AWOISM

Awoism is the term coined for Obafemi Awolowo’s idea of progressive politics targeted at producing practical social progress. Awoism postulates that man is the sole dynamic in nature and that sound education is his birth right. The notion of innate racial intellectual superiority or natural advantage in mastery is rejected. According to Awolowo, “if you give a Nigerian or any other African for that matter, the same education, health, capital equipment, and efficient management he will produce as much as any farmer or worker in any part of the so-called advanced countries.” It is believed under Awolowo’s system of thought that the mass movement of a people into civilization was possible.

The piecemeal approach to achieving Awolowo’s objectives on the federal scale was discussed in his 1947 book; Path to freedom. Federalism was advocated for a country where there are divergences of language and of nationality. In The Strategy and tactics of the People’s Republic of Nigeria, Awolowo expounded on issues which he had shown as practical with his brilliant administration in the western region. There he argued for the primacy of education among citizens for the achievement of workable democracy. In advancing the society, the leader, in Awolowo account, must be sexually continent, abstemious in food, abstain totally from alcoholic beverage and tobacco. He must completely vanquish the emotions of greed and fear.