* AS WRITERS, ARTISTS, TOURISTS CELEBRATE NOBEL LAUREATE
By John Odunayo
THE modest gathering on Saturday July 13 at the Ado Ekiti residence of former Presidential Adviser, Senator Babafemi Ojudu was especial.
Though it was in a compound, the location was indeed an open space in a forest but ornamented with sculptures and art works as the gathering relished the serenity of nature.
It was a get-together of literary scholars and enthusiasts; members of Ekiti Book Club; writers under the aegis of Association of Nigerian Authors, Ekiti State Chapter; members of Ekiti State Tourism Agency; Ekiti State Association of Tourism Practitioners; and university students.
The august occasion was for no other thing than celebration of the 91st birthday of the Nobel laureate, activist for better living conditions and human rights crusader, Professor Wole Soyinka, the first of its kind in Ekiti State.
Ojudu, however, held the gathering spellbound with the extempore speech that he delivered to pay glowing tribute to Prof. Wole Soyinka as the opening remark to set the tone for the celebration.
*ALL WE CAN DO FOR SOYINKA IS TO CONTINUE TO CELEBRATE HIM – OJUDU*
Ojudu said, “Our hero, the Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, is 90 today (Saturday). He is being celebrated all over the world. As I am talking to you, in University of Lagos, in University of Ibadan, Obafemi Awolowo University, in Atlanta Georgia, in London, in Paris, in South Africa, everywhere, he is being celebrated today. Just two days ago, he was celebrated and honoured by writers across the world that gathered in Morocco. You know what that means!
“He is the Nobel laureate we have in Nigeria, he is the first to have won that prize in Africa. He is worth celebrating.
“All his life, he has been in activism, he has fought for Nigerians at the risk of his life. When an election was rigged and the result was about to be announced, he went to the studio and seized the script of the announcement and then disappeared. He was charged to court, he had to be freed technically.
“As a student, he formed the Pyrates Confraternity, forget about the talks of cults or whatever; that was a fraternity that was set up to fight all of those hangovers of those colonial days and then from there he went on to sharpen his Dramatic Arts in the university in UK and then came back to the struggle to make Nigeria a better place.
“He took a lot of risks, when the Civil War was already raging, he went to the East, the Biafran enclave, to go and have a special talk with Ojukwu. On coming back, he was arrested and detained in Kaduna. That detention itself produced the book called The Man Died. He went through a very harrowing experience while in detention.
“He never gave up. He continued to fight for a better Nigeria. When in 1982/83, the National Party of Nigeria became a monster, he quickly went to the studio and then did a song called ‘I Love Nigeria, I No Go Lie’. He titled it ‘ethical revolution’.
“Again, that album was banned, but Soyinka is not a man who could easily be bothered by such kind of thing. He went on and on. Then came Gen. Babangida and then Gen. Abacha, and then came NADECO. He had to escape from Nigeria. He collaborated with NADECO and those of us that were in the media then to fight for the democracy we are enjoying today.
“So, for me, I do not think that there has been any other Nigerian like him in terms of the task he has given to himself to ensure a better country. He is 90, well Nigeria is not yet the country of his wish, but he has done his own.
“When I see some young men now and hear them condemn him for not fighting the present government, I said to them, if you have a grandfather who is 90, will you want him on the streets carrying placards?
“Go and fight! Soyinka started fighting about the age of 20. So why are you calling an old man to come and fight your battle for you. You too, go and take up the mantle and go and fight your battle. Don’t call on a 90 years old man to be running around, he has done his own. He has contributed enough.
“All we can do for him for so many years is to continue to celebrate him. That is why we are joining the rest of the world to celebrate him today. Soyinka used to call himself an Ijegba man – the father being from Ijebu and the mother an Egba person, but I know that Soyinka is an Ekiti person here. Many of you will ask me why?
“Soyinka is the reincarnate of Ogun, Ogun is from Ire Ekiti, therefore, if you reincarnate from somebody, then you are from where that person comes. And we have the President of the Progressives Union of Ire Ekiti here. Looking deeply into his heart, he decided to name himself ‘Eni Ogun’ (Ogun’s person). I have seen a similarity between him and the god, Ogun, that came from Ire. That is why I keep saying that the spirit in Soyinka, the energy in him, his creativity is that of Ogun, and Ogun is our own. It’s Ekiti, Ekiti is claiming Soyinka, that is why today, we are the one celebrating him in Ekiti State here.
“We are going to have fun today, there will be readings from his works, there will be drama, there will be dancing, there will be drumming. Of course, we have palm wine here. I will call on one of the chiefs here today to do a traditional prayer and to pour libation. That is what Soyinka will have expected us to do because he is a lover of tradition.
“He is a man who has sold Nigeria’s culture all over the world. Anyone of you who have read some of his books, most of his ideas, his writings are taken directly from our culture. If you have read Death and the King’s Horseman, you will know what I am talking about. His writing, his ideas, his philosophy etc are taken from the Yoruba tradition.
“If any of you has been to Soyinka’s house, you will see that all of the spaces in his house are filled up with sculptures and art works as we are having now. If you have been to his house, he lives in a forest, he loves trees.
“I remember when he was our teacher at Ife and we had a new Vice Chancellor, the man took his cutlass and started cutting down trees, Soyinka called all of us out to protest that they are trying to destroy the basic idea of the university which is vegetation and forestation. That was when that idea of cutting down those trees stopped.
“He loves nature, he loves arts and he loves his wine. He loves palm wine and he loves music. He is a multi-talented person, somebody who writes poetry, who writes drama, who writes novels, who writes songs and who sings, who acts, he is a music producer and singer, everything you can talk about. He is a lover of beautiful things”.
