Title: Resilience for
Leadership: A biography of Alhaji D.S. Adegbenro
Author: Olajire Olanlokun
Reviewer: Yusuph
Olaniyonu
Publisher: Ikofa Commercial Press Limited
No of pages: 196
The book, Resilience for Leadership: A biography of Alhaji D.S. Adegbenro, first published in 2005, was recently revised with more contributions from members of the family and associates of the subject of the biography. The new effort was co-ordinated by one of the colleagues of the late author, Dr. Taofiq M. Salisu. The book is divided into 12 chapters, which cover the early life, early involvement in party politics, parting of ways of Chief S.L. Akintola with his colleagues in the Action Group (AG), the war of brothers in AG, legal battle for Premiership and post-Emergency politics in Western Nigeria.
Other issues covered by the various chapters of this major work on Nigeria’s political history, particularly the early experience of Nigerians in political party administration, the practice of parliamentary system and regionalism include first post-independence regional elections, post-election developments, Owu chieftaincy tussle, the last political activities of late Adegbenro as seen by his associates and the concluding remarks by the author.
Like every good biography, the book goes beyond the story of a man. It is the reproduction of the history of Nigeria and the politics of an era in which Adegbenro found himself and operated in.
From the second chapter, the importance of this book in correcting historical misstatements and clearing long held misrepresentations becomes obvious as it makes it clear that unlike the falsehood that was often spread on the so-called ‘cross-carpet’ story of the constitution of the 1952 Western Regional Assembly, the members, including Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Adegbenro and others were elected as independent members, who later for the purpose of the election of first Premier, chose whether to team up with the Action Group, led by Awo, or NCNC, led by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe.
It is also necessary to relate how this book helps to authenticate the claim that the debates in the Western Regional parliament were so enriched and with great depth so much that the quality was comparable to what obtained in Westminster, London. The copious use of quotes from contributions of the Nigerian legislators to parliamentary debate helped to demonstrate this.
Incidentally, from chapter three of the book, the reader is taken into details of the Western Region crisis where late Adegbenro led the pro-Awolowo forces in battling the break-away faction of the AG led by Chief S.L. Akintola. No doubt, the story on this crucial development which was to determine Nigeria’s first attempt at democratic rule after independence was written from the perspective of the political tendency to which the subject of the book belonged.
In his account of the ‘Legal Battle for Premiership’, the author also devotes good number of pages to dissecting court papers. This is one section that students of Nigeria’s constitutional law will continue to find useful and relevant. The next two chapters are about the 1964 and 1965 regional and federal elections.
Historical events like the Action Group crisis, which resulted from the Jos meeting in 1962, ‘Operation Wet e’ political crisis following the 1965 elections, the Agbekoya crisis of 1968, the January 1966 military coup, among others got good coverage in terms of events leading to, the real event and the aftermath.
However, much as one will recommend this book to students of history and political science, present and aspiring politicians as well as others who are interested in learning about Nigeria in her teething period of nationhood, there is so much work yet to be done in the area of proof-reading the text. There are so many spelling errors, which sometimes are not only embarrassing, but also altered the intended meaning of the author. Similarly, the author does not seem to have any respect for punctuations. And this is a major minus for the easy, free-flowing narrative style adopted in the presentation of the facts.
Also, on page 143 is a great omission as the author claims that “Akintola’s biographer even maintains that there was no shred of truth in the official results as the election was shamefully rigged.”
However, in the references listed on page 157, not only is the name of the quoted author, Osuntokun, wrongly spelt, the page being referred to, is missing. So, how does one crosscheck the veracity of the claim?
These are however errors that should be eliminated in the next re-print. Overall, the book, ‘Resilience in Leadership: A biography of Alhaji D.S. Adegbenro’ by Olajire Olanlokun is a good contribution to the body of knowledge on Nigerian history and politics.
•Olaniyonu is Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Ogun State.
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