The quintessential Awo; always on point! A very deep thinker, he interacted with egg-heads, attended
academic inaugural lectures (most of the present crop of leaders are too busy for that), embraced
intellectualism; no wonder he had answer to almost all questions. His place has not been filled yet. This is a 1987 interview, yet its as if he is addressing the Nigeria of 2016.
Rest on Pa Obafemi Awolowo.
From the Archives:
A PROFESSOR'S LAST CONVERSATION WITH AWO
Thirty-five days before the death of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, a professor of philosophy and
member of The Nation Editorial Board, Dr. Moses Akin Makinde, spoke with the sage. The
conversation is part of Prof. Makinde’s book: "Awo as a philosopher".
Oh my God, these are profound statements, sir.
Profound you may say, but what I am trying to say is that we are not educated. And once we are
not educated we cannot acquire technology. Tell me, by what means can we acquire technology like
the highly industrialized nations? A nation that does not educate its citizens cannot complain of
technological backwardness. Why do you think I have spent a great part of my life talking about
free education at all levels? Of course, for the development of the human mind leading to the
development of middle and high level manpower and subsequently to economic, political, scientific
and technological growths, a leader who does not put premium on education of his citizens is
either an educated fool or not educated at all. Such a leader lacks foresight completely and must
be incapable of leading a nation to greatness. If you studied history of the world you would have
read about how great nations had been ruled by great leaders. I have just told you about India, not
to talk about the advanced countries which look down upon us as if we are not created by the same
God. Perhaps the fault is in our attitudes and ways of life, but definitely not in our colour or stars.
Our stars have been dimmed by incompetent rulers. That’s all.
There is this Energy Centre which is the baby of the University of Ife. Now people have said it many
times that many of our problems in this country are caused by these things called federal character
and quota system . Originally, the Department of Physics under the leadership of Professor Abiodun
Francis Oluwole at the University of Ife wrote a proposal for the establishment of energy centre in
the university. Prof. Oluwole succeeded in getting five million naira, during the Obasanjo’s military
administration, from Shehu Musa Yar‘Adua, the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Committee on
October 7, 1976. However, for the purpose of federal character, Ahmadu Bello University was
brought into participate in the programme for which it was not prepared. Thus, on October 14, 1976
the money was shared between the University of Ife and ABU at N2.5 million each. Because ABU
could not start the programme on time and Ife had gone far by buying equipment, the military
government gave Ife an additional N3 million on September 29, 1979. By that time ABU had not
spent its N2.5 million. The Federal Government ought to have concentrated its efforts on developing
Ife as the Centre for Energy instead of duplicating it in the North i.e at ABU which lacked the will
and manpower to sustain such a gigantic programme as it obtains in developing countries,
especially in the USA and Europe.
There is a place in California, Stanford University, called the Silicon Valey. It is the heartbeat of
technology in the USA. Talk of electronics/electrical, computers and other technological gadgets,
the Valey will readily come to mind. Now, because that university has the resources and manpower,
a lot of money was sunk there and today it has developed to something very significant. Many
industries patronize the place and it has become one great industrial complex and centre for
technological researches and technological innovations. Right now, the University of Ife seems to
be the heartbeat of technology in this country, but the Federal Government seems to be
uninterested. There is also this discovery of Fagara which can be used to manage sickle cell
anemia. You did attend Professor Sofowora’s inaugural lecture at Ife. I saw you there.
Sofowora, yes.
Now, the government of this country has shown little interest in Professor Sofowora’s discovery,
not to talk of any attempt to patent it. The only interest the Federal Government showed was
to set up a committee to look into the management of sickle cell in the Ministry of Science and
Technology. Out of the N200,000 needed by Prof. Sofowora only N30,000 was sent. Of course,
he returned it to the Ministry.
There is also the case of Prof. Makanjuola of the Department of Agricultural Engineering, also
at Ife. He was the first to discover and build a machine for pounding yam in 1972. Again, his
discovery was begging for government assistance. The Engineering Company in Lagos
approached the University for manufacturing right. The right was granted and the manufacture
of pounded yam machine attracted a lot of attention at a subsequent trade fair. There was no
encouragement from the government. Eventually UACN enlisted a Japanese firm which bought
one of the machines, went away with it, copied it and began to produce in larger quantity than
Addis. For one reason or the other, the University did not take UACN to court for infringement
