By: Bamijoko Favour

For the man, everything is perhaps an endless chain of enactments. Only few Africans, in modern times, have enacted a life seemingly larger-than-life like the man, Wole Soyinka. And, as far as Soyinka’s theatrics and enactments are concerned, anywhere is his stage — school, a radio station, prison, politics, philosophy, literature, anywhere, and in any discipline. In the statement from the 1986 Nobel committee that awarded Soyinka with the Nobel prize for literature, the committee described him as a writer with “a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence”

The propensities that drove him onto the stages of literature, politics and activism, amongst others will be only better understood in the light of his upbringing. Born in 1934 to a fundamentally-rooted Christian home in the township of Ake, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka is son to Samuel Ayodele Soyinka, an Anglican minister and headmaster, and to Grace Eniola Soyinka, his mother. Together with his parents, they lived in a parsonage compound which, for him, formed a “bulwark against the menace and the siege of the wood spirits.” (as he described in Ake, the Years of Childhood)

A progeny to a man (Essay —S.A, his father’s initials) who was not merely educated, but an headmaster; grandson to the enigmatic Israel Oludotun Ransome Kuti who was a Reverend, Anglican minister and one of the earliest pioneers of Education in Nigeria who always compelled Soyinka and other kids to read; son to a woman, Wild Christian, who was a trader and political activist; and offspring of a genealogy with astounding records of intellectual excellence and vibrant activism. To say Soyinka, the icing on the family tree cake, merely carried further the flames his forebears lit is simply to belabor the obvious.

For instance, at a tender age, Soyinka, accompanying his Aunt, Funmilayo Ransome Kuti (an indefatigable feminist and anti-colonialist) and mum, a member of the Egba Women Association, to meetings with the Abeokuta Women’s Union, would always assist in clerical-related duties. As a result, he attended a number of the association’s meetings — thus exposed to rebellious activism from his formatory age. This restless defiant behaviour would later see him initiate the first fraternity — the Pyrates, domiciled at Lord Tedder Hall, University of Ibadan. An idealistic, and somewhat iconoclastic group grounded on intellectual ideas and ideals, their aim was to create a non-conformist group that countered the colonial cultural air of the university which they perceived would create a pompous elite for the country. Although regarded somewhat as the father of cultism in Nigeria, the truth is that contemporary cult groups differ in aim, ideas and ideals from what Soyinka’s fraternity worked towards.

From the University College, Ibadan, where he studied English, Greek and History, to Leeds University Soyinka amassed a cross-cultural, intercontinental educational development. It was from Leeds University that Soyinka began writing the Nigerian and African culture, by extension, into global literature. His first major book was published in 1957, while he was in London and was subsequently staged in 1959. For more than six decades ever since, Soyinka has been interminably active on the literary scene, marking each decade with one or two works to his credit.

While in London, he worked with the Royal Court Theater. During this spell, he published his first work in 1957, a drama, The Intervention, which dealt with the apartheid regime in South Africa. It was later staged in 1959 by the London’s Royal Court Theatre. But even London did not wane his penchant for activism. For instance, in 1958, Soyinka once forcibly resisted performing his role on a stage play because of a shared relationship with the given role and that “he found the mode of presentation at war with the ugliness it tried to convey, creating an intense disquiet about his very presence on that stage, in that place, before an audience whom he considered collectively responsible for that dehumanizing actuality.”

At home, and in Africa, the whole political scenery was his stage. From battling colonial tyranny to military totalitarianism, and institutional corruption, Soyinka was not far from being a major character. In 1965, he allegedly invaded the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission, Ibadan, held Akinwande Oshin to gunpoint and exchanged a tape to be played. This act, not a staged drama, would lead to his arrests and trial. His interventions to avert the brewing Biafra War also saw him incarcerated for more than 22 months, spending 16 of them in solitary confinement under inhumane conditions and lengthy spells of fastings. Soyinka’s political vehemence against corruption is colossal and unarguably significant in the collective documentation of Nigeria’s political growth.

Soyinka’s political achievements are only marched stride for stride, by his literary genius. And in actual fact, it may be impossible to separate both. According to the man himself, “only one universal ideology answers human cruelties, the excesses of power, bigotries, social inequalities and alienation: Literature.” Thus, a large part of his craft were virtuosic writings which adeptly, either, criticized colonial rulership, cultural superiority, as well as corruption.

For example, his first play, The Intervention (1957) was a response to and criticism of the apartheid South Africa for its political liberation. The Swamp Dwellers (1958) was an assessment of power injustice, tyranny and social ills. Several of his other books and essays follow this same route — The Man Died and. A Shuttle in the Crypt were his post-imprisonment books which aside from detailing his experience in prison and in solitary confinement, powerfully criticized the oppressive military government. The Man Died was banned from Nigeria as a result. His 1986 Nobel lecture, The Past Must Address its Present, was also a powerful poignant criticism of colonialism as well as the apartheid regime of South Africa.

