Obafemi Awolowo - Early Life

Early Life

Chief Obafemi Awolowo was born on March 6, 1909 in Ikenne, present day Ogun State Nigeria. His father was a farmer and sawyer who died when Obafemi was only seven years old. He attended various schools, and then became a teacher in Abeokuta, after which he qualified as a shorthand typist. Subsequently, he served as a clerk at the famous Wesley college, as well as a correspondent for the Nigerian Times. It was after this that he embarked on various business ventures to help raise funds to travel to the UK for further studies. In 1949 Awolowo founded the Nigerian Tribune, the oldest surviving private Nigerian newspaper, which he used to spread nationalist consciousness among his fellow Nigerians.

Read more about this topic:  Obafemi Awolowo

Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:

    Pray be always in motion. Early in the morning go and see things; and the rest of the day go and see people. If you stay but a week at a place, and that an insignificant one, see, however, all that is to be seen there; know as many people, and get into as many houses as ever you can.
    Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)

    Anyone who attempts to relate his life loses himself in the immediate. One can only speak of another.
    Augusto Roa Bastos (b. 1917)