of copy right by giving the patent to a Japanese firm. Thus, Professor Makanjuola’s invention,
like many others, suffered from lack of government and public support.
It is a pity. I think our government, individuals and big corporations should support research in
this country, as it is done in industrialised countries.
Now back to the Energy Centre at the University of Ife. I think the University of Ife is really
suffering. As I said, the idea of an Energy Centre was a baby of the university. They wrote good
papers to justify the establishment of the centre. Because of this, the university undertook a
staff development programme abroad. Many graduate students, especially those with first class
and second class honours degree in physics, went abroad for training in nuclear physics. Now,
instead of allowing Ife which initiated the idea of the centre to remain the nation’s centre for
energy, a situation that would have led to our own Silicon Valey, the Federal Government, I
repeat, introduce federal character by splitting the Centre into two, with one centre at Ife and
another at the Ahmadu Bellow University (ABU), irrespective of whether or not there was the
staff or whether or not some people knew what the centre was all about or how it should be
run. Eventually the money needed to develop an Energy Centre at Ife had to be shared by the
Universities of Ife and ABU thus rendering neither of the centres effective as it should be. This
leads one to think that we do not have a coherent science and technology policy in
this country.
That is true
It also shows that we have a lopsided educational policy in this country.
That is also true. That is why, for instance, our government does not believe in free education.
You mean education for the generality of the people.
Yes, they don’t believe in it. Even in higher education, how much does the government spend on
research and development (R & D) annually?
What about this question that there is no money so that the universities cannot perform as they
should, and they do perform in the advance countries and even in some African countries.
They know they make the money and they are spending the money. See how they steal it. Let
me tell you the story about the Director of the Youth Corps which I have been reading in the
newspapers.
You mean the NYSC.
Yes, NYSC. Who will ever think that the officials of the NYSC would ask that they should be
provided money to buy generators and air-conditioners when they have no houses built for NYSC
students. At one times some of them lived in this compound of mine. Why do they buy
generators? The generators which they were purported to have bought and paid for could serve
many universities in this country rather than the NYSC alone.
So the kind of free money they give to the NYSC is not given to the Universities.
You see that! Somebody told me that the NYSC has a group of people, a committee called Club
3.30. The meet at 3.30 p.m every Wednesday and just share the money. Yes, they share the
money! I think the whole lot of them should be lined up and shot. Imagine, they just share our
money! The money which belongs to you and I, to your family and my family, to every family
and to everybody, rich and poor. They just share the money which belongs to all of us! This is
criminal and wicked, to say the least. And I must say that this is just one good reason why this
country can never develop. This is not a curse, it is a fact. The future will bear me out on this
very serious matter. Honestly, I weep for Nigeria my country, your country, our land of birth.
Sometime next week the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) will declare a lecture free
day because of the poor funding of university education. What happens now in the universities
is very serious. The universities just try to pay salaries, and in some universities salaries are not
paid for two months. Right now we can only teach students but in many cases the laboratories
are empty and classrooms inadequate. But in spite of all this, we do teach but facilities for
research like funding and equipment are just not there. What many people, including the
government, do not know is that universities are established for teaching and research.
Teaching takes only eight to nine months of the year while research goes on for twelve months
of the year. Because of the importance attached to research, lecturers’ work seven days in a
week, including Saturdays and Sundays and hardly go on vocation. This is the case because the
rule of the game of academic promotion is publish or perish! If you don’t do research, you may
not be able to publish, and if you don’t publish, especially in international journals, you don’t get
promoted. Therefore, the more important part, as it is known throughout the world, is research.
Research, that is it. Without research you cannot teach. In order to teach you have to get
relevant text books and journal articles, and all this is a product of research. Research, first,
then teaching second. So, without research and products of research like text books etc., you
will only teach nonsense which is the same as just teaching any thing from your head, and that
is not good for the university system. I agree with you.
The situation is even more serious than that. Now, you are invited to present an academic paper
in Europe or America. You apply for conference funds and you don’t get it because there is no
