In an interview with the Nigerian Tribune some years ago, Chief Gabriel O. Ohwo, a retired Superintendent of the dreaded Calabar Prisons under the Eastern Nigeria Government, recounted how Chief Obafemi Awolowo reacted on August 3, 1966, to the announcement of his release.
“It was August 3, 1966, when General Yakubu Gowon ordered that Awolowo should be freed, but I did not allow him to be released that day. I went to the prison that morning. He had already heard on the news that he was to be set free that day.
When I got there, I said, ‘Papa, I hope you will not be annoyed if I do not let you go today.’
He replied, ‘No. As a law student, you know that unlawful imprisonment is when you are detained against your will. But right now, I have been set free. Nobody is detaining me against my will. It is my own wish. So, at your pleasure, I can stay here until it pleases you to release me.’
I said, ‘Thank you, sir.'”
“Why I did not want to release him that day was because the Calabar people were the ones in charge of the Action Group in Eastern Nigeria at the time. They were the ones fighting for him because of the imprisonment. If I had released him that day, they would have swarmed him, and who knows, some elements in the crowd might have found a loophole to kill him. That was what I was trying to avoid. I wanted the atmosphere to settle down first.
So I released him when everyone thought he had already left. I drove to the prison as early as 5 a.m., put him in my car, and drove him to the Calabar airport. I made sure the small aircraft that came to convey him had taken off before I left the airport. Everything I did impressed him greatly,” he said.
When asked about claims that it was the Eastern Nigerian Government under Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu that released Awolowo, Ohwo, an indigene of Delta State, said:
“It is not true. Awo’s imprisonment was not a state matter, so Ojukwu could not have released him. It was Gowon who released him. It was the Federal Government, which was in charge of the prisons, that released him.”
— Ethnic African Stories