There was a problem in Nigeria’s Parliament in the mid 1960s that could not be solved by an ordinary election.
Obafemi Awolowo, one of the country’s most formidable politicians, was in prison. The man who had led the Action Group, served as Premier of the Western Region and become Leader of the Opposition at the federal level was no longer sitting in Parliament.
But his political movement had not disappeared.
And neither had the woman who had helped sustain it.
Hannah Idowu Dideolu Awolowo was already a successful businesswoman, political organiser and influential figure in Remo. Now, with her husband imprisoned and his political future uncertain, she found herself at the centre of a remarkable political strategy.
The idea was simple but audacious. Hannah would represent the political interests of her imprisoned husband by contesting the parliamentary seat associated with him. If she succeeded, the arrangement could eventually create a route for Awolowo to return to Parliament.
It was a plan born in one of the most bitter periods of Nigeria’s First Republic.
But the story is more complicated than the popular version suggests.
Hannah’s political campaign took place amid an opposition boycott, a deeply divided Action Group, competing alliances, electoral controversy and growing political violence. Her husband did not return to Parliament through the plan.
Yet the episode revealed just how politically important Hannah Awolowo had become.
Before the political crisis, Hannah was already building a life of her own
Hannah Idowu Dideolu Adelana was born on 25 November 1915 in Ikenne, in present day Ogun State.
She married Obafemi Awolowo on 26 December 1937.
At that time, Awolowo had not yet become the nationally recognised political giant who would dominate Western Nigerian politics. His career was still developing, and his ambitions extended far beyond the immediate world of Ikenne and Remo.
Hannah became an important part of that journey.
She developed a successful business career and became involved in trading and distribution. Her commercial activities included textiles and lace, and in 1957 she became the first Nigerian distributor of the Nigerian Tobacco Company.
This was significant because the family’s financial security gave Awolowo greater freedom to pursue political and intellectual work.
Hannah was not simply waiting at home while her husband built a political career.
She was building alongside him.
The couple’s partnership eventually extended into the newspaper business. Awolowo founded the Nigerian Tribune in 1949, creating an important platform for the political ideas and nationalist arguments associated with his movement.
Behind the public politician was therefore a private family economy in which Hannah played a substantial role.
Her contribution was not always visible from the political podium, but it mattered.
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Hannah’s connection to Remo politics ran deep
The political story cannot be understood without understanding Remo.
Awolowo’s rise was closely connected to the politics of the area, but Hannah also possessed important family and community connections.
She came from a prominent Ikenne background associated with the Lijadu royal family and the Obara family.
These connections became politically valuable in a society where formal political organisations existed alongside older networks of family, community, traditional authority and local influence.
Historian Insa Nolte has described the political relationship between Obafemi and Hannah Awolowo as involving a kind of division of labour.
Awolowo operated more visibly in formal politics, while Hannah provided access to and mobilised less visible social and community resources.
That distinction is important.
In the politics of the period, influence did not always come from holding an official position.
It could come from knowing people, maintaining relationships, supporting community networks and understanding how local society worked.
Hannah understood that world.
Then the Action Group broke apart
The political crisis that eventually placed Hannah at the centre of national politics began with the collapse of the relationship between Obafemi Awolowo and Samuel Ladoke Akintola.
The two men had once been leading figures in the Action Group.
Awolowo was the party’s dominant intellectual and political leader, while Akintola had become Premier of the Western Region.
By the early 1960s, their relationship had deteriorated dramatically.
The disagreement became a struggle over political leadership, the direction of the Action Group and the future of the Western Region.
In 1962, the crisis exploded.
The federal government declared a state of emergency in the Western Region. Awolowo and other Action Group leaders were arrested and later prosecuted for conspiracy and treasonable felony.
Awolowo was eventually convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison.
The imprisonment removed the most powerful figure in the Action Group from active political life.
But it did not remove his supporters from politics.
And it placed Hannah in an entirely different position.
Hannah was pushed into a larger political role
Before the crisis, Hannah had already participated in political activities.
She had been associated with Egbe Omo Oduduwa and the women’s organisation of the Action Group. She accompanied her husband to political events and sometimes addressed party supporters.
But after Awolowo’s imprisonment, the scale of her political involvement changed.
She became one of the visible figures representing the Awolowo camp.
The timing was particularly painful.
While Awolowo was dealing with his imprisonment, the family suffered another devastating blow.
Their first son, Segun Awolowo, died in a motor accident in July 1963.
Hannah was therefore dealing with political persecution and personal grief at the same time.
Yet she continued participating in political activities.
For supporters of the Awolowo movement, she became a rallying point.
The opposition formed a new alliance
The political situation became even more complicated when the Action Group faction loyal to Awolowo joined forces with other opposition groups.
This led to the formation of the United Progressive Grand Alliance, commonly known as UPGA.
The alliance brought together the Awolowo faction of the Action Group and the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons, led by Dr Michael Okpara, along with other progressive political groups.
