Late Macaulay
By Femi Akinpelu Joseph
There are some notable personalities that are worth remembering and
celebrating as their efforts during the pre-colonial era greatly
contributed to the freedom attained by the nation.
Worthy of mentioning also, are other national heroes whose efforts have helped to sustain and advance the gains of independence.
On the list of those Nigeria’s heroes and heroines are the following individuals.
Herbert Macaulay
Herbert Macaulay on June 24, 1923, founded the Nigeria National
Democratic Party (NNDP), the first Nigerian political party. The NNDP
won all the seats in the elections of 1923, 1928 and 1933.In the 1930s,
Macaulay took part in organizing Nigerian nationalist militant attacks
on the British colonial government in Nigeria.
Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe
Chief Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe, usually referred to as Zik, was one of
the leading figures of modern Nigerian nationalism. He was head of state
of Nigeria from 1963 to 1966. He served as the second and last
Governor-General from 1960 to 1963 and the first President of Nigeria
from 1963 to 1966, holding the presidency throughout the Nigerian First
Republic
After a successful journalism career, Azikiwe entered into politics. In
1944, Macaulay and NYM leader Azikiwe agreed to form the National
Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC). A part of Cameroon was
incorporated into the British colony of Nigeria. Azikiwe increasingly
became the dominant Nigerian nationalist leader, he supported
Pan-Africanism and a pan-Nigerian based nationalist movement.
Chief Obafemi Awolowo
Chief Obafemi Jeremiah Oyeniyi Awolowo, GCFR (who lived between 6 March
1909 and 9th of May 1987), was a nationalist and statesman who played a
key role in Nigeria’s independence movement, the First and Second
Republics and the Civil War. He is most notable as the outstanding first
premier of the Western Region but was also a successful federal
commissioner for finance and Vice President of the Federal Executive
Council in the Civil War and was thrice a major contender for his
country’s highest office.
A native of Ikenne in Ogun State, he started his career, like some of
his well-known contemporaries, as a nationalist in the Nigerian Youth
Movement, where he rose to become Western Provincial Secretary. Awolowo
was responsible for much of the progressive social legislation that has
made Nigeria a modern nation.
Alhaji Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa
Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was born late in 1912 in Bauchi. He was the
son of a Bageri Muslim district head in the Bauchi divisional district
of Lere.
He was a vocal advocate of the rights of northern Nigeria, and together
with Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, who held the hereditary title of Sardauna of
Sokoto; he founded the Northern People’s Congress (NPC).
Balewa entered the government in 1952 as Minister of Works, and later
served as Minister of Transport. In 1957, he was appointed Chief
Minister, forming a coalition government between the NPC and the
National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), led by Nnamdi
Azikiwe. He retained the post as Prime Minister when Nigeria gained
independence in 1960, and was reelected in 1964.
However, as Prime Minister of Nigeria, he played important roles in the
continent’s formative indigenous rule. He was one of the leaders in the
formation of the Organization of African Unity and creating a
cooperative relationship with French speaking African countries
Sir Ahmadu Bello
Sir Ahmadu Bello KBE (June 12, 1910 – January 15, 1966) was one of the
foremost early Nigerian politicians, and was the first premier of the
Northern Nigeria region from 1954-1966. He was the Sardauna of Sokoto
and one of the prominent leaders in Northern Nigeria alongside Abubakar
Tafawa Balewa, both of whom were prominent in negotiations about the
region’s place in an independent Nigeria.
As leader of the Northern People’s Congress, he dominated Nigerian
politics throughout the early Nigerian Federation and the First Nigerian
Republic.
In forming the 1960 independence federal government of the Nigeria,
Bello as president of the NPC, chose to remain Premier of Northern
Nigeria and devolved the position of Prime Minister of the Federation to
the deputy president of the NPC Abubakar Tafawa Balewa.
Chief Anthony Enahoro
Chief Anthony Enahoro, born 22nd July, 1923 was one of Nigeria’s
foremost anti-colonial and pro-democracy activists. He became the editor
of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s newspaper, The Southern Nigerian Defender,
Ibadan in 1944 at the age of 21, thus becoming Nigeria’s youngest editor
ever. He later became the editor of Zik’s Comet, Kano from 1945 to
1949; associate editor of West African Pilot, Lagos and editor-in-chief
of Morning Star from 1950 to 1953.
