Yesterday, Professor Oluwole Akinwande Soyinka turned 80years of age. Fondly called WS among the literati, we deem it appropriate to pay tributes to this great African as well as x-ray his several contributions in the service to humanity. Soyinka has pursued with vigour and commitment, the need for Nigeria to reach its full potentials and in the process had collusion with the Establishment. An activist who uses his talents to provoke compelling conversations with his native land like few others, making case that the Nigeria state cannot forever take its citizens for granted. Language, the source of Soyinka’s fame, is also the reason for his alienation by the average reader. The Nobel Laureate is a man of complex locution. Mostly misunderstood and misrepresented as a “troublemaker”, but upon close scrutiny, it would be discovered that his love for his country spurs his actions. Besides his political forays, the density and immensity of his literature is perhaps the major thing that trademarks him. The fact is, there can be no indolent or perfunctory reading of Soyinka; his literary rampart is impregnable. You peruse him; then the fortress can give way.
Born in 1934 in Abeokuta, Ogun state, Soyinka comes from a background of highly educated and influential parentage. His mother was a sister to the lateFunmilayo Ransome Kuti, mother of musical icon, Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Both sisters infused political consciousness in him very early in life.During the several military misadventures in power, spanning the greater part of our recent history, he stood firm in his determination to see democracy restored and civil liberties respected. He helped galvanize an already cowed civil populace into action and with a razor sharp mind for proper analysis, internationalized the struggle for ridding Nigeria of despots when it appeared all hope had eclipsed.The language employed by the playwright in his prison memoir remains till date, in a class of its own. Set in the Civil War Nigeria, his book; ‘The Man Died’ is a riveting account of the atrocities perpetrated by the military regime against the civil populace in which the author was also a major victim of solitary confinement without trial for fifteen grueling months.
Even then, in spite, of all his contributions towards sustainable democracy and good governance, he remains a mythic figure; no wonder he gleefully announced to the world that his 80th birthday would be spent in the forest.In recognition of this genius in 1986, he became the first black man to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Award Committee described him as one “who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence”.His life and travails have taught Nigerians several lessons part of which is that we must not allow military rule in our land again. The military, as it is the practice in developed climes, must subordinate itself to all civil authorities. The rule of law must become an article of faith with any infraction attracting condign sanctions from a truly independent and apolitical judiciary. No one should also keep quiet in the face of injustice or tyranny and neither race, tribe, colour nor religion should henceforth define our lives but the content of our character. Very importantly, those in power must be committed to the welfare of the citizens. All these and many more are what Soyinka has always stood for that have made him deserving of all the accolades and encomiums we can shower on him on his birthday.
Congratulations to Prof. Wole Soyinka, Nigeria’s intellectual avatar, on this grand occasion of his 80th birthday.
