Nigerians’ Idea of Kindness appeared in the Sunday Post on 25 August 1968, at a time when Nigeria was undergoing civil war, military rule and sweeping political change. Written by Femi Oyawale, the essay examined what he saw as a recurring contradiction in Nigerian public and private life: people who received criticism, neglect or insufficient support while they were present could suddenly become objects of generosity, admiration or elaborate tribute after retirement, departure or death.
Oyawale used examples drawn from family life, employment, sport and politics to explore the difference between appreciation expressed in time and recognition that comes only after the moment of greatest need has passed.
His essay also reflected the world in which Nigerians were living during the 1960s, a period shaped by independence, political crisis, changing institutions and the emergence of nationally celebrated figures in politics and sport.
Nigerians’ Idea of Kindness and the World of the Sunday Post
The Sunday Post belonged to Nigeria’s expanding newspaper culture of the early post-independence era. Published in Lagos from the early 1960s and associated with Nigerian National Press, it appeared alongside the Morning Post and formed part of a growing national press environment.
Newspapers at the time served as more than channels for reporting political developments. They were important spaces for public argument, social criticism and discussions about the values of the newly independent country.
Femi Oyawale was part of this broader world of Nigerian public communication. His career included work in education, the Customs and Excise Department in Lagos, journalism, public information and public relations.
EXPLORE: Nigerian Civil War
In “Nigerians’ Idea of Kindness”, he turned his attention to ordinary behaviour and asked whether people sometimes withheld meaningful appreciation until circumstances had made that appreciation less useful.
Kindness That Arrived Too Late
The central idea running through Oyawale’s essay was timing.
He described situations in which people appeared to receive their greatest recognition only after an important stage of life had ended. A worker could serve an organisation for many years and be criticised throughout that period, only to receive generous praise and gifts at retirement.
A relative might struggle through difficult circumstances while alive, yet substantial amounts of money could suddenly become available once funeral arrangements began.
Sportsmen could be celebrated passionately at the height of their careers and later fade from public attention, only to be remembered again when their achievements belonged to the past.
For Oyawale, the problem was not the existence of praise, gifts or ceremonies. His concern was whether such gestures came at the time when they could make the greatest difference.
A retirement gift could certainly honour decades of service. A funeral could express deep affection and family responsibility. Public praise could preserve the reputation of a former athlete.
Yet his argument raised another question: could some of that gratitude, financial help or attention have been offered earlier?
That question linked almost every subject in the essay.
Obafemi Awolowo and the Memory of Western Nigeria
One of Oyawale’s most important political examples was Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
Awolowo had served as Premier of the Western Region during the 1950s and became associated with some of the most ambitious social and developmental programmes undertaken by a regional government in colonial and early independent Nigeria.
Among the best known was the introduction of free primary education in the Western Region in 1955. The programme dramatically increased access to schooling and became one of the defining achievements associated with the Action Group government.
Western Nigeria also made broadcasting history in 1959 with the establishment of Western Nigeria Television in Ibadan. Regular transmission began on 31 October 1959, making it Nigeria’s first television service and one of the earliest television operations on the African continent.
These programmes strengthened Awolowo’s reputation as a political leader strongly associated with education, social welfare and regional development.
The political environment changed sharply in the early 1960s.
A major struggle developed within the Action Group between Awolowo and the Western Regional Premier, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola. The disagreement involved questions of party leadership, political strategy and control of the regional government.
In May 1962, Governor Sir Adesoji Aderemi removed Akintola as Premier after concluding that he no longer commanded the support of the majority in the Western House of Assembly. Alhaji Dauda Soroye Adegbenro was subsequently appointed Premier.
Akintola challenged his removal in the courts, and the constitutional dispute ultimately reached the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
The conflict became part of a much wider political crisis in the Western Region. Disorder in the House of Assembly and deepening factional rivalry contributed to the Federal Government’s declaration of a state of emergency in the region in 1962.
The following years brought further instability, especially around the controversial 1965 Western Regional election, which was followed by widespread violence commonly associated with the period known as “Operation Wetie”.
By the time Oyawale wrote in 1968, memories of the political breakdown of the Western Region remained fresh.
His reference to Awolowo therefore carried considerable emotional and political weight. The development programmes associated with Awolowo’s years as Premier stood in sharp contrast to the turmoil that later consumed the region.