Professor Wole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka, born 13th July, 1934, is a Nigerian
playwright and poet. His work, “A Dance of The Forest” (1960), a biting
criticism of Nigeria’s political elites, won a contest that year as the
official play for Nigerian Independence Day on 1st October, 1960. In
1986, Soyinka was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the
first African to be honoured. His Nobel Prize acceptance speech, “This
Past Must Address Its Present”, was devoted to South African
freedom-fighter, Nelson Mandela.
Mrs. Fumilayo Ransome-Kuti
Mrs. Fumilayo Ransome-Kuti, born 25th October, 1900 in Abeokuta,
Nigeria, is the mother of the legendary Fela Anikulapo Kuti. She was a
very powerful force advocating for the Nigerian woman’s right to vote
and has been described as the doyen of female rights in Nigeria. In
1947, she was described by the West African Pilot Newspaper as the
‘Lioness of Lisabi’ for her leadership of the women of the Egba clan in a
campaign against arbitrary taxation. That struggle led to the
abdication of the Egba high king, Oba Ademola II in 1949.
Aminu Kano
Aminu Kano was born to the family of an Islamic scholar, Mallam Yusuf of
the scholarly Gyanawa fulani clan, who was a mufti at the Alkali court
in Kano. He attended Katsina College and later went to the University of
London’s, Institute of Education, alongside Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa.
While in Bauchi, he spoke freely on political issues and extended his
educational horizon by engaging in some various political and
educational activities beyond his formal teaching duties.
He was also a secretary of the Bauchi Discussion Circle, a group whose
activities were later constricted as a result of an attack on indirect
rule by Aminu Kano.
During the pre-independence era, a new progressive union led by Aminu
Kano and composed of progressive leaning teachers and some radical
[intellectuals] such as Magaji Dambatta, Abba Maikwaru and Bello Ijumu
emerged to fill any vacuum in political radicalism in the region.
He was Kano State governor in the second republic under the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP).
Taiwo Akinkunmi
Akinkunmi was born Michael Taiwo Akinkunmi in Ibadan, of Yoruba origin.
He was the designer of the Nigerian (Green White Green) flag. He had
worked some years before gaining admission to the Norwood Technical
College in London where he studied electrical engineering. While
studying there, he designed the Nigerian Flag. He entered the
competition which he came across in a library.
He always wears the colours of the flag he designed as part of his
attire, usually wearing a green Yoruba cap, and painted his house with a
green-white-green pattern.
M.K.O Abiola
Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, CFR (24 August 1937 – 7 July
1998), often referred to as M. K. O. Abiola, was a popular Nigerian
Yoruba businessman, publisher, politician and aristocrat of the Yoruba
Egba clan.
He ran for the Presidency in 1993, and is widely regarded as the
presumed winner of the inconclusive election since no official final
results were announced. He died in 1998, after being denied victory when
the entire election results were dubiously annulled by the preceding
military president Ibrahim Babangida because of alleged evidence that
they were corrupt and unfair.
He overwhelmingly defeated his rival, Bashir Tofa of the National
Republican Convention. The election was declared Nigeria’s freest and
fairest presidential election by national and international observers,
with Abiola even winning in his Northern opponent’s home state.
The fact that Moshood Abiola (a Southern Muslim) was able to secure a
national mandate freely and fairly remains unprecedented in Nigeria’s
history. Moshood Abiola sprang to national and international prominence
as a result of his philanthropic activities. Chief MKO Abiola’s memory
is celebrated in Nigeria and internationally, on 12 June.
MKO Abiola has been referred to as Nigeria’s greatest statesman.
Fela Anikulapo-Kuti
Fela Kuti (born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, lived between
15th October 1938 – 2nd August 1997. Also known as Fela Anikulapo Kuti
or simply Fela, he was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist, musician,
composer, pioneer of the Afrobeat music genre, human rights activist,
and political maverick. He was famed for being the pioneer of Afrobeats
music as well as a controversial figure, due to his unusual music style
and personal lifestyle. Kuti thought the most important way for Africans
to fight European cultural imperialism was to support traditional
African religions and lifestyles.
