Penthouse

HISTORY IS TEACHIN US TODAY WHERE WE FAIL
*Awolowo’s Prophecy Fulfilled: Ignorance, Not Tinubu, Is Nigeria's Problem*
_The Unfairness of Blaming Tinubu for a 70-Year Policy Debt_

*1. Introduction: A Prophecy Written in 1947*

In 1947, 13 years before independence, Chief Obafemi Awolowo published his classic "Path to Nigerian Freedom". It was not a campaign pamphlet. It was a blueprint and a warning. His thesis was simple: Nigeria’s survival depended on two things " mass education and planned economy". Without them, independence would deliver “freedom in name only” and end in “tribalism, corruption, and chaos”. He was just 38 years. In another of his books, he described 1947 as his most productive year.

Today, 78 years later, the “catastrophe” he predicted is no longer prophecy. It is our daily news. Mass illiteracy, unemployment, armed robbery, banditry, kidnapping, and regional insecurity. To pretend this started on May 29, 2023 is to deny history. It also makes the current attempt to fix the problem under President Bola Tinubu, the wrong target for blame.

*2. Awolowo’s Core Prediction: Ignorance and Economic Downturn is Insecurity*
Awolowo built his argument on cause and effect.

On education; “Nigeria will be free in name only if her people remain in ignorance. Mass illiteracy is a time bomb under any democracy”. In "Thoughts on Nigerian Constitution" written from Calabar Prison in 1966, I was barely two years old then. He was blunter: “A nation of illiterates cannot have a stable government. Ignorance breeds insecurity, and insecurity will consume us all”. No one listened.

On economy, he rejected “laissez-faire” for Nigeria. He stated “Without deliberate planning, we shall have poverty where there should be prosperity, unemployment where there should be work, and a ‘downtown’ of the economy where there should be progress”. He was ignored.

Here is the link; he declared, “When a man is ignorant and hungry, he becomes desperate. Desperation breeds c