Opposing them was the Nigerian National Alliance, or NNA.
The NNA brought together the Northern People’s Congress and Akintola’s Nigerian National Democratic Party, among other allies.
Nigeria was therefore heading towards a federal election in which the major political alliances were deeply polarised.
Awolowo could not campaign.
Hannah could.
And that made her politically important.
The plan to use Hannah’s candidacy to open a door for Awolowo
One of the most intriguing aspects of the period was the idea that Hannah could contest the federal parliamentary seat associated with her imprisoned husband.
The logic was straightforward.
If Hannah won, she could subsequently relinquish the seat, creating the possibility of a by-election in which Awolowo could attempt to return to Parliament if circumstances permitted.
This was not simply a sentimental gesture.
It was a political calculation.
Awolowo was still regarded by his supporters as the central figure of their movement. Keeping his political base alive while he was imprisoned was crucial.
Hannah therefore became a possible bridge between an imprisoned leader and the electorate that had supported him.
The seat was in Remo, the political environment in which both Hannah and Awolowo had deep roots.
Her opponent was Prince Adeleke Adedoyin, a prominent Remo politician and lawyer who contested under the Nigerian National Alliance.
Adedoyin was no political lightweight.
He had already played an important role in Western Nigerian politics and had previously been associated with the legislature.
The contest consequently brought together two powerful political networks.
But then came the boycott
This is where the story becomes more complicated than the popular retelling.
The federal parliamentary election was scheduled for 30 December 1964.
The UPGA called for a boycott of the election.
The opposition alliance argued that the electoral conditions were unacceptable, and the boycott became part of the wider political confrontation.
This created an extraordinary situation for Hannah.
She was associated with the UPGA and its campaign against the election, yet her name became tied to the contest for the Remo seat.
Some later accounts describe her as the UPGA candidate who contested the seat against Adedoyin.
Other accounts, including recollections from within the Awolowo camp, emphasise that Hannah herself honoured the UPGA boycott and did not participate in the election in the conventional sense.
The distinction is important.
The election was not a normal two-way contest in which Hannah simply campaigned, won or lost.
The political circumstances were far more complicated.
Adeleke Adedoyin was declared the winner
Adedoyin was declared the winner of the Remo parliamentary contest.
The result did not end the controversy.
Supporters of Hannah and the Awolowo movement believed that the outcome did not reflect the wishes of many Remo voters.
Later accounts from the Awolowo family alleged that Hannah’s support had been suppressed and that votes associated with her were not properly counted.
Oluwole Awolowo, Hannah’s son, later recalled the family’s belief that her votes had not been counted and that many Remo people believed she had actually won.
But there is another important historical detail.
Because the UPGA had called for a boycott, establishing precisely how many voters would have supported Hannah in a normal competitive election is difficult.
The controversy therefore became part of the political memory of the Awolowo movement rather than a straightforward case of a candidate whose officially recorded victory was overturned.
What is certain is that Adedoyin emerged as the declared winner, while the Awolowo camp rejected the legitimacy of the political process surrounding the election.
The result had consequences beyond one parliamentary seat
Adedoyin’s victory did not simply determine who represented Remo.
It affected the balance of political influence in the area.
Remo politics was already complicated by longstanding disputes involving political factions, traditional authority and local identities.
The relationship between political parties and traditional institutions was particularly important.
Political competition could influence questions about who controlled local institutions and how authority was exercised.
Party politics was becoming deeply embedded in community life.
Political songs were used during campaigns. Local organisations became involved in mobilisation. Traditional affiliations and family networks could shape political loyalties.
The contest between Hannah and Adedoyin therefore formed part of a much larger struggle over the future political direction of Remo.
The political crisis grew worse in 1965
If the 1964 federal election was turbulent, the following year was even worse.
The Western Region went to the polls again in 1965.
This time, the political conflict between the rival factions became increasingly violent.
The election became associated with intimidation, disorder and widespread controversy.
The political crisis eventually contributed to the atmosphere in which Nigeria’s First Republic collapsed.
On 15 January 1966, military officers overthrew the civilian government in Nigeria’s first military coup.
The political world into which Hannah had stepped was disappearing.
The parliamentary route she had hoped might help bring her husband back into public political life had failed.
But the role she had played during the crisis had already established her as an important political figure.
Hannah was much more than the wife of a famous politician
The story is sometimes reduced to a romantic sentence.
Hannah loved her husband.
She supported him.
She tried to help him return to Parliament.
All of that is part of the story.
But it is not the whole story.
Hannah Awolowo was also a businesswoman who helped provide financial stability for her family. She was involved in political organisation. She understood the importance of local networks. She worked with women’s political groups. She travelled for campaigns. She maintained relationships with supporters when her husband could not do so himself.
Her political importance did not begin when Awolowo entered prison.
His imprisonment simply made it impossible to ignore.
The famous image of Awolowo as the political strategist and Hannah as the supportive wife therefore leaves out a crucial part of the historical picture.