But more than just exemplifying how literature can affect the political or can be used as a political tool, Soyinka’s impact on language is enduringly pathfinding, especially for the progeny of African writers who came after him. Soyinka, alongside Achebe, Okigbo, and J.P Clark were amongst the groups of Nigerian writers whose works were groundbreaking feats for posterity, were not the first groups of writers from Nigeria.

In Ibadan: The Cultural Stalk of Literature in Nigeria, Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera explains that before them, there were Cyprian Ekwensi, Amos Tutuola, and even Nnamdi Azikiwe but most of what he earlier writers wrote did not espouse indigenous culture, language, and roots. Azikiwe’s poems were merely appendages of the poetic tradition of America where he was educated, and he was often criticized for lacking cultural and artistic depth; Ekwensi’s fictions read more like American pop fictions; and Tutuola’s stories were great, but lacked the polish to put them at the echelon of great writing.”

However, it was the works of the former, of whom Soyinka was and arguably the most impactful, who put Nigeria and African literature on global radar. According to Bernth Lindfors, “he became – instantly and forever – one of the most important writers in the English speaking world.” Belonging to one of the earliest generations of Nigerian writers, Soyinka’s doggedness stands him out as perhaps the foremost avant-garde of the form of literature for pushing the boundaries of literature beyond the scope of his peers. Amongst his peers — Achebe, Okigbo, Clark, and a host of others — who were equally flourishing on the literary scene, it was perhaps only Soyinka who dared all three genres and even other literary forms without losing his genius and tenuous grasp of both the English language and his traditional language.

In his work, Wole Soyinka; Politics, Poetics and Postcolonialism, Biodun Jeyifo explains that “the recognition at the very start of his career that Soyinka’s literary voice and presence were unique and distinctive.” While Penelope Gilliat, a London critic said “every decade or so, it seems to fall to a non-English dramatist to belt new energy into the English tongue. The last time was when Brendan Beehan’s “The Quare Fellow” opened at Theatre Workshop. Nine years later, in the reign of Stage Sixty at the same beloved Victorian building at Stratford East, a Nigerian called Wole Soyinka has done for our napping language what brigand dramatists from Ireland have done for centuries: booted it awake, rifled its pockets and scattered the loot into the middle of next week.” As an avant-garde, Soyinka does not go about proclaiming his tigritude. He simply pounces.

His avant-gardism and experimentalist nature is perhaps best explained by Soyinka’s statement in the introduction to Africa39 anthology. According to him, “the primary function of literature is to capture and expand reality. It is futile therefore to attempt to circumscribe African creative territory, least of all by conformism to any literary ideology that then aspires to be the tail that wags the dog. It projects its enhanced vision of Life’s potential, its possibilities, narrates its triumphs and failures. Its offerings include empowerment of the oppressed and the subjugation of power. It will not attempt to do all of this at once—that will only clot up the very passages of its own proceeding.”

His pursuits in the area of theater and dramaturgy cannot go unmentioned. Considered Nigeria’s foremost playwright, Soyinka left an indelible mark on dramaturgy in Nigeria and Africa. Fundamentally, Soyinka began as a playwright, writing works like The Madmen and Specialist, and The Swamp Dwellers. Having moved to London in the 1950’s, Soyinka worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London, and also began publishing plays which were equally acted by the same troupe. For instance, the Intervention was staged by the Royal Court Theater in 1959. And his play, A Dance of the Forests was presented at Nigeria’s Independence celebration, 1960.

Upon return to Nigeria, he formed the the Mask theatre group, the “Orisun Theater company (1964), and equally co-formed the Mbari theater troupe in 1961, a posse that consisted of Ulli Beier, Mabel Segun, Achebe, Bruce Onabrakpeya, Okigbo, and others. Later on, he was appointed the head of the School of Drama, University of Ibadan. He has written up to 30 plays so far. In 1970, he directed Madmen and Specialists at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Waterford, Connecticut and played the role of Kongi, the dictator, in Calpenny Films production of his play, Kongi’s Harvest.

Buoyed by traditional, intercontinental, sometimes spiritual, and at other times, psychological and philosophical elements, Soyinka’s drama opened up a new theatrical culture and “linguistic destiny” (as Biodun Jeyifo put it in This Wole Soyinka play showed the future of English) for Nigeria’s plays and dramaturgy. In most of his plays, Soyinka achieves a technical triumph as he fuses elements of Greek dramaturgy with Elizabethan features all the while punctuating them with copious importations from his cultural background. This we see in works like Lion and the Jewel and his other 1950-1960 works where he transforms traditional proverbs and metaphors into the body of English language in the monologues, dialogues and dictions of the plays. Also, in the Lion and the Jewel, traditional, ritualistic dances are used to achieve fertility and frenzies which were typical of Dionysus’ temple, a Greek deity.

Soyinka’s plays were unique, in that they were a mesh of traditional lores and literature, including abundant elements of spiritualism with Shakespearean drama and style; works like A Dance of the Forest, the Lion and the Jewel are prominent examples. According to the Nobel prize committee, A Dance of the Forest was described as “A kind of African Midsummer Night’s Dream with spirits, ghosts and gods. There is a distinct link here to indigenous ritual drama and to Elizabethan drama.”

