WOLE SOYINKA AT 90 – a harvest of celebrations
By Femi Olugbile
A major event took place recently in the world of Literature. It was the 90th birthday of Wole Soyinka.
Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka was born in Abeokuta on the 13th of July 1934. His father was headmaster in a primary school in the suburb of Ake. His mother was a teacher. He was one of six siblings.
He attended Government College Ibadan, and then proceeded to the University of Ibadan to study Greek, English and History.
In 1957, he obtained a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from the University of Leeds.
His fame as a playwright and theatre producer rapidly came to the fore, with the production of ‘The Swamp Dwellers’ for the University of London Drama festival in 1958, and later The Lion and the Jewel’ in Ibadan.
He has not looked back since, churning out a daunting profusion of theatre and radio plays, as well as poetry, prose, and commentary.
He participated in the founding of the Drama Association of Nigeria in 1964.
Drama of a different sort would soon engage him, bringing danger and also a fascinating mystique. In 1965, Western Nigeria was going through what can only be described as an existential crisis. An openly rigged election was followed by a planned broadcast by the incumbent Premier of the Region, Chief Ladoke Akintola on the network of the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation (WNBC). The Premier’s message had already been recorded on tape and was due to be broadcast at a scheduled time. Just before the hour, a mystery figure – described as ‘a lone gunman’ entered the premises of the broadcasting station, held up the staff at gunpoint, removed the Akintola tape, and inserted his own pre-recorded tape. To the consternation of the government, and the excited delight of a long-suffering public, a torrent of derisory commentary against the corruption and brazen moral turpitude of the political leaders of the Region was unleashed on the air.
The gunman vanished into thin air.
That identity of the ‘lone gunman’ was discussed in hushed whispers. Those people who knew Wole Soyinka as a passionate social activist and founding member and ‘Captain Blood’ of ‘Pyrates Confraternity’ suspected it was he.
So did the government, apparently.
Soyinka was arrested and put in prison. Following the turbulent maelstrom of subsequent events, he was released after three months.
His novel, ‘The Interpreters’ was published in 1965. In the same year, he directed the production of Kongi’s Harvest in Lagos.
Soyinka’s life itself has been a portrayal of ‘The Writer as Activist’ – the poet who was not content to portray history but insisted on participating in it.
As the clouds of Civil War gathered over the Nigerian nation, he embarked on furtive meetings across the nation to try to avert the looming catastrophe. Even after the commencement of hostilities, he did not relent, undertaking an excursion behind Biafran lines to parley with Odumegwu Ojukwu.
For his efforts, he was imprisoned by the military government of Nigeria, and held in solitary confinement for twenty-seven months.
Out his experience in prison came the book ‘The Man Died’ which was published in 1972.
Other books and theatre productions followed – ‘The Road’, ‘Madmen and Specialists’, ‘A Shuttle in the Crypt’, ‘Season of Anomy’, ‘Collected Plays I’, ‘Collected Plays II’.
He received an Honorary PhD from the University of Leeds, and later became an Overseas Fellow at Churchill College and a Visiting Professor of English at the University of Sheffield.
A stint as Professor of English at the University of Ife from 1975 made him a natural focus for human rights and pro-democracy activism in a turbulent period of Nigeria’s history, as well as stirring up an intellectual ferment in the University.
A cascade of local and international honours followed for his Art, which was in full bloom, and which was enhanced by his unusual readiness to roll up his sleeves and fight the wrongs he decried.
When he won the 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature, the Swedish Academy described him as ‘one of the finest playwrights that have written in English’.
The fighter in him was not done. He continued to write and to speak out. In 1997 the Abacha dictatorship that had taken control of Nigeria charged him with treason. Exile followed.
Abacha passed into history.
For Soyinka, the restless muse, the creative juices continue to flow still, as does the passion to shape a better reality in Nigeria, in Africa, and in all the world.
The celebration of the literary icon’s 90th birthday kicked off at the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco in Rabat with a Symposium, Poetry Readings and Gala Night on the 9th of July this year. Soyinka was presented with a Gold Medal ‘For contribution to the development of World Literature’ by the World Organisation of Writers. An anthology titled ‘Voyage of 90 Years with Kongi’, edited by Onyeka Nwelue and Abraham Aondoana, has just been published. Other celebrations have followed in Nigeria.
Soyinka applauds the growth of young talent in Literature in Nigeria, and continues to serve as inspiration to people striving to serve the public good. He has chafed at the misuse of Social Media and the poisoning of social discourse with vitriol and verbiage in the recent past in Nigeria.
At 90, he is not about to go off quietly into the sunset. He is still an active pen, a moving presence, and a voice that has paid its dues in the struggle and insists it is not finished.
He is much else besides – a connoisseur of fine wines, including palm wine. A husband to his wife Folake and a father to his ten children. A man with a mythical preoccupation with Ogun, the god of iron. And the first indigenous African to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Human Angle rises to celebrate the grand old man of African Literature, Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka.
