her husband was restricted within three-mile radius of their house in Ikenne.
Upon hearing the bad news of the restriction, they both drove to Ibadan to pack a few things before heading to Ikenne on May Twenty days later, he was restricted to Lekki…. It turned out to be the first step into the ploy to destroy Awolowo politically and, if possible, physically liquidate him. Through it all, Hannah followed her husband and stayed with him in restriction and house arrest. For her, it was not only Obafemi who was experiencing the succession of humiliation and harassment.
They were experiencing it together. They were indissoluble; thus, whatever happened to one, happened to the other. But she was determined to weather the storm. She was also unbending in her trust in God. But she insisted and drove behind the convoy of police vehicles that led her husband to court…. It was a demonstration of nerve that her husband thought bordered on recklessness. They were being hounded. At any rate, he had never met this Irishman and his Nigerian assistant, before that night.
But Hannah was prepared to follow Lynn and the other police officer who had come with him. John Lynn was in the official residence of the Awolowos in Lagos in the night of September 8, for the first time to announce that he had a warrant to search his house and compound in Ikenne.
This was barely a month before he returned to arrest him. Hannah and her husband had just finished their dinner, which, at that point, they used to have between eight and ten in the night. He would later change while in jail to eating breakfast between eight and nine in the morning and dinner between five and six in the evening, skipping lunch. His wife embraced the same eating pattern when he informed her while still in jail. It was almost eleven in the night when Lynn announced his journey to Ikenne, insisting that he had to be in Ikenne to search their house.
So, Lynn asked the Leader of Opposition if he would like to come with him to Ikenne. Not at this hour of the night! It was at this point that Hannah offered to go with Lynn. I was upset. But I am happy to hear that you have improved considerably. Your health and your life mean almost everything to me. This was how Obafemi Awolowo began one of the most important letters that he would ever write to his wife, particularly in the darkest hour of tribulations.
He wrote the letter as he waited for the judgement of the Supreme Court. He was afraid that if his appeal was dismissed, in the course of his imprisonment, his adversaries might kill him while putting out a story that he was trying to commit suicide. I say this because after committing this heinous crime, these evil people might issue a release that I committed suicide, or that I died or was killed when I was trying to escape lawful custody…. He then discussed the four children and grandchildren and what needed to be done about each of them, including their personal prospects and schooling.
By this time, Tola was married, Wole had left school and was living in Ikenne, while Ayo and Tokunbo were getting ready for college. Even though H. Gowon and Awo after his release from prison. Wuraola Esan and Chief Mrs. Olu Solaru. She was a focused, strong-willed and dedicated person who knew the dynamics of the politics of the region. She had also weathered the storm alongside her husband.
Among the many acts of intimidation which she had taken in her stride was the tear-gassing of her home in Ibadan on May 27, , about eight months after Awolowo began serving his ten-year sentence. It was a test of the legendary patience that her husband said she possesses in abundance. Together in confinement: The old main house l and the outbuilding below where Awolowos spent their in restriction in Lekki in During a visit to the place after the death of her husband, HID points to something with her walking stick.
The Lekki house where Awo spent his restriction, now rebuilt. She campaigned in the Ijebu division too. That would not be the end for me.
The best is yet to be, as long as my life is spared…. I take this opportunity to renew to you, my only Darling Wife, my vow of undying love. Your Ever Devoted and Affectionate Husband. Her animated state and the powerful glee that coursed through her mind agitating her limbs this morning of August 4, , were inversely proportional to the numbing emotions and grief heralded by the break of dawn on July 10, What was she to do? Where was she to meet her Ever Devoted and Affectionate Husband, as Obafemi Awolowo had described himself to her in his last depressing letter?
She was getting different vibrations. Happiness was overpowering H. She wanted to travel to Lagos to meet him. But then she received a message that she was to stay back in Ikenne to organise a thanksgiving service at the church which will be of help upon his arrival in their hometown.
