87: The spelling of immortality in the Soyinka canon, By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

It beggars belief that Soyinka has made it to the heavy age of 87 after a life of multiform dangers: an unknown gunman invading the broadcasting house to replace the premier’s tape, going to Biafra in a season of anomie, enduring imprisonment and solitary confinement, bearing the wounds of exile, daring Abacha etc. In short, way beyond the claims of the evangelical churches, the only miracle I see is Wole Soyinka’s life.

Aside from his genius in literature, Soyinka ranks amongst the greatest freedom fighters ever, a foremost defender of the sanctity of the human life. Soyinka took us on a course in Humanism. It was class war all the way because most of us in the class were Marxists. We asked Soyinka to join us in the bush of guerrilla struggle, instead of being an arm-chair humanist! He was never angry with our youthful ebullition, only advising us that we would get to understand society further as we grew in life.

His intervention on road safety happened before our very eyes whilst at Ife. He had no stomach whatsoever for dangerous driving that killed many along the notorious Ife-Ibadan road. He would bring his friend, Femi Johnson’s jeeps into the campus and we were even quite used to Bola Ige’s vehicles as the then governor of Oyo State. For Soyinka, a vehicle was just a vehicle.A Play of Ghosts

There was no denying Soyinka the very next year, 1986, when the Nobel Prize for Literature landed on our shores. Soyinka had just made the flight from Cornell University, New York, where he was then teaching, to the International Theatre Institute in Paris to attend the executive meeting of the world body, which he headed. His plan was to spend some quiet time at the apartment of his cousin, Yemi Lijadu.

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