Background
He was born on July 22, 1923, at Uromi in Mid-west Nigeria, in an Ishan family. The son of Chief Okotako, a headmaster and customary court judge.
He was born on July 22, 1923, at Uromi in Mid-west Nigeria, in an Ishan family. The son of Chief Okotako, a headmaster and customary court judge.
Educated at Uromi and Owo and King’s College, Lagos. His father wanted him to study law, but he started to work as a reporter on the newspaper owned by Ur Nnamdi Azikiwe.
In 1944 he became editor of the ‘Southern Nigerian Defender”, then the “Daily Comet", from 1945 to 1947. Imprisoned for a seditious article, he was released and then imprisoned again lor a seditious speech. But he went on to become assistant editor of the “West African Pilot” and editor of the “Nigerian Star".
He had always been in Azikiwe’s National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons, he left in 1951 and formed the Mid-west Action Group, which merged with Chief Awolowo’s Action Group in April 1951. Elected to the Western Region House of Assembly on an Action Group ticket, he became Assistant Secretary of the party. A brief spell in the Federal Assembly followed, w.hcn he resisted an attempt by a colonial officer to unseat him because of his previous convictions. Then, in the Western Region government, he became the first Minister of Home Affairs in 1954, adding Mid-west Affairs to his portfolio in September 1957.
In 1958 he was Chairman of the Mid-west Advisory Council representing minority interests. In 1959 he returned to Federal Parliament and became shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Action Group opposition.
By 1962 Nigeria was already on the slippery slope to civil war. Violence erupted in the West, resulting in the riots in the Western Region House of Assembly on May 25, 1962. It was then that Enahoro made the prophetic pronouncement, “I think something has started here today . . . that is going to go much further than most of us imagine. ’
Shortly afterwards, he was arrested, restricted and detained along with Chief Awolowo. He escaped as he awaited the famous treason trial and drove over the frontier towards Ghana, finally making his way to Britain.
He was arrested in London and detained for six months in Brixton Prison. Extradition proceedings were started and after a major political row in Britain, he was finally deported to Nigeria on June 24, 1963. He was then immediately put on trial in Nigeria and sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment, which was later reduced to seven years on appeal.
It was not until after the second Nigerian coup that he was released at the same time as Chief Awolowo on August 2, 1966, in a gesture by General Gowon to reach a settlement with those politicians who had not been involved in the old civilian regime.
At first, like Chief Awolowo and other Westerners, he adopted an indecisive stance as the dispute between the East and North of Nigeria developed. He led the Mid-west delegation to the ad hoc Constitutional Conference in September 1966, and served on the ad hoc committee charged with finding a workable constitution for the nation. But shortly before the showdown with the East, he agreed to join the Federal government and swung his state into a pro-federal stance. He was one of the 12 commissioners, one from each state, offered a job in June 1967, when he became Commissioner for Information and Labour.
His task was to rally the Nigerian public to the war effort and to the idea of preserving “One Nigeria". He played an important personal part in ensuring increased arms supplies from Britain and Russia, particularly MiG 15 fighter trainers. He also presented the Federal proposals at the Kampala peace talks in May 1968, when the Biafrans were asked to give up secession and accept the new order in the Federation. He led the delegation to the Addis Ababa talks in August and presented similar pro-posals.
Since the war he has had major preoccupations as Commissioner of Labour in holding down wage increases and as Commissioner for Information in maintaining the correct balance between the freedom of the press and the need for national stability and security.
A practical, reliable and realistic politician, one of the early nationalist leaders, with as much of a following in the Midwest as his Action Group colleague. Chief Awolowo, had in the West. Twice a prison graduate and then arrested in the famous Action Group treason trial, he fled the country and became the focus of attention in a famous British extradition case, to be arrested and imprisoned again, when he returned home. The most productive period in his political career has been since June 1967, when he was appointed Nigeria’s Commissioner for Information, where he did much more than simply rally the people to the war effort and “one Nigeria".