GCFR · Grand Commander of the Federal RepublicPremier, Western Region · Leader of Opposition · 1979 & 1983 UPN presidential candidate· Conferred 2022-05-22 · by Muhammadu Buhari
Chief Obafemi Awolowo
Architect of free primary education in the Western Region, Federal Commissioner for Finance during the Civil War, leader of the Action Group and later the Unity Party of Nigeria. Posthumous GCFR, 2022.
The record
Obafemi Jeremiah Oyeniyi Awolowo (1909–1987) — "the best President Nigeria never had" — founded the Action Group in 1951, served as Premier of the Western Region (1954–59), and pioneered the Free Universal Primary Education programme that gave the West its educational head start. Imprisoned for treasonable felony in 1962 and released in 1966, he served as Federal Commissioner for Finance (1967–71) under Gowon and engineered the wartime economic management that financed the Federal side without runaway inflation.
He contested and lost the 1979 and 1983 presidential elections on the platform of the Unity Party of Nigeria. The posthumous GCFR (22 May 2022) recognises a public life of more than four decades.
Tier 1 · primary
Courts. Gazettes. National archives.
Tier 2 · corroborating
OCCRP. HRW. BudgIT. TheCable.
Tier 4 · tertiary, flagged
Wikipedia only where primary is pending. Always labelled.