At last, Awo’s prophecy about presidency comes true

Monday, 18 April 2011 13:47


Saturday’s election of President Jonathan as Nigeria’s fourth democratically elected president has further reinforced the pre-eminence of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, in Nigeria’s politics, as well as confirming his visionary outlook, after predicting that an Ijaw man would, one day, emerge as Nigeria’s president.
Chief Awolowo was quoted as having told his supporters in Bonny, in present-day Rivers State, during his presidential campaign in 1983, that an ethnic minority president would soon emerge in the country.

While noting that the people of the present-day South-South region of the country had always aligned politically with the core North political structure during presidential elections, Chief Awolowo was said to have told the gathering that they stood to benefit a lot by aligning with him.

He had predicted that “an Ijaw man will be president of Nigeria before long.” He was also said to have added that a Berom man would one day emerge vice-president.

The prophecy of the sage was said to have rattled the military regime of Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, which sacked the Second Republic on December 31, 1983, on allegations of widespread corruption.

The regime placed the sage under house arrest at his Apapa residence in Lagos. It also confiscated the travel passport of the sage for two years.


As the celebrations continue among supporters of the president across the country, it has become clear that Jonathan was the man whose future the sage was predicting.
Jonathan’s election also marks a watershed in the nation’s history, as it is the first time an ethnic minority president would be occupying the nation’s most exalted seat through the ballot.

Previously, the farthest the ethnic minority groups in the country got was the vice-presidency.

Former Chief of General Staff, Admiral Augustus Aikhomu, became vice-president under the Ibrahim Babangida military regime after the removal of Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe, a South-Easterner (an Igbo) from office in 1986.

The emergence of Dr Jonathan as the presidential running mate of the late Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua in 2007, however, rekindled the hope of the ethnic minorities in the country that they could clinch the highest office in the land.

In particular, his emergence seemed to have placated the Niger Delta, which was in the vanguard of militancy movement against the Federal Government, because of the neglect and underdeveloipment of the region by subsequent regimes.

Significantly, Dr Jonathan had a clean sweep in the Middle Belt of the country, a region populated by Northern ethnic minority groups.

He also had a clean sweep of states in the South-South region of the country, peopled by ethnic minority groups, including the Ijaw, Ibibio, Itsekiri, Bini, Urhobo, among others. (Nigerian Tribune)