I have read and perhaps watched with utter consternation of the most bizarre order a barren albeit futile attempt by some opportunistic elements cashing in on the heavy dose of scathing criticism dished out to a criticism impervious, loud but lawless,fat but fatuous , Privileged but almost useless "a mere appendage of power" to denigrate in the most uncouth, shameful and paradoxically diametrically shameless manner this illustrious son of Africa, the erudite Professor Wole Soyinka.

Like Soyinka himself once written in his much discussed The Nigerian Nation Against General Buhari sensationally called the Crimes of Buhari "Records are not kept simply to assist the weakness of memory, but to operate as guides to the future" This thread brings to the doorstep of Nairalanders a synopsis of Soyinka's outstanding strides on the earth to date. It's done in the hope that the intellectually handicapped and willfully bias ignoramuses can correct their often concocted "facts" which are nothing short of outright falsehoods in some cases, some truth laced with putrid seasoning of lies, some embellished and ornamented to the point the context nullifies the very essence of the truth. The uninformed can as well benefit from this by learning one or two stuffs about the dramatic genius.

This is Soyinka essentially in History.

July 13, 1934 - Wole Soyinka was born in Abeokuta, Western Nigeria. His family lived in the Aké quarter of the city. Nigeria was still a British colony. Soyinka’s father was Headmaster at an Anglican Primary School; his mother — nicknamed the “Wild Christian” — was a primary school teacher.

1952-54 - Soyinka studied Greek, English and History at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, an institution affiliated with the University of London.

1957 - Soyinka attended the University of Leeds in England, where he earned a Bachelor degree in English Literature with Honour’s.

1958 - The Swamp Dwellers is produced by Soyinka for the University of London Drama Festival.

1959 - The Swamp Dwellers and The Lion and the Jewel are produced by Soyinka in Ibadan. In
November he wrote, produced and acted in An Evening without Decor, a medley of his works, at the Royal Court Theatre in London. These works attack racism and colonial repression in Africa.

1960-62 - As a Rockefeller Fellow, Soyinka returned to Nigeria to study West African drama at the University of Ibadan. He wrote the essay entitled, “Towards a True Theatre.”

1961 - Soyinka wrote several radio plays which eventually led to the Nigeria government censuring his efforts.

1962-63 - Lecturer in English Department at the University of Ife.

1964 - With others, founded the Drama Association of Nigeria.

1965 - Soyinka was arrested and imprisoned. He was falsely accused of broadcasting false election results on radio. Internationally renowned writers such as Norman Mailer and William Styron led protests of Soyinka’s imprisonment. Soyinka was freed after 3 months imprisonment.

Novel, The Interpreters, published in London. He also writes and directs, Before the Blackout at the Orisun Theatre; directs Kongi’s Harvest in Lagos; and records The Detainee for the BBC in London.

1965-67 - A Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Lagos. Soyinka was an unrelenting critic of personality cults and the widespread emergence of dictatorships in newly independent countries in Africa.

1967 - During the Nigeria civil war in which the republic of Biafra attempted to secede, Soyinka was falsely accused of supporting the rebels. He was arrested, but never charged, and spent 27 months in prison (1967-1969). He was placed in solitary confinement in a cell that was 4x8 feet.

-While in prison, Soyinka survived by writing. He secretly composed on toilet paper, discarded cigarette packages, between the lines of books he surreptitiously acquired. These disparate writings became his 1972, The Man Died: The Prison Notes of Wole Soyinka.
-Soyinka wrote in The Man Died: The Prison Notes of Wole Soyinka, that “Books and all forms of writing have always been objects of terror to all those who seek to suppress the truth.”

-Gerald Weeks of the New York Times wrote that “the real subject matter of the book [is] the author’s attempt to survive as a man, as a mind.”

-Writing in prison was vital for Soyinka’s survival: “That saved my sanity, just to be able to scribble some things from time to time. And I think that would be true of most writers.” Oct. 1969 - Upon release from prison, Soyinka returned to the University of Ibadan to become Chair of the Department of Theatre Arts. He wrote, “The Writer in a Modern African State.” Within a year he went into voluntary exile and spent the next five years (1970-1975) in Europe. During this time, he edited Africa’s leading intellectual journal, Transition.

1969 - The Road produced by Theatre Limited in Kampala, Uganda; Soyinka published, Poems from Prison.

1970 - Madmen and Specialists was completed and directed with the Ibadan University Theatre Arts in New Haven, Connecticut and in Harlem.

1971 - A collection of poems, A Shuttle in the Crypt is published. Soyinka acts the role of Patrice Lumumba in John Littlewood’s French production of Conor Cruise O’Brien’s Murderous Angels (Paris). He also testified in defense of students’ rights at the Kazeem Enquiry.

1972 - Soyinka published his prison notes, The Man Died. It was banned in Nigeria in 1984.

1972 - Soyinka published expanded version of The Man Died as A Shuttle in the Crypt.

1973 - Soyinka receives an Honorary Ph.D from the University of Leeds. He also published the novel, Season of Anomy; Collected Plays I and produced for the National Theatre, London, the commissioned play, Bacchae of Euripides.

1973-