Permit me to express my infatuation with Professor Wole Soyinka’s ideas and work, whose international reputation as a playwright and writer tends to outweigh his stature as an accomplished poet and social critic. It was this combination that invoked the muse in him to mock the All Progressive Congress over their loss of the July 16 Osun State governorship election to the Peoples Democratic Party and governor-elect, Senator Ademola Adeleke; the scion of Adeleke family reputed for grassroots politics and mobilisation. The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari(retd.), while congratulating him described his victory as people’s wish.
He asserted that the outcome of the election indicated that the late Bola Ige’s voice resounded from the grave where he was buried after he was assassinated in a gruesome manner at his Bodija-Ibadan residence on December 23, 2001 while serving as the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice. In a statement issued on Sunday immediately after the Independent National Electoral Commission declared the outcome of the election, entitled, “Osun State elections: Ige’s voice”, the Nobel Laureate wrote, “The voice of Ajibola Ige, slain Minister of Justice, resounds from the grave. Those who conspired to catapult his destroyers to unmerited national prominence to insult the memories of the living, and jettison basic ethical constraints have been justly served. Although, Soyinka did not mention anybody’s name but a PUNCH Newspaper reporter, in his explanation wrote, “The playwright in April 2022 protested against the emergence of a former deputy governor of Osun State, Chief Iyiola Omisore, as the APC National Publicity Secretary at the 2022 National Convention held between April 26 and 27, where 77 national officers emerged.”
It is at this stage one may ask what Soyinka actually wants. Does he want the trial re-visited as demanded by him from the President? Does he want fresh suspects arrested and tried? I am not a lawyer; neither do I have the mandate of Omisore to launder his image. But one thing that could be derived from Soyinka’s statement is to await the Lagos governorship election and see whether Funsho William’s voice will resound from the grave too. Engineer Funsho Williams was a veteran governorship aspirant on the platform of the PDP before his gruesome murder. His assailants had waited for him in his Dolphin Estate, Ikoyi home on that fateful day. Those that were arrested but later freed then were Senators Adeseye Ogunlewe, who was a close associate of Williams, and Musliu Obanikoro, who defected from the Alliance for Democracy to the ruling party at that time. Senator Bola Tinubu, the APC presidential candidate, was holding the forte then as Lagos State Governor, and bandits were not on the loose then as compared to what is being experienced in Nigeria today. Therefore, it is assumed that it was a political assassination. Those freed then are already staunch members of the APC. Reacting, the Lagos PDP said it was looking forward to a replay of the Osun scenario in the forthcoming governorship election in the state, but its APC counterpart is of the belief that the PDP is hallucinating. Time will tell.
My interest in Soyinka was aroused as a young school boy when debonair ovation publisher and former PDP Presidential aspirant, Basorun Dele Momodu, and I were on our way to Dr Ajayi’s (Dele’s brother) apartment at the Obafemi Awolowo University Staff Quarters. Ajayi, who had just returned to Nigeria, was employed by the then University of Ife, which was then regarded as one of the best universities in the West Africa Sub-region; unlike today that sex-for-mark and other criminal activities now hold sway. As soon as we (Dele and I) alighted from the bus that took us from Ife town, Dele spoke glowingly about Soyinka who was then a resident in the university quarters, and since then my mind stayed glued to his person. So, when I had the opportunity to exhibit this, I interpreted some of his poems on social protest in my final year project for my Bachelor’s degree in English. At an event in the Muson Centre Lagos, some years back, I intimated to him that I made use of his work in my first degree project, and he instructed me to drop a copy of my long essay with his son, Makin, at Freedom Park in central Lagos. Although I met Makin several times, I never discussed dropping it for him because I had just one copy with me.
For those who don’t know Soyinka well, it might be of interest to know that Professor Oluwole Akinwande Soyinka was born on July 13, 1934 to an Ijebu father from Ishara in Ijebu-Remo, and an Egba mother from Abeokuta; a combination that made him to call himself “Ijegba” in his autobiography, ‘Ake: The years of childhood.’ Cosmopolitan in outlook, he shuns cultural restrictiveness and freely absorbs the alien into his receptive personality. This enables him to blend traditional African culture with Judeo-Christian and Western literary tradition. His eighty-eight year hold finger is in every available pie. We have Soyinka the lyricist, singer, actor, writer, hunter, scourge, rebel, revolutionary, and the quintessence of creativity. From the then university of Ife, he moved to the University of Lagos till August 1967, when he was appointed Director, School of Drama at the University of Ibadan; a post he never held until October 1969 when he was released from his 2-year detention by the Gown regime on the allegations that he tried to help secessionists in the Nigeria-Biafra war. He had several encounters with the then Western Regional Government from 1962. In 1965, he was detained and tried on a charge that he had held up a Radio Nigerian continuity announcer in Ibadan at gun-point, and substituted his own tape for the supposed one to be broadcast by the then Premier of Western Nigeria, Late Oladoke Akintola. He was, however, discharged and acquitted by the presiding judge. Underlining all Soyinka’s social activities is the firm belief that life could be more disciplined, responsible and better.
Kudos to Kongi at 88.
Awoyemi, media consultant, can be reached via [email protected]
