Soyombo, Special Assistant on
Media to the Governor of Ogun State, wrote in via densityshow@yahoo.com
That I have profound regard for
Prof. Wole Soyinka is merely an understatement. In some of my public
commentaries, I described him as “my intellectual avatar” because I am a beneficiary
of the density and immensity of his literature. As my wont, I should
immediately qualify that. Unlike the Nobel Laureate, I am not a priest in the
temple of the arts. I avoid altogether the visual aspect of the arts, namely
fine and applied arts. As for its non-visual arm, I choose and pick. I like the
performing art but I am mostly enamoured of the literary art. And so, it is in
literary art, especially the creative writing category, that I find Soyinka a
“jewel of inestimable value”.
I tend not to like fiction except
the very interesting ones but could stomach faction — depending on the degree
of ‘facts’. For instance, I am not sure I did enjoy the Trial of
Brother Jero when I read it many years ago; I did succeed to a large
extent in enjoying Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years; but perusing You
Must Set Forth At Dawn placed me on top of the world. My interest is,
therefore, essentially, on the non-fiction works of Prof. Soyinka. Besides such
books, his writings in newspapers are a “must read” for me. I crave them like a
deer pants after a brook.
Soyinka further won my respect in
his memoir, You Must Set Forth At Dawn, by the manner in which he
remembered his bosom friend, the late insurance broker, Femi Johnson. I quote
from my review of the book in 2007.
“In 1987, Femi Johnson left his
heart with Wole Soyinka and took a terminal exit from the terrestrial milieu
after a fervid but futile battle to hang on. Twenty years after, that heart
beats, not just in Nigeria but Africa, Europe, America, Asia — all over the
world, wherever Soyinka’s memoir is perused. Even the efflux of time did not
abate or mitigate the memories of a fervent relationship; the 1986 Nobel
Laureate deserves a space in the hall of fame for immortalising a friend with
such affecting effusions. In a world suffused with ingrates and laden with open
perfidies and opportunistic contortions of historical/demised relationships,
Soyinka offers a parameter and symbol of a symbiotic and sacrificial friendship
– cash and/kind. Although not a reputed elegiac writer, the Nobel Prize winner
did succeed in railroading his avid and assiduous readers to the sanctuary of
empathy, ensuring we shared in his bereavement of Femi Johnson.”
When you write an autobiography,
it is essentially about yourself. But Soyinka seems to have portrayed his
friendship with the late Johnson as the reason for the memoir. He had no qualms
in noting that it was the late insurance broker that gave him a cheque (not a
loan) with which he began his house in Abeokuta after he suddenly realised that
he could not yet access his funds in a bank. Even as I write now, I seem to
share in the pang of that loss. Notes the playwright, “I remained in thrall to
this absence whose memory still haunts me, as it does so many others in varying
degrees… bringing with his recollection a sense of wonder at the unimaginable
plenitude that we had all shared in the sheer being of this individual (Femi
Johnson).”
And so when I read the criteria
that won Soyinka the first ever Awolowo Prize for Leadership recently, I knew
it was an honour well-deserved. For instance, under Credibility – candidate
must be a person in whom people believe and repose trust. That triggered some
recollections: You can leave your heart with Wole and travel to Hong Kong. When
you come back, it would still be beating. Femi Johnson had confided that
compliment “in his second wife, Folake, who passed it to mine, her name sake.”
(You Must Set Forth At Dawn, page 191).
What about Selflessness? –
candidate must be a person who gives priority to the general interest over
personal interest. She/ he should be a public spirited person.
The first Awo Laureate had
returned from higher education study in England “on the wheels of a Rockefeller
Fellowship on New Year’s day, 1960, to research dramatic forms.” He could have
ensconced himself at the University College, Ibadan or chosen the path of the
establishment but for his public spiritedness.
The governor of Ogun State,
Ibikunle Amosun, therefore, hit the nail on the head when he said,”The winner
of the Nobel Prize for Literature has spent his entire adult life leading the
crusade for a just and united society founded on the sanctity of the rule of
law and press freedom… Soyinka has continued to use the arts as a tool of
social re-engineering.”
Indeed, the dramatist, through
his revues and writings in the press since independence, has continued not only
to tilt at any execrable conduct of any political leadership but harp on the
imperative of a society founded on justice, equity and fairness.
I must confess, I sometimes feel
for Prof. Soyinka. He’s not growing younger. Even though I have proclaimed he
will attain 100 years, even such a landmark is merely two decades away. A man
that has devoted his entire life to the cause of the downtrodden deserves to
see better days, some glimmer of hope in public affairs management.
Is it fortuitous that the
writer-activist’s redoubt should be here in Abeokuta? Well, the gods are not
asleep. Right here in Abeokuta, in the abode of the recipient of the
prestigious Obafemi Awolowo Prize for Leadership, governance by billboards is
giving way to concrete governance. I’m quite sure our revered Nobel Laureate
must have passed through the international standard Ibara-Totoro Road, sighted
the ongoing flyover bridge, the state-of-the-art footbridge under construction
and imagined what a modern city centre is in the offing in the state capital…
The poet will readily admit that
his life was shaped at the Government College, Ibadan. Government College, of
course, is a public school. We all know what has become of public education in
Nigeria, especially the fall of those citadels of learning all over the
country.
“We are all products of public
schools,” Amosun often declares, “and we must do everything possible to restore
the glory of public education in Nigeria. Although it is costly, we will close
our eyes and provide functional free education to our children. Once they get
it right at the primary and secondary levels, they will excel at the tertiary
level.”
It is most likely Prof. Soyinka
would have noticed our tangible achievements in this direction.
Our efforts in revamping the
comatose health sector, generating direct and indirect employment through
collaboration with institutions like the Bank of Industry and phenomenal
distribution of 500 transformers at one fell swoop to revive comatose SMEs
across the state, revival of interest in agriculture, gradual elimination of
bottlenecks in the interface of the public with government offices (Ministry of
Commerce and Bureau of Lands being good examples), Conditional Cash Transfers
(of MDGs) – Ogun being the first state in Nigeria to use the scheme to reduce
child and maternal mortality, among others, could possibly not have escaped the
attention of our world renowned scholar, Prof. Soyinka.
But above all, the palpable
efforts of the current state government to restore public faith in political
leadership is most reassuring and should give cause for hope to such public
spirited individuals like our own Wole Soyinka.
Once more, I join other
well-meaning Nigerians to congratulate the inimitable Soyinka on “the crème de
la crème of my recognition” – the distinguished ObafemiAwolowo Prize for
Leadership.
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