Awolowo himself had returned to national government by this period. During the Nigerian Civil War, he served as Deputy Chairman of the Federal Executive Council and Federal Commissioner for Finance.
Jimmy Omagbemi and the Memory of Nigerian Sporting Heroes
Sport provided Oyawale with another way of examining public recognition.
Jimmy Omagbemi was among Nigeria’s most prominent sprinters during the late colonial and early independence years.
At the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, he finished fifth in the 100 yards and was part of Nigeria’s silver-medal team in the 4 × 110 yards relay.
He also represented Nigeria at the Olympic Games and became one of the athletes associated with the country’s growing international sporting presence.
For Nigerians of Oyawale’s generation, athletes such as Omagbemi represented national achievement at a time when the country was building its identity on the international stage.
But athletic careers are short. The cheering that surrounds a successful competitor can quickly disappear once competition ends.
Oyawale used this contrast to ask what happened to national heroes after the crowds stopped watching them.
Hogan Bassey and a Generation of National Heroes
Another celebrated sporting personality in the essay was Hogan Bassey.
Bassey became one of Nigeria’s most famous boxers during the years before independence.
On 24 June 1957 in Paris, he fought Cherif Hamia for the vacant world featherweight championship. Bassey won and became world featherweight champion.
His victory was celebrated widely in Nigeria and helped establish him as one of the most important sporting personalities of his generation.
The achievement came three years before Nigerian independence and carried particular significance for a country approaching the end of colonial rule.
EXPLORE NOW: Military Era & Coups in Nigeria
By 1968, Bassey’s championship belonged to the recent past, making him an appropriate figure for Oyawale’s reflections on the changing fortunes of sporting heroes.
The applause surrounding victory was powerful, but Oyawale was interested in what happened when victory became memory.
Teslim “Thunderbolt” Balogun and Nigerian Football
Teslim Balogun was another major Nigerian sporting personality of the period.
One of the most celebrated footballers of his generation, Balogun became famous for his powerful style of play and was popularly known as “Thunderbolt” Balogun.
He played during an era when Nigerian football was developing rapidly both at home and internationally and later remained involved in the sport as a coach.
Balogun’s reputation extended beyond individual matches. He became part of the mythology of Nigerian football during the mid-twentieth century, remembered as a player whose strength and shooting ability made him instantly recognisable to football supporters.
His presence in a discussion about recognition and memory therefore fitted naturally into Oyawale’s wider argument about how societies treat people who once commanded public attention.
Funeral Culture, Family Obligation and Public Display
The most memorable part of Nigerians’ Idea of Kindness concerned death and burial.
Oyawale drew attention to situations in which considerable money might become available for funeral ceremonies even though the deceased had experienced financial difficulty or insufficient support while alive.
The contrast was deliberately uncomfortable.
Across many Nigerian communities, funerals have historically carried obligations extending far beyond the immediate household. Burial ceremonies can bring together extended families, lineages, religious communities, neighbours, friends and social associations.
Among Yoruba communities, funeral responsibilities have often involved contributions from relatives and members of the wider lineage.
In the Ikorodu area of Lagos State, for example, a traditional practice known as iwolefu developed around collective responsibility for burial expenses. Members of an extended family could contribute towards ceremonies associated with the death of a relative.
Such practices show why funeral expenditure cannot simply be understood as individual display.
A funeral could affirm kinship, maintain reciprocal obligations, honour the deceased and publicly acknowledge a person’s position within a family or community.
At the same time, the desire to provide a respectable burial could place considerable financial pressure on relatives. Expectations surrounding food, hospitality, clothing, ceremonies and attendance could turn funerals into expensive social occasions.
This was the contradiction that gave Oyawale’s argument its power.
If relatives could mobilise substantial resources for a burial, he asked, why might comparable urgency not always be shown when someone needed help while still alive?
Nigeria in 1968
The date of Oyawale’s article is essential to understanding its wider atmosphere.
Nigeria was at war.
The First Republic had collapsed following the military coups of 1966. The country experienced successive military governments, deep political tensions and extensive violence.
On 27 May 1967, the Federal Military Government replaced Nigeria’s four regions with twelve states.
Three days later, Lieutenant-Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu declared the Eastern Region the independent Republic of Biafra.
War began in July 1967.
