July 13, 2018, Prof. Wole Soyinka turned 84. The Nobel laureate in Literature is a man of influence and a literary giant. And he’s still very much around. By this I mean, not senile, not retired, not laid back. He’s still very aware, articulate, very much involved in Nigeria’s polity.
One of the qualities that has stood him out over the years, is that he has never shut his mouth, for his own safety, in the face of injustice or bad governance.
He’s been to jail for his convictions about Nigeria: that experience gave the world, the book, The Man Died: Prison Notes (1971). And I doubt if he would ever stop sticking out his neck.
Soyinka who started his education journey from the humble stable of a little primary school in Abeokuta to Abeokuta Grammar School, went on to conquer the world of education as he traversed universities (Ibadan, Johannesburg, London) and took his doctorate from the University of Leeds in 1973.
Soyinka was a dramaturgist at the Royal Court Theatre, London (1958 – 1959). In 1960, he was awarded a Rockefeller bursary and he returned to Nigeria to study African drama.
As professor of Comparative Literature, he has taught Literature in universities of Ibadan, Lagos and Ife. He also founded the Theatre Group, 1960 Masks and in 1964, he founded the ‘Orisun Theatre Company’ in which he produced his own plays and acted in them. Over the years, he’s been a visiting professor at the universities of Cambridge, Sheffield and Yale.
His writings are based on the mythology of his tribe (Yoruba) laced with dance, music and action with Ogun, the Yoruba god of iron and war, at the centre.
Soyinka’s works cover all the genres: drama, novel, and poetry, plus his essays.
For three whole days, The Creative Arts Department of the University of Lagos honoured him with stage plays written, directed, choreographed and acted by undergraduates of the department.
Wednesday, July 11, 2018. The Creative Arts Theatre, University of Lagos staged a play in his honour to mark his 84th birthday. The play titled, Soyinka in the Eye of Shakespeare was written by Lekan Balogun, directed by Prescott Egbo and choreographed by Jane Aimuengheuwa.
Summarising the play, Balogun writes: “Straddling the points of adaptation, ‘tradaptation’, intertextuality and recontexualization, Soyinka in the Eye of Shakespeare is an experimental work that brings together detailed materials from Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman (and now, with additions from Prescott, of materials from Romeo and Juliet and The Lion and the Jewel which further contexualize the play) in a new setting, with a new purpose and vision.
“In this new play, Elesin Oba and Macbeth are prisoners of conscience, holed up in confinement under the supervision of an eccentric character Pilkings, who is bent on establishing authority in a chaotic place where penance by the two prisoners is difficult to achieve. This difficulty is in the shape of Lady Macbeth, who is bent on winning her husband’s love and attention again and an Elesin whose weakness is still a woman, with the unexpected twist coming at a crucial time that the trajectory of the two characters’ lives were about to change for good.”
The second day, the Creative Arts Theatre presented another play which although is not directly related to Wole Soyinka, possesses qualities of the things which Soyinka, the man speaks against openly.
Written by Bisi Ademakinwa, The Banter took the stage on Day Two of honouring Wole Soyinka on his 84th birthday and is summarized thus by Makinwa herself: “Chronicling social and political events that date back to the military incursion of party politics in Nigeria in 1983, to the cold, calculated and brutal assassination through letter bomb of Dele-Giwa, to the brazen annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential Elections won by the late MKO Abiola, as well as the violence which accompanied it, The Banter is a vintage window into the shenanigan called politics and governance in the country.
“From a despot to another, political assassination and tribal feud sponsored by powerful cabals, the play chronicles the nation in search of peace, meaning and purpose and especially how it continually becomes difficult to make sense of reality in a society which moves two steps forward and a thousand steps backwards. While it is sad, it is also funny; and isn’t that what great dramas are made of?”
This moving play was directed by Toluwanimi ‘Kesh’ Ogunlela and choreographed by Oluwatomisin Soyoye.
On Day Three which is the final day of honouring Soyinka on his 84th birthday, the Arts Theatre presented a play titled, Ogun Skugga.
Also written by Lekan Balogun and directed by Abdulwali Abiola Balogun, Ogun Skugga according to the playwright is, “powerful and thought-provoking, is a theatrical adaptation, and for the first time ever, of Wole Soyinka’s prison memoirs, The Man Died, which details his incarceration, humiliation and maltreatment by the military regime of General Yakubu Gowon, following his (Soyinka’s) involvement in the event leading to, and surrounding the civil war, known in history as the Nigeria/Biafra War. Soyinka’s imprisonment and experiences which both the book and the play capture, are a strong statement about the polity and the principal players in the execution of those dastard acts which remain a spot on our collective bleeding conscience.
“Although these events occurred over 50 years ago, recent situations show clearly that the evil still lives with us, and that the country continues to wallow in violence and carnage which seems to define our own kind of humanity.”
This last paragraph from Lekan Balogun’s Ogun Skugga echoes some lines from Wole Soyinka’s novel, The Man Died, “These men are not merely evil, I thought. They are the mindlessness of evil made flesh. One should not ever stumble into their hands, but seek the power to destroy them. They are pus, bile, original putrescence of death in living shapes. They surely infect all with whom they come in touch with and even from this insulation here I smell a foulness of the mind in the mere tone of their words. They breed themselves, their types, their mutations. To seek the power to destroy them is to fulfil a moral task.”
In another development, the Department of English in conjunction with Monmouth University, New Jersey, USA, organised the 1st JP Clark International conference of the literary world of JP Clark, one of the foremost and earliest writers in Nigeria and Africa.
The conference lasted from 11th to 14th of July, 2018.
Professor Hope Eghagha and Dr. Oty Agbajor-laoye were both conveners of the conference.
Keynote speaker was Professor Wole Soyinka. He spoke on OTHELLO’S LAMENT: The Migrant Rues of the Waves. The opening ceremony was a parade on who is who in English studies in Nigeria. Emeritus Professor Ayo Banjo, Professor Dan Izevbaye, Professor and Professor Mrs. JP Clark were in attendance, including Niyi Osundare and many others.
53 papers in all were presented by scholars from all over the world. The conference ended on Friday with a drama presentation and a cocktail.
Wole Soyinka was born Akinwade Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka on July 13, 1934 in Abeokuta, Ogun state. He married Folake Doherty in 1989 and they are blessed with five children: Olaokun Soyinka, Moremi Soyinka Onijala, Peyibomi Soyinka-Airewele, Makin Soyinka and Iyetade Apampa.
