The Making of the Obafemi Awolowo Documentaries
By: Deji Yesufu
Today, October 14, 2025, marks exactly three years since the passing of Rev. Edward Koye-Ladele. He died of an ailment that should not kill any Nigerian. But he died because the general malaise that has hit every sector of this country is also afflicting the Nigerian health sector. The reason why prosperity gospel merchants are making a good living from the false gospel they preach is that Nigerians now resort to faith healing to overcome their health challenges; they also hope that the monies they “sow” in these churches will secure some prosperity for themselves and their children. Unfortunately, this was not the case some sixty years ago. When Nigeria was founded, our fathers understood that education and health were fundamental bedrocks for the building of a working and virile society. One of them, Obafemi Awolowo, understood this concept so well that he insisted that every child in the Western Region of Nigeria, between 1955 and 1959, would have access to free education. The government he led at that time also ensured that there was free health care for children up to the age of eighteen.
When Nigeria hit gold in the early 1970s, and some Nigerian leaders claimed they did not know what to do with the money, Obafemi Awolowo extended his concept of free education to cover elementary, secondary, and tertiary schools for all Nigerians. He also insisted that every Nigerian should have access to free health care. The logic is very simple: the strength of a nation is its people. Every country has a number of geniuses buried among its masses. Many of these children with unique gifts are born into poor homes. If the country educates every child for free, those children will emerge into society to help build society up. And when people are sick, a nation will preserve its most productive workforce by ensuring that everyone has access to the best medical care. When the government secures education and health, the country will simply grow in strength.
When I wrote Victor Banjo in 2018, I often felt the man’s spirit was standing next to me while on the project. I understood this because I encountered some information on him quite fortuitously. The same thing happened while we made the Obafemi Awolowo documentary. In April 2024, I broke my leg while learning to ride a power bike. I was grounded for three months. I, however, had to access my reading table and laptop, and what my legs could not do, I tried to achieve through reading and studying. At about the same time, I got all the written works of Obafemi Awolowo from Edmund Obilo’s Udarabooks.com. The first thing I discovered from reading Obafemi Awolowo was that the man was just a human being. The impression that many people gave us of Awolowo was that Awo was an “orisa” – a kind of spirit. Dr. Mrs. Tokunbo Awolowo Dosunmu said in an interview that some people said that her father did not eat meat. That narrative was patently false. When I was growing up in Zaria, some relatives told my siblings and me that if we put water in a bowl and allowed the moon to reflect in it, we would see Awolowo’s face there. Utter nonsense! Obafemi Awolowo was a human being.
Awolowo’s secrets were these three things he mentioned himself: the grace of God, a Spartan and disciplined lifestyle, and a good wife. That is all. The grace of God manifested in Awolowo in the fact that, besides his being a very gifted man, he was also a man who knew God – he was born again. His theology was very limited to basic Wesleyan Methodism, but unlike many people who pile up theological knowledge and do nothing with it, Awolowo’s basic theology was Jesus’ golden rule – “…do unto others as you will have them do to you…”. He crafted all his politics around this idea. Then he was a very disciplined man. Awolowo stopped smoking cigarettes on his birthdate in 1934. He also had great discipline in his relationship with women. He did not sanction extramarital affairs even among his political associates. He told his men that he would entertain everybody’s wives in his house, regardless of how many they had. But he made it clear to them that no one should bring a side-chic to his house. Finally, Awolowo’s wife was indeed a jewel. Obafemi Awolowo made a remark to Odumegwu Ojukwu in June 1967, at a meeting that some leaders of thought held with the Biafran warlord, to convince him not to secede. Awolowo said, “…I do not use platitudes…” It was in response to Ojukwu saying that many of the things the delegates were saying were mere platitudes. So, when he said of his wife, “She is my jewel of inestimable value”, he meant every word. Every woman needs to read Wale Adebanwi’s biography of HID Awolowo to understand what it means to support a man.
It became clear to me and my publishers that we needed to give voice to Obafemi Awolowo in this generation, but it was not clear how we would do it. The obvious thing to do was to write a book. Unfortunately, a lot of resources, time, and effort go into writing books and publishing them, but Nigerians do not read. The lessons behind the life of Obafemi Awolowo must not be hidden away in a book. Like hundreds of other worthy ideas that can change this country, Awoism will only end up holed up inside another book. We then decided on social media. We were going to bring Awolowo alive from the dead and allow him to speak to young Nigerians where they are. Yesterday, we published a six-minute video on YouTube introducing the Awolowo project to the world and informing the public of the coming of the first part of the five-part series of the project. On Friday, 17th October, 2025, at 8 pm, we shall premiere the first part on YouTube. It is titled Obafemi Awolowo – His Early Years (1909-1944). What were the factors that informed Awolowo’s commitment to education and health? What were the books that Awolowo read as a young man? Who were Awolowo’s mentors in politics? What about his background: father, mother, siblings, etc? The first part will answer all these questions. Awolowo stated in the preface of his memoirs, Awo, that some of the people who will benefit the most from his book were people who come from very humble beginnings like himself. We sincerely hope that many young Nigerian people enduring the harsh Nigerian economic climate can learn a few things from Awolowo’s growing years.
