Described as "one who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence" Akinwande Oluwole (Wole) Soyinka was awarded the Nobel prize in literature in 1986 in recognition of his contribution to the English literature. Twenty nine years before then (1957) Soyinka had graduated with First Class Honours in English Literature at the University of Leeds.
Born on 13 July 1934 in Isara-remo, Ogun State in Nigeria's South West. Wole Soyinka is a playwright, Human rights activist, teacher and Hunter among others. In 1975, he became a Professor of Comparative literature at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University). Soyinka would be named an Emeritus Professor in the same school about 25 years later. Professor Soyinka was awarded honorary doctorates at Yale, Leeds and Princeton Univeristies.
Soyinka has held Professorial Chairs at Yale,Cornell,Sheffield, Cambridge, Emory University Atlanta, University of Nevada Las Vegas and the Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles.
When Civil war broke out in 1967 in Nigeria, Soyinka travelled to the seccesionist (Biafra) region in an attempt to avert the war, he was arrested by the federal government and locked up in jail for about two years without facing trial. Soyinka will continue to fight military tyranny and oppresion in Nigeria and elsewhere around the world. Soyinka openly criticized dictatorship regimes in apartheid South Africa, Zimbabwe, Idi Amin's Uganda, and Thailand among others.
In 1994, Soyinka was appointed UNESCO goodwill ambassador for the promotion of African culture, human rights, freedom of expression, media and communication. Years before then, informed by a colleague at the University that the Ori Olokun - a highly prized bronze head of a yoruba god beleived to have been stolen from Nigeria by british colonialists - had been sighted in Brazil, Soyinka travelled to that Country to rescue the Ori Olokun only to realize that the bronze head he 'liberated' was a British Museum copy. In his memoir you must set forth at dawn, Soyinka claims that he later traced the Original artwork to the British Museum.
Soyinka has several acclaimed works. His play Kongi's harvest opened the first International festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal in 1966. The road another play won the grand prix in that same festival. Critics say his last memoir you must set forth at dawn would have won the Nobel again if it were possible to win it twice!
Wole Soyinka is noted for his outspoken criticism of the military government (which he describes as "the oppressive boot and the irrelivance of the colour of the foot that wears it") and has been victim of persecution from them. In 1994, Soyinka fled into exile through the Republic of Benin on a motorcycle to escape from the General Sani Abacha led regime. He would be sentenced to death (in absentia) in 1997 by the same regime. Abacha's death squad were known to hunt him even in exile.
Abacha's regime was described by Soyinka as one that does not beleive in innocence following the flippant kidnapping, arrest and detention without trial of innocent civilians who were either perceived as opposition to the government or are relatives of such oppositions. These victims included minors.
Kongi as he is fundly called turned 76 on July 13, 2010.
Olalekan Akinbamijo
(This article was originally published on 13 July,2010 in commemoration of Professor Soyinka's 76th Birthday).
