By DURO ADESEKO
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Bashorun Akintola told Saturday Sun that the contributions of his father to the development of the South West are imperishable. Consequently, he is inviting interested Nigerians to the Akintola library to verify his claim about his father’s contributions to AG and the South West. He also claimed that Chief Awolowo did not write the position paper on free education and he was not the minister for education. However, whenever reference is made to free education in the South West, it is only the name of Awolwo that comes up. He is taking consolation in the fact that “the lord of Akintola reigns.”
He has somewhat different opinion on the violence in the Northern part of the country. According to him, the whole Boko Haram issue is political; not religious. He believes that opportunists are merely feasting on the political disagreement the north has with Nigeria and using Boko Haram as cover.
Excerpts:
Let us talk about Chief Yomi Akintola, son of late Samuel Ladoke Akintola. How has your father’s name assisted you in politics?
The point I want to make is that my father’s name assisted Obafemi Awolowo and it assisted the Action Group (AG) as a party. When my father brought in the National Council of Nigeria Citizens (NCNC) and Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) into national government, he played a role in assisting the Yoruba. So, you can see that Akintola’s name and his actions worked.
If you look at Ogbomoso, it is not what it was before 1960. Ogbomoso was redesigned from the air. At that time, houses were built anyhow. My father started by breaking the Akintola House, which was my father’s family house. Everybody else gave up. Today, Ogbomoso is one of the few cities or towns in Nigeria where you can never get stuck on the road. There was only one road to Ilorin before. Today, you have about 11 roads that lead to Ilorin. There are about 12 or 15 routes that lead to Oshogbo. About 16 routes lead to Oyo town. These are things that Akintola created.
I am always happy when people give credit to other Nigerians for what Akintola, my father did. I know one thing, the facts are here with me and if you have the opportunity of coming to Akintola library in Ogbomoso, you will find a lot of facts. We have published a lot of his speeches and I am sure there are very few, if any, that can have such speeches to be published.
As a boy in the 1960’s, what do you remember during the misunderstanding between your father and Chief Awolowo?
It was unfortunate because, up till today, the Awolowo boys and girls don’t refer to me as Yomi. They refer to me as they use to refer to their elder brother. My best friend, until he died, may his soul rest in peace, was Segun Awolowo. After graduating from Cambridge, he came to me in Dublin and it was from Dublin that he went to the airport to come back to Nigeria before he died.
When you look at it, there was nothing that should have brought about the quarrel because I cannot understand it. Somebody said my father wanted to usurp Awolowo’s position. Which position? I asked from any of those people who were there at the material time if there was any time the Action Group (AG) held its convention and Akintola said ‘don’t vote for Awolowo?
What position would Akintola want again? He was Premier and Awolowo was leader. People talk about free education. It is a good thing. It was a contribution made by the Action Group. What the South West is doing today is to look at it as if nobody else existed during the Action Group days except Awolowo. Whereas, when you go to campaign, the leader should talk last but if Akintola should speak before Awolowo, the campaign would close. So, you would know that they were complimentary. No matter what you do, abuse us and do whatever you want to do, the Lord of Akintola still reigns.
As a young boy, did your dad discuss the goings on with you during the crisis?
I was not that small at the time. I was over 20. Further more, I was in a very senior position because I was marketing manager for John Holt at that time. My father never called me to say that this was what happened.
A lot of my friends would come over to Ogbomoso and they will ask my father questions and he would answer them. Those who know my father would appreciate him for what he was.
What did your dad tell your friends when they asked him about the crisis?
Take for example, a friend of mine who is no more now, Mr. Olu Oni Opako; he came to ask what created the misunderstanding between Akintola and Awolowo and my father explained his position to him. My father did not say that he was a young man or a small boy. He explained to him. My friend said he did not know that my father would be that patient to listen to him and explain things to him.
Because he was also friendly with Segun Awolowo, he went to Chief Awolowo and the reply he got did not encourage him. Basically, Chief Awolowo had his merits and Akintola had his own merits too. It is that position that has brought the Yoruba to where they are today. Chief Awolowo did not write the free education papers, they were written by Chief Awosika.
The crisis extended to your mum and Chief Idowu Dideolu Awolowo. Why?
People once explained and what they were saying to me was more of economical disagreement rather than philosophical disagreement between the two women. That was rumour.
But basically, the last time we were to hold the 47th annual lecture for my late father, I invited Chief (Mrs.) Awolowo and she accepted to come initially. I think the postponement was what delayed it. We are not enemies. There was disagreement on policies, which was rather unfortunate. They’ve built a party to the stage where people talk about the A G. But unfortunately, the leader and his deputy fell out.
What was your relationship like with Segun Awolowo during the crisis?
You know Segun died early. I was in England. He died a couple of months after graduation.
He wasn’t around during the crisis?
He was around when the crisis was on. But he came to meet the crisis. It did not disturb my close relationship with him. Wole Awolowo, his younger brother was in my house when we wanted to form a political party with Senator Bode Olajumoke during the Sani Abacha days. There was also Ebenezer Babatope and others. We held the first meeting in Olajumoke’s place, the second meeting was held in my house and Wole came. The third meeting was held in Ikenne and I went.
Now, what is your position on the insecurity in the country?
If you look back, you will realize that in the 1960s, we had a violent reaction from the West. It was called “wet e”. In late 1960s and early 1970s, we had problem from the East, which culminated in the Biafran war. So now that the North has its own grievances, we cannot but play along and look forward to God to help us. It is not something new.
You mean reacting violently to issues is not new in Nigeria?
It is not new. If you look at it, we had wet e when people were not satisfied with what was going on. There was a time we fought a war because the people in the East were not happy. People in the North are not happy about what is going on now. That is what brought about the violent reaction.
How is your party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) doing in your state?
I am from Oyo State. Due to the misunderstanding that existed before the elections last year, the party lost the governorship seat. Fortunately, you can see that the re-run elections we had, especially in my senatorial district, the PDP won. You know that my governor was once with us in PDP. So, we have a way of relating to one another.
The PDP zoned the position of National Secretary to the Southwest. Oyo that has several political representatives in government still want to present the Secretary. Why?
We deserve more. As I said to someone sometime ago, you take Ogbomoso, for instance, there are 774 councils in Nigeria. You should analyze the voting pattern in each local government. See the position of Ogbomoso with regards to the votes obtained by PDP. Yet, it was not until we agitated and quarreled that they offered Mulikat Adeola the position of Majority leader. That should not be the case. You should not only look at the votes obtained in states; you should also see what we have been able to do in the local governments. Take, for example, the House of Assembly seats, House Representatives and the Senate seats in Ogbomoso were won by the PDP.
When you look at what they have given us, it is not what we deserve. We deserve more. That is why, when you talk of the position of national Secretary, it should come to Oyo State. The President should also consider us. When President Sheu Shagari was there, the only area that the NPN won was Ogbomoso. Look at the last election and see what happened. What I am telling you is that the PDP will sweep the west in 2015.
And why did you lose so badly in the last election?
We are trying to resolve our differences now. I will also advise Mr. president to organize such a situation as President Shagari used to do, in which he can meet some people and have dinner with them once a week. That way, we can all exchange views and see how we can settle minor or major quarrels.
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