Is S.L Akintola Heroe or Villain?

By Jamiu Ajiboye Owolabi

Yoruba Ronu is a popular phrase that has been passed down to two generations in Yorubaland.

The phrase is credited to Chief Hurbert Ogunde, also known as Baba Ogunde. He performed a staged play titled Yoruba Ronu in Obisesan Hall, Ibadan, in 1964.

In attendance was the then Premier of the defunct Western Region, Chief S.L. Akintola, who was said to have walked out of the hall alongside his ministers while the play was still in progress.

Chief S.L Akintola’s reaction is understandable, given the fact that the play was produced to address the disunity caused by the political rivalries between him and his predecessor, Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

The play must have left Chief S.L. Akintola unsettled because he was, at that time, a beneficiary of the crisis, even though he died as a victim. What started as a political rivalry in 1960 gradually graduated to the western region crisis of 1962, and by 1964, when the staged play was performed, the western region was in severe trouble.

The crisis did not end until one of the actors in it, Chief SL Akintola, was assassinated in 1966. The crisis cost the Yoruba land more than necessary, as many lives were lost while houses were burnt. It was the fallout from the crisis that led to the allegations that landed Chief Obafemi Awolowo in prison.

The crisis divided Yorubaland into two, giving external forces opportunities to explore the divisions to their advantage.

As mentioned in the Yoruba Ronu play song, Yoruba became a football kicked around by external forces. The crisis ridiculed the Yoruba Nation and brought disrepute to the Yoruba identity because nothing brings disrepute to a people more than forming alliances with external forces to fight themselves.

This is against the core values of the Yoruba Nation, and this leads us to the origin of the rivalry.

There is an oral account claiming that Chief Obafemi Awolowo attempted to overthrow S. L. Akintola after losing his contest for the prime ministerial seat at the Federal House of Representatives.

How this account survived for so long is unclear, given that it is a distorted version of reality. What happened, in actual fact, was an institutional crisis. It was a crisis over party supremacy.

Chief Awolowo was the chairman of the Action Group, while S. L. Akintola was the vice chairman. Since the party took over the government of the Western Region in 1954, the government followed the party’s policies in its administration of the region.

However, after succeeding Chief Awolowo as the Premier of the region, S. L. Akintola deviated from party policies in his administration. Chief Awolowo was not pleased with this deviation and, in response, approached S. L. Akintola in his capacity as the chairman of the party. S. L. Akintola played the ostrich and moved on with his ideas.

For instance, the Cocoa Marketing Board was established by the Awolowo administration on the recommendation of the party to stabilise the fluctuating price of cocoa. Cocoa farmers were running at a loss due to price instability, and to address this challenge, the board was established.

The board purchased cocoa from farmers at a fixed price and resold it to international buyers. With this arrangement, the board bore the loss whenever the price of cocoa fell. S. L. Akintola, upon resuming office as premier, expressed concern over the arrangement and proceeded to increase the fixed price of cocoa.

His decision was clearly aimed at gaining popularity among farmers who were, at the time, loyal to Awolowo.

The price readjustment later backfired when the price of cocoa fell drastically, causing the board to run at a loss.
Furthermore, Chief Awolowo believed that S. L. Akintola was threatened by his popularity and was ready to go to any length to outshine him.

The greatest mistake of Akintola was not writing an autobiography or leaving behind any form of written account of his side of the story. Such an autobiography would have saved us from a series of interpretations and misinterpretations of his actions.

Autobiography was one of the advantages Awolowo had over him, even in death, and historians can only write history based on available information. In one of the biographies written about S. L. Akintola, particularly the one authored by Femi Kehinde, it was noted that towards the end of his life, Akintola reflected on his actions and paused to question whether the position of premier he held was worth the trouble and chaos that engulfed the Western Region.

He did not have the privilege of governing a united Yorubaland as Awolowo did, and we can only speculate that if he had lived longer, he might have reunited with Chief Awolowo.

However, he left no evidence to support such a possibility.
On January 15, 1966, death came knocking on S. L. Akintola’s door. A military coup took place in Nigeria, and S. L. Akintola was one of its targets. Soldiers arrived at the premier’s lodge in Ibadan, where he resided, and repeatedly called on him to come out. “Akintola, come out,” they said. At that point, he was left with two options: to fight back or to surrender. It would have been unwise to fight back, as they outnumbered him, and he would also have put his family at risk. S.L. Akintola demonstrated his courage by bidding farewell to his family as he proceeded outside, where the soldiers awaited him.

As he stepped towards the entrance door, he was shot several times and fell to the ground, where he breathed his last. Yorubaland lost a leader, the Are-Ona-Kakanfo of Yorubaland returned to join his ancestors.
Finally, during his lifetime, S. L. Akintola was a lawyer, a journalist, a politician, a warrior, an orator, a husband, and a father.

He lived an impactful life, and despite the circumstances of his death and his rivalry with Awolowo, he remains one of the most discussed figures of the First Republic.