She was participating in the political work herself.
The political partnership continued after prison
Awolowo eventually left prison in 1966, following the political upheaval that accompanied the military takeover.
The return of military rule did not end the couple’s political partnership.
When Nigeria returned to civilian government in the Second Republic, Awolowo once again became a major political figure.
He contested the presidential election in 1979 and again in 1983.
Hannah campaigned alongside him.
She travelled extensively, worked with party supporters and remained involved in political organisation.
This time, however, the objective was no longer simply to find a route back into Parliament.
Awolowo wanted the highest political office in the country.
He did not become President.
But Hannah’s presence throughout those campaigns demonstrated that her political role had survived the crisis of the First Republic.
A political woman in an era when women were rarely given the microphone
The significance of Hannah’s story becomes clearer when placed against the political culture of the period.
Nigeria’s early political institutions were overwhelmingly dominated by men.
Women participated in political organisations, mobilised voters, raised funds, organised campaigns and influenced political networks, but their contributions were frequently recorded as secondary to those of male politicians.
Hannah’s career complicates that picture.
She was not a member of Parliament.
She did not become a cabinet minister.
Yet she operated within political spaces where decisions were made and movements were organised.
Her influence often existed outside formal constitutional office.
That was precisely what made it powerful.
The woman behind Awolowo’s political survival
When Awolowo went to prison, the political movement surrounding him faced an obvious danger.
Without its leader, it could fragment.
Hannah became one of the people helping to prevent that political disappearance.
She did not succeed in returning her husband to Parliament through the Remo episode.
The election did not produce the political outcome the strategy had hoped for.
But the attempt itself tells us something important about how political power worked in Nigeria’s First Republic.
It was not confined to the chamber of Parliament.
It existed in homes, businesses, newspapers, party branches, women’s organisations, traditional institutions and community relationships.
Hannah occupied several of those worlds at once.
Why the Remo election still matters
The episode also shows how difficult it can be to separate personal loyalty from political strategy in history.
Hannah was Awolowo’s wife.
She was also a political actor.
Her decision to stand at the centre of the political struggle was shaped by both relationships and ideology.
For the Awolowo family, the parliamentary contest represented an opportunity to preserve their political influence while the family’s most prominent politician was imprisoned.
For their opponents, it was part of the wider contest for control of the Western Region and the federal government.
For voters in Remo, it was a local election shaped by much larger national conflicts.
That is why the story deserves to be remembered as more than a tale of a devoted wife trying to rescue her husband.
It was a story about political survival.
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The lasting significance of Hannah Awolowo
Hannah Idowu Dideolu Awolowo died on 19 September 2015, less than two months before her 100th birthday.
She was buried in Ikenne beside her husband, Obafemi Awolowo, the man whose political career had shaped much of her public life.
But history should not remember her only through him.
When Awolowo was imprisoned, Hannah did not disappear.
She stepped forward.
She entered the political struggle, supported the movement, worked through its women’s organisation, campaigned across the region and became involved in an extraordinary attempt to preserve her husband’s parliamentary future.
The attempt did not succeed.
Adeleke Adedoyin emerged as the declared winner of the Remo seat, and Awolowo did not return to Parliament through the plan.
Yet something else had already happened.
The political crisis had revealed Hannah Awolowo as a force in her own right.
Her story is therefore not simply about a wife trying to bring her imprisoned husband back to Parliament. It is about a woman who had already built a business, developed political influence and helped sustain one of Nigeria’s most important political movements at a moment when its leader could no longer stand before the crowd himself.
In the history of Nigeria’s First Republic, Obafemi Awolowo may have been the man on the political poster.
But when the poster’s face was taken away, Hannah remained.
And sometimes, the person who remains is the one who tells us how strong the movement really was.
Author’s Note
Hannah Awolowo’s attempt to help create a political route back to Parliament for her imprisoned husband reveals a side of Nigeria’s First Republic that is often overlooked. She was not merely the wife of Obafemi Awolowo but a successful businesswoman, political organiser and influential figure in Remo whose role became even more visible when her husband was imprisoned. Although the parliamentary strategy did not return Awolowo to the legislature, Hannah’s involvement demonstrated the importance of women, family networks, businesses and community structures in sustaining political movements beyond the formal walls of Parliament.
References
Awolowo, Oluwole. An Unbreakable Heritage: The Story of Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
Awolowo, Obafemi. My March Through Prison.
Nolte, Insa. Obafemi Awolowo and the Making of Remo: The Local Politics of a Nigerian Nationalist.
Nolte, Insa. “Identity and Violence: The Politics of Youth in Ijebu Remo, Nigeria.”
Nigerian National Archives and contemporary Nigerian newspaper records on the 1964 federal elections.
NigeriaLII. Prince Adeleke Adedoyin v Nigerian National Press Limited & Another, 1964.
The Nation. “Behind a Successful Awo, There Was an HID.”
Tribune Online. “Wale Adebanwi on Mama HID.”