What would she do when she first beheld him in freedom for the first time since November 2, ? Awolowo was pardoned on August 2, He was flown to Lagos the next day…. Shortly after meeting Gowon, Lt. Colonel Murtala Mohammed, one of the plotters of the coup that made Gowon head of state, personally drove Awolowo to Ikenne. The Lion had come home to his Jewel. He was also warmly welcomed by two of his children and his grandchildren.
Ayo and Tokunbo were studying in England. There were also four grandchildren who had been born while he was in prison. We were happy that, at last he got his freedom.
It was a trying time for every Awolowo. We kept touching him? Are you the real Papa? Talk to us now, we said to him. At the service, Awolowo read the first lesson. They both laughed. They had both said goodnight in their Remo dialect, only for HID to return to her husband to affectionately say another goodnight in the native argot of Ibadan, the city that defined most of their private and public lives together. It was also a prayer against any untoward incident, particularly an idagiri emergency , in the night.
Before they said goodnight, they had chatted as they sat together by the door adjoining their individual rooms while HID packed a few items for the wedding of the daughter of Otunba Biyi Durojaiye which she planned to attend the next morning. He was 78 the previous March, and age was beginning to tell on him.
The exhausting physical and relentless mental exertions over the many decades had evidently weakened the man who is popularly regarded as a sage — the only Nigerian leader to be so described in the history of the country. He was becoming weak. That day, for the first time in their entire life together, as HID revealed, Awolowo slept off publicly. She felt that he was exhausted and needed a long stretch of rest, away from reading, writing and meeting people.
But the Association of Jerusalem Pilgrims were waiting at home to meet them when they arrived 11pm. Even though he was tired, they met them at Efunyela Hall. Only the skin is there as a camouflage. The parable escaped everyone, including HID. The following Friday, May 8, his long-time friend, Alhaji S. Gbadamosi, showed up for dinner and they reminisced over the past.
Gbadamosi left later in the night. The next morning, HID noticed that the light was on in his room. That was an indication that he was up. He never slept with the lights on. Usually, Awolowo would come out of his room to have breakfast at the table upstairs around half past eight in the morning. When it was past that time, HID asked one of the male assistant in the house where he was. He replied that he was still in his room. There was no response when she knocked. HID grew worried.
She was surprised to find that her sister-in-law had not left for Lagos. They both knocked more loudly, raising some alarm. Still no response…. HID then asked the senior driver to bring a cutlass so that they could force the door open.
He was holding his toothbrush. With the help of his senior driver and his sister, Alhaja Anotu Awofeso, we lifted him up to his bed. Then I grabbed him and noticed that his body was still warm, I tried all I could to bring him back to life but to no avail. I still believed he would come around when shaking him and calling Papa Segun! Papa Segun!! HID and her husband had not called each other by the name of their deceased first child in more than two decades. Though she could see that he was gone, she was in disbelief.
She sent for his doctor. And I was saying so many words to him. Bayo Yusuf, arrived. He confirmed that Awolowo was dead…. While her children and grandchildren were meeting in Efunyela Hall, someone suggested that HID should go to Efunyela Hall to greet them.
Around one in the afternoon, she was placed on her wheel-chair and pushed to the hall. As she entered the hall, her children and grandchildren erupted in cheers and broke into a song. She was happy. He got married to the love of his life, by name Hannah Idowu Dideolu Awolowo , they gave birth to 5 successful children. She was born on 25 November , at Ikenne colonial Nigeria. She gave up as a ghost on 19 September , that is to say, she died at the age of 99 years. It could had been years, but she was born on November, while she died on September, just two months different.
It is also amazing to know that the family of Awolowo, and also the family of Yemi Osinbajo are relations, how? D Awolowo as she is popularly called. Mrs Hannah Awolowo was born to a decent family, in the Ikenne community of Ogun state. She had her secondary school education at the Methodist Girls high school Lagos.
She got married to her lovely husband on 26 of December She was such a shrewd lady, which she applied in every field she found herself. She was a politician who played an active roles in the politics of western Nigeria. As a supportive wife, who stood in for his husband no matter any predicament, she stood in for her husband in the Alliance formed between the NCNC and the AG.
During the second republic, she helped her husband with the campaigning activities, she even went to an extent of coordinating the women wing of the party.
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