WOLE SOYINKA: THE OTHER NIGERIAN.

“The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism”
                                     Wole Soyinka.

It was 86 years after the birth of the 20th century that an African man was awarded, for the first time, a Nobel Prize. This man, born on the 13th day of July in 1934 in Abeokuta of Western Nigeria, then colonized by Britain is Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka, popularly called Wole Soyinka.
It was in Abeokuta Grammar school, between 1940 and 1946 that Wole, as a young boy, began to win several prizes for literary compositions. In 1946, he was admitted into Government College, Ibadan, and then University College Ibadan in 1952 where he studied English literature, Greek and Western History, and began work on a short radio play for Nigerian Broadcasting Service called “Keffi’s Birthday treat”
He moved to England in 1954 and continued to study English Literature at the University of Leeds, after which he wrote his first major play: The swamp dwellers.
Other plays written by Wole Soyinka include the comedy, The lion and the jewel, “The Trials of Brother Jero” a satire that establishes his fame as Nigeria’s foremost dramatist; “A dance of the forests”, “The Strong Breed”, Kongi’s Harvest” “Madmen and Specialists”, Death and the King’s horseman”, “A play of giants” “From Zia with Love” “The Beatification of Area boy” “King Baabu” and many others.
In 1964 and 1972 respectively he published “The interpreters” and “Season of Anomy” respectively, world acclaimed novels. Wole has at least seven poetry collections including “Idanre and other poems”, “A Shuttle in the Crypt”, “Mandela’s Earth and other poems”.
Amongst his memoirs are “The man Died: Prison Notes”, the famous Ake: The years of Childhood”, “Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years”, Isara: A Voyage around Essay, and “You must set forth at dawn”
Wole has written numerous short stories such as “A tale of Two”, Egbe’s Sworn Enemy” and “Madame Etienne’s Establishment”; and Essays, too numerous to mention.
In 1986 after being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, Soyinka was described as one “who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence”.
His Nobel acceptance speech was devoted to Nelson Mandela, and it reads “This Past Must Address Its Present”
Despite his innumerable achievements in the 20th century, the 21st century has tasted his works. His play, titled “King Baabu” is a political satire on the theme of African dictatorship that was premiered in Lagos in 2001. One year later, Methuen published a collection of his poems – Samarkand and Other Markets I have known, and in April 2006, his memoir titled “You must set forth at Dawn” was published by Random house, and in 2011 his latest play “Alapata Apata” was birthed.
Wole has been a man of repute even as he ages, for in August 2014, he delivered a recording of his speech “From Chibok with Love” to the world humanist congress in Oxford, and that same year was awarded the International Humanist Award.
Other international lectures delivered by Soyinka include Guest lecture at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon in 1976.
Wole Soyinka, a holder of the national award of commander of the federal Republic (CFR), is truly a literary legend, a white haired literary legend who has shown the world what stuff Nigerians are made of.