Obafemi Awolowo’s Socialist Principle as a Panacea to Underdevelopment in Nigeria

This article on “Obafemi Awolowo’s Socialist principle: A panacea for underdevelopment in Nigeria” is an effort at synthesizing Awolowo’s socio-political ideas and problems of underdevelopment through socialist principles. This effort is informed by the choice of a suitable model of development to lift Africa out of the shackles of underdevelopment. Nigeria as a third world country lags behind as a result of institutional and structural decay amplified by high level of poverty, ignorance superstitious, underutilizing of resources, low life expectancy, low real per capital   income, inequality, experience from the pre-colonial, colonial and contemporary post- colonial era. Using Nigeria as a major actor struggling to navigate out of the problems of underdevelopment, the paper through historical, conceptual clarifications and evaluation systematically emphasises on the adoption and implementation of Awolowo’s socialist principles as a remedy to the problem of underdevelopment. The findings shows that emphasis should be placed on education because it plays a vital role towards Nigeria quest for development. It is through mass education that the ethnic and cultural barriers can be broken down.  To address the ill characterized by underdevelopment, the paper recommends Awolowo’s democratic socialism an ideological basis for development drive Nigeria through which a return to the Nigeria people indigenous ways of life under which political leadership and rulership were people oriented. Also, the wellbeing of the citizens and brotherhood of nations should be pursued vigorously which will eventually lead to egalitarianism. Keywords: Obafemi Awolowo, Development, Underdevelopment, Socialism, Socialist principles.