He was a candid supporter of human rights, and many of his songs are
direct attacks against dictatorships, specifically the militaristic
governments of Nigeria in the 1970s and 1980s. He was also a social
commentator, and he criticized his fellow Africans (especially the upper
class) for betraying traditional African culture.
Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe, born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe; 16 November 1930 – 21
March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor and critic. His
first novel Things Fall Apart (1958) was considered his magnum opus,
and is the most widely read book in modern African literature.
Achebe has been called “the father of modern African writing”, and many
books and essays have been written about his work over the past fifty
years. Achebe was promoted at the NBS to the position of Director of
External Broadcasting. One of his first duties was to help create the
Voice of Nigeria network.
The station broadcast its first transmission on New Year’s Day 1962, and
worked to maintain an objective perspective during the turbulent era
immediately following independence.
Gani Fawehinmi
Chief Abdul-Ganiyu “Gani” Oyesola Fawehinmi, (22 April 1938 – 5
September 2009) was a Nigerian author, publisher, philanthropist, social
critic, human and civil rights lawyer, politician and a Senior Advocate
of Nigeria.
With his boundless energy he tenaciously and uncompromisingly pursued
and crusaded his beliefs, principles and ideals for the rule of law,
undiluted democracy, and all embracing and expansive social justice,
protection of fundamental human rights and respect for the hopes and
aspirations of the masses who are victims of misgovernment of the
affairs of the nation.
He was beaten up time after time and was deported from one part of the
country to another to prevent him from being able to effectively reach
out to the masses among whom he was popular.
In 2008 Mr. Gani Fawehinmi rejected one of the highest national honours
that can be bestowed on a citizen by the Nigerian Government – Order of
the Federal Republic (OFR) – in protest of the many years of misrule
since Nigeria’s independence.
Alhaji Abdulsalami Abubakar
Alhaji Abdulsalami Abubakar is a retired Nigerian Army General who was
military President of Nigeria from 9 June 1998 until 29 May 1999. He
succeeded Sanni Abacha upon Abacha’s death. It was during Abubakar’s
leadership that Nigeria adopted its new constitution on 5 May 1999,
which provided for multiparty elections. Abubakar transferred power to
president-elect Olusegun Obasanjo on 29 May 1999.
A few days after assuming office, Abubakar promised to hold elections
within a year and transfer power to an elected president. He established
the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), appointing former
Supreme Court Justice Ephraim Akpata as chairman
Surprising some critics of the country’s military, Abubakar kept his
word and transferred power to elected president Obasanjo on 29 May 1999.
Ameyo Adadevoh
Ameyo Adadevoh was born Ameyo Stella Shade Adadevoh, born 27th of
October 1956, was a Nigerian physician. Her great-grandfather, Herbert
Macaulay, is one of the most celebrated founders of modern Nigeria.
She is credited with having curbed a wider spread of the Ebola Virus in
Nigeria by placing the patient zero, Patrick Sawyer, in quarantine
despite pressures from the Liberian Government. On 4 August 2014, it was
confirmed that she tested positive for Ebola virus disease and was
being treated.
Attahiru Jega
Professor Attahiru Muhammadu Jega is a Nigerian academic and former
Vice-Chancellor of Bayero University, Kano. He was appointed as the
chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in 2010.
Jega is a former President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities
(ASUU), and was an opponent of the Babangida military government in the
early 1990s. He is widely seen as an astute intellectual with a strong
sense of ethics and morality.
In spite of the fierce criticism he faced during the campaigning for
the 2015 general elections from both the opposition and the ruling
party, he went on to deliver a historic and successful elections.
On the 28 of March 2015, under his leadership, elections were conducted
in what Nigerians and the World see as free, fair and credible which
declared the APC Presidential candidate General Muhammadu Buhari as
winner defeating the Incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan.
http://thenationonlineng.net/nigeria-55-heroes-to-remember/