In importing and canonizing traditional customs and spiritual systems through his plays, and dramatic experiments, Soyinka achieves a self-made status as a custodian of afro culture. Death and the King’s Horseman, Soyinka, like Achebe, advertises integral cultural beliefs, mythologies, lores and the consequences of a parallel clash with western beliefs. In Death and the King’s Horseman, the duty placed upon the King’s Horseman is to die after the king’s death by ritualistic suicide; failure of which would upset the normal order of the town. However the king’s horseman is prevented from achieving this purpose by Pilkings, a British. This interruption brings about strife, and unrest and the tragic loss of not only Eleshin, but his son, Olunde.

Soyinka’s undertaking to conserve traditional cultures and symbols even extends beyond the literary realm. In the 1970’s, Ori Olokun, a talisman for the Sea goddess made of bronze, was carted away from Nigeria and taken to Brazil. Soyinka willingly undertook the quest to travel to Brazil, steal, and return the bronze sculpture to Nigeria.

His literary exploits and transformative adventure in literature are equally manifested in his poems and anthologies. Again, the traditional overtones that give structure to Soyinka’s literature are brought to the fore. Stanley Macebuh, in Poetics and the Mythic Imagination writes that “tradition and ancestral customs constitute the internal structure of his poetry.” And, “anyone who vaguely understands the ambiance of Soyinka’s English derives more from Yoruba than from the English.”

For example, in Abiku, published in the 10th issue of Black Orpheus, one of the earliest pioneer magazines in Nigeria founded by Ulli Beier, of which Soyinke was an editor, Soyinka exposes the traditional beliefs about Abiku, the wanderer child, and methods used to control the poignant, regenerative cycle of life and death of such children (or spirits). A callous, paradoxical poem, Soyinka explores the psyche of the spirit-child from its own boastful perspective and its impact on its parents. In doing so, he uses imagery to expose the ritualistic process involved in stymying the cycle of the spirit-child, and the unsettling paradoxes of life and death. All of these presents cultural practices, alongside arguments in their support.

Idanre and Other Poems, published in 1973, is one of the foremost anthologies of Soyinka’s poems. The poem “Idanre” particularly explores the Yoruba deity, Ogun. The work further exemplifies how Soyinka promoted African culture by writing their myths into global literature. The protection and promotion of culture was not the only impact of Wole’s poems. Many others of his poems tackled deep-seated racism, as seen in Telephone Conversation; Apartheid, as seen in his 1988 anthology, Mandela’s Earth and other poems (“which opens with that line Your logic frightens me, Mandela”); oppressive regimes and social justice as seen in A Shuttle in the Crypt, 1971.

According to Tanure Ojaide, “Wole Soyinka’s influences reveal the admixtures of foreign and indigenous qualities in his poems. As a poet, he syncretizes traditional African and western influences so dexterously that a creates a personal authenticity.” One of the traditional African elements which Soyinka adopts in his poems brilliantly is the tonality in Yoruba language. With a good grasp of the resources in language, Soyinka constantly uses lyricsm in language to press home his point. For example, in Procession I — Hanging Day, the eighteenth line “Tread. Drop. Dread. Drop. Dead.” does extensively for the whole poem to press home the harrowing subject matter of the poem which was about the hanging of about eleven inmates while he was in prison. With brevity, consonance, and alliteration, Soyinka briskly describes the point at which the hanging is executed. Another similar poem is his Telephone Conversation. Using these elements, Soyinka showcases his remarkable range as a genre-bending artist. In many ways, Soyinka shaped the literary landscape for the progeny of writers and dramaturgists who came after him.

In a few days, Soyinka turns a nonagenarian. Few Nigerians have attained such a politico-cultural significance as soyinka. And for a man of his feat, it is impossible to exhaust all there is to write about the man and the range of his endeavours. In an essay, Okpewho concludes thus ” Soyinka may be a broad-based humanist who explores the common ties that bind the human race, he is primarily a nativist in the sense of seeing his indigenous culture as the starting point of any such universalist gestures.”

Responding to one of his letters, his grandfather wrote him, “I named you Maren, you will not walk when the gods are angry.” But as the historian Ojo Aderemi noted in a 2022 post on Facebook, “Maren is no mere man. Wole Soyinka clocks 90 and has defied the gods more than a few times. He has played pranks on the gods. He has infuriated the gods and gracefully walked barefooted when the gods had reached the crescendo of their umbrage.”

P.S; in celebration of his 90th birthday, a number of activities are in line; a release of the adaptation of his prison notes, The Man Died, 1971, directed by Awam Amkpa. It is set to be released on the 13 of July, 2024 and specially screened in Lagos; Also, another documentary, Ebrohimie Road, by Kola Tubosun, which “details aspects of Wole Soyinka’s life on the campus of the University of Ibadan in the 1960s, and covers his personal experiences during this period in relation to the Nigerian Civil War, his imprisonment for his antiwar activism, his release from his prison, and eventual exile. It also highlights the significance of Soyinka’s abode on Ebrohimie Road, University of Ibadan.” It is to be anchored by the Thursday Film Series at Drapers Hall on Thursday, and at Ebrohimie Road, University of Ibadan on Friday.