money. And it is extremely important that lecturers attend conferences both locally and abroad.
A conference abroad enables a lecturer to present his research findings, compare them with
those of his colleagues abroad in terms of academic standard and value of the research, share
your knowledge with others, get your paper criticized while you also obtain academic papers of
your colleagues from other universities. This situation makes a lecturer current in his field of
knowledge, and the students are the beneficiaries.
If you don’t do research and you don’t have avenues of presenting your research findings for
objective criticism as it will happen if you go to conferences abroad, I will say categorically that
your knowledge will be stale. Whatever knowledge you may possess at home will be stale
because it is not up to date. A lecturer has to frequently update his knowledge otherwise what
he teaches his students will be stale knowledge, and this is not good for education and
progress. Don’t forget that the word university means universal institution. As it is in Nigeria, so
it is in Britain and America. You cannot pretend to be imparting knowledge at the University of
Ife or University of Ibadan when all you can impart is stale or local knowledge, owing to lack of
current text books and journals in your discipline and exposure to the product of your
colleagues abroad, especially through academic conferences.
Sir, I am glad you know all this. Only god knows what our leader in this country think about
education in general, and higher education in particular.
No, they think nothing, they think nothing about education.
I think so much money is wasted on other things in this country. I personally think that two vital
sectors i.e. health and education should be accorded the highest priority in the nation’s
budgetary allocations. You have demonstrated the importance of these two sectors in your
regime of Mental Magnitude and your position on man as an instrument of change. It is for this
reason that you accord great priority to education and health (free Education and free
Medicare) which are crucial to the development of man whom you also see as a potential
genius. If man is educated but not healthy or healthy but not educated, he cannot perform his
functions as the instrument of change in economic, scientific technological social and political
matters. Is when a man is educated and healthy that he can work and be productive, participate
meaningfully in politics and governance, contribute his own quota to the economic scientific,
technological, social and political developments of the nation. In other words, the wealth of a
nation depends on the education and health of its citizens.
You are perfectly correct. You got me right. I am happy that some academics like you can
understand and interprets my work correctly. You know I have always maintained that Nigeria
has the money to pursue free education and free health to a reasonable level. I did it
successfully when I was the Premier of Western Region. What you may not know is that
government makes money everyday, probably more than it can spend on each day. In this
sense, government is never broke unless some funny things happen. What a good government
like that of the Western Region under my leadership should do is to keep an eagle’s eye on the
nation’ treasury, its incomes and expenditures. You must see government as big business where
the shareholders are happy at the end of the year when good profit is declared and good
dividends are paid. A business that indulges in frivolous and unproductive spending is not likely
to satisfy its shareholders at the end of the year. In fact, the shareholders may be so angry as
to ask for the heads of the management crew. I think government should not be run as if it is
nobody’s business, where everybody will like to steal and steal public money to no end. It is
abominable, it is wicked!
Are you saying that this government has money but that people just waste this money because
they are not concerned about public good.
Yes, the government has sufficient money to make education and health free, and this is for the
greatest good of the greatest number.
www.thenationonlineng.net/archive2/tblnews_Detail.php?id=47058

Awo was deep, reflective and broadminded. He outlined some of the problems of Nigeria as at 1987 and suggested solutions in this interview, yet I'm not sure if any of these has been resolved till date. Late Chief Emeka Ojukwu succinctly described him: "The best president Nigeria never had". Rest on Pa Awo.

Waow

and they tell me that AWO is/was greater than FAYOSE(defender of the YORUBA race)

TANTUMERGO007:
and they tell me that AWO is/was greater than FAYOSE(defender of the YORUBA race)

comparing Awo to Fayose is like comparing Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe to Chris Ubah. #incomparable

Great words from Great leader. The vacuum he left is yet to be occupied.

"The best president Nigeria never had".....Emeka Ojukwu.

Awo remains an enigma with no comparison across Africa.

There can never be another Awolowo, the man was simply a genius, born before his time. My father still has many of his books, and am forever wowed by his incredible thinking.

A great man indeed...if he had been given the chance...Nigeria would have been like Singapore, a nation who got independence around the same time as Nigeria.