The Price of Liberty
Personality and Politics in Colonial Nigeria

This is an account of de-colonialization in Nigeria as seen through the eyes of a Nigerian political leader who was closely involved in the process.

Kenneth W. J. Post (Author), George D. Jenkins (Author)

9780521086929, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 December 2008

508 pages
21 x 15 x 2.8 cm, 0.74 kg

This is an account of de-colonialization in Nigeria as seen through the eyes of a Nigerian political leader who was closely involved in the process. This book is therefore partly a biography of a man, Adegoke Adelabu; much more though, it tells in a highly personal and intriguing way how a Nigerian politician operated in the last years of colonial rule. The story of Adelabu's life is an interesting one. He is an example of one of the 'new men' who led African nations to independence in the fifties and sixties. His family was not closely connected with the traditional chieftainships of his native city, Ibadan, but he was sufficiently well placed to take advantage of such secondary school education as was available to African boys in the thirties. After a number of vicissitudes, involving abortive careers as a government official, working for one of the big British trading concerns and on his own account, Adelabu found his role as a popular leader and 'boss' of Ibadan politics.

1. Setting for a Career
2. Early Life
3. A Political Apprenticeship
4. The Bloodless Revolution
5. Adelabu Enters National Politics
6. The Political Mind of Adelabu, 1952
7. In Search of a Political Instrument
8. Toward the Mastery of Ibadan
9. Widening Horizons
10. The Uses of Power
11. A Time of Troubles
12. Adelabu in Opposition
13. To London and Back
14. Final Battles
15. Death of a Hero.

Subject Areas: General & world history [HBG]