This five-part documentary on Awolowo will bring a perspective on the sage that even he himself would have come to realize as he looked back on his life in his twilight years. At the seminary, my teachers told me that history becomes clearer with time. So, having a fifty to a hundred-year advantage over the story of Awolowo gives me a better perspective on the life of the man. Similarly, those who will write about him in another one hundred to two hundred years from now will see things clearly. Awolowo’s first book was “Path to Nigeria’s Freedom” – published in 1946. His second book was his autobiography – “Awo”, published in 1960, immediately after his administration’s stellar performance leading the Western Region. As he headed to prison in Calabar in 1963, Awolowo was determined to write three books: “The People’s Republic”; “Thoughts on Nigeria’s Constitution”; and “The Strategy and Tactics of the People’s Republic of Nigeria”.
Now, what kind of man is sentenced to jail for ten years, and all he is thinking about is how to use his time there to write books? Obafemi Awolowo was a colossus. On 2nd August, 1966, Obafemi Awolowo was released from prison by the Yakubu Gowon administration, and almost immediately, he was invited into that government to stave off the secession of the Eastern parts of Nigeria from the federation. In June 1971, Obafemi Awolowo resigned from the administration of Gowon. He explained that he had completed his work there, ending the civil war, and that he needed to write three books. These three books were to be titled “Adventures in Power”. The first one is subtitled “The Travails of Democracy and the Rule of Law”, published in 1985, which detailed how the persecution against him started. The second book, “My March Through Prison”, was published in 1987 which detailed his experiences in Calabar. The third book, “For the Good of the People,” was to give an account of his time in office, leading the Western Region from 1952 to 1959. That book remains unpublished.
I asked Ambassador Awolowo Dosunmu about this book. She said that the manuscript is somewhere in Awolowo’s study in Ikenne. I asked why the book has not been published, at least posthumously. Then she said this: “Papa writes the original drafts of his books in a shorthand he invented himself. Only he can read what he has written.” Awolowo learnt shorthand in the 1930s as a struggling young man looking for a secretarial job in Lagos. I never knew he invented his own later. I have given this matter a lot of thought, and I am convinced that now that we have artificial intelligence and all these new developments in technology, Awolowo’s draft of that book can very easily be decoded and published. I hope the family gives this idea a thought.
One other reason I needed to give Obafemi Awolowo a voice was because I learnt the concept of “federalism” directly from reading his books. The implication of Nigeria being a federal state is that this country will always keep in mind the issue of our two desperate parts: North and South. And for the sake of peaceful coexistence of all parts together, there must be equal representation of each part of the country in the government. Here is the challenge: Northern Nigeria concluded eight years with Muhammadu Buhari in 2023. Southern Nigeria has been under the rule of Bola Tinubu, who has less than two years left in office, with a possible second term of four years. The problem is that Bola Tinubu is many things, but he is not an Awoist. I sincerely doubt if Tinubu has read any of the books Awo wrote. It also means that the possibility of having an Awoist in government is thinning out with time.
Therefore, it is incumbent on everyone of us to learn the life and thinking of Obafemi Awolowo, and see how we can implement his ideas not just in our daily lives but when we reach positions of influence. My hope is that some of our young people will learn Awoism early enough so that by the time they come to a position of influence, they can enter office to serve people. Perhaps God permitted Awolowo not to publish “For the Good of the People” because he wanted the realities of that book lived out in practical terms, and not just hidden away in a text. Of all Nigerians alive today, the person whose thinking and writing that approximates to Obafemi Awolowo the most is Dele Farotimi, in my humble estimation. It is not surprising that Farotimi is a helmsman with the Yoruba socio-cultural group Afenifere. Afenifere was the way the people of the Western Region described the government of the Action Group in the 1950s. If ever there was a good old Nigeria time, 1952 to 1959, the period Wole Soyinka called “The Penkelemes Years”, is those times.
TextandPublishing YouTube channel will publish the first part of Obafemi Awolowo’s life on Friday, 17th October, 2025, at 8 pm. We encourage you to watch it, share the link, and kindly subscribe to our channel. Thank you for reading.
Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at [email protected]
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