By the time “Nigerians’ Idea of Kindness” appeared on 25 August 1968, the Nigerian Civil War had already entered its second year.
The old Western Region that Oyawale remembered had also disappeared administratively. Most of its territory had become Western State, while Lagos had been separated from it.
Nigeria was therefore reconsidering not only its territorial structure but also the political reputations of the people who had governed during the final colonial years and the First Republic.
Against such a background, reflections on memory and appreciation carried broader significance.
Political leaders who had once been criticised could be reconsidered after leaving office. Athletes could be remembered after their competitive careers. Workers could receive ceremonies at retirement. Families could organise elaborate tributes after death.
Across all these examples, Oyawale returned to the same question: why did appreciation sometimes become strongest only after an opportunity had passed?
Praise, Memory and Responsibility
The power of Nigerians’ Idea of Kindness came from the way Oyawale linked apparently unrelated areas of life.
A family funeral, the retirement of an employee, the reputation of a politician and the memory of a sportsman might seem to have little in common.
For Oyawale, however, they were connected by the timing of recognition.
Public memory often grows after absence.
A politician may be reassessed once another administration takes office. A sportsman’s achievements may appear more impressive when a new generation struggles to equal them. An employee’s years of service may be celebrated most warmly on the final day at work. A relative’s importance may become painfully clear after death.
Oyawale turned those ordinary experiences into a broader reflection on social responsibility.
The question was not whether people should celebrate retirement, honour national heroes or organise funerals.
It was whether appreciation could become more meaningful when expressed before departure rather than afterwards.
Conclusion
Femi Oyawale’s 1968 essay remains a revealing window into Nigerian public discussion during a turbulent period of the country’s history.
Through references to Obafemi Awolowo, Jimmy Omagbemi, Hogan Bassey, Teslim Balogun, retirement ceremonies and funeral obligations, Oyawale connected personal relationships with questions of national memory.
The figures he invoked belonged to a generation that had witnessed late colonial rule, independence, the crisis of the First Republic and the beginning of military government.
Awolowo’s educational and broadcasting programmes had transformed Western Nigeria. Omagbemi had carried Nigeria’s colours in international athletics. Hogan Bassey had become a world boxing champion. Teslim Balogun had earned a place among the legendary figures of Nigerian football.
Their stories allowed Oyawale to pose a deceptively simple question about gratitude.
Should people have to leave office, retire from competition, disappear from public life or die before the full extent of their contribution becomes visible?
More than half a century after the essay appeared, that question still gives Nigerians’ Idea of Kindness much of its force.
EXPLORE NOW: Democratic Nigeria
Author’s Note
Femi Oyawale’s essay captures an important feature of Nigerian intellectual life in the 1960s: newspapers were places where writers could move freely between politics, family life, sport and social customs in search of larger questions about society. His concern with the timing of gratitude remains particularly striking. Recognition has historical value because it shapes how societies remember people, but kindness has immediate value when it reaches people while they can still experience its effects. Oyawale’s article therefore preserves more than an opinion about manners. It records a conversation about responsibility, memory and public appreciation taking place in Nigeria during one of the most consequential periods in the country’s history.
References
Ajayi, S. A. “The Development of Free Primary Education Scheme in Western Nigeria, 1952–1966: An Analysis.” OGIRISI: A New Journal of African Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2010, pp. 1–12.
Boge, Faruq Idowu. “Iwolefu Funeral Insurance and the Socioeconomics of Burial Ceremony in Ikorodu Area of Lagos State.” Yoruba Studies Review, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2023, pp. 183–203.
Federation of Nigeria. Report of the Coker Commission of Inquiry into the Affairs of Certain Statutory Corporations in Western Nigeria. Federal Ministry of Information, Lagos, 1962.
Adegbenro v. Akintola, Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, 1963.
Nigeria Year Book for 1955. Lagos: Nigerian Government publication.
Olaniyi, Rasheed Oyewole. “Human Capital Development in Western Region, Nigeria, 1955–1968.” African Journal of Sustainable Development, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2016, pp. 113–133.
British Empire and Commonwealth Games. Official results of the 1958 Games, Cardiff.
Le Monde. Contemporary coverage of Hogan Bassey versus Cherif Hamia for the world featherweight championship, Paris, 24 June 1957.
Oyawale, Femi. “Nigerians’ Idea of Kindness.” Sunday Post, 25 August 1968.
