OLUWOLE Awolowo, son of the late politician and influential premier of the defunct Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, died on Wednesday at the age of 70.
The younger Awolowo, who reportedly died in a London hospital today, was until his death the publisher and chairman of African Newspapers Limited, parent company of the Nigerian Tribune newspapers. He ran the Tribune alongside other publications that included Iroyin Yoruba.
Known as publisher, businessman and politician, he contested for the post of a legislator in the Lagos State House of Assembly during the 2nd Republic in 1979, which he won to represent the Apapa Constituency, having previously cut his teeth as a politician at the Lagos City Council as a councilor, a post which he won in 1974. His tenure as a state lawmaker ended when the 2nd Republic was terminated by the Buhari-Idiagbon coup of 1983.
Awolowo was a stabilizing member of the National Reconciliation Committee of the late General Sanni Abacha military regime, in which he and other Awoists like Ebenezer Babatope and elder statesman and former Lagos Governor Lateef Jakande accepted to serve so that the Yoruba Nation would not be excluded from the central power in Abuja.
Born Oluwole Bolade Akanni Awolowo on December 3rd 1942, he was the eldest surviving son of 5 children sired by the late political icon Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his wife, Hannah Idowu Dideolu Awolowo.
At the peak of his life as a public person, the late Oluwole was the patron of the influential social organization, LOMA Club, of which he was the president.
Awolowo attended Ibadan Grammar School, from where he proceeded to Leighton Park School, Reading, Berdshire inEngland for further studies. He was later admitted into the famous Leeds College of Commerce where he graduated in Business Studies in the early sixties.
He returned to Nigeria after his stay abroad at a time when his father was facing political persecution for his alleged role in the rocky politics of that period. It was at this time that he worked with several private and public enterprises, including the Nigerian Tobacco Company in Ibadan, the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation and the Nigerian Television service in Lagos.
At a point, following the death of his lawyer elder brother, Olusegun Awolowo, in a 1963 car accident, he assumed serious roles in managing the family business and fortunes. It was also shortly after this period that he threw himself into active politics, working hard for the campaign to elect the late Otunba T.O.S. Benson as as Independent United Progressive Grand Alliance legislator in 1964.
The coup of 1966 turned him off completely from politics, and he threw himself into running businesses that ranged from transportation, to petroleum products dealership and Estate Development. He was also a director of Dideolu Stores Limited, Sopolu Investment Limited, amongst other business interests.
Although he was a self-confessed born again Christian who became an evangelist in the Anglican Communion, he struggled with addiction to gambling for a period of his life. He was also seen as a “committed socialist” by his political associates.
Oluwole Awolowo is survived by an aged mother, wife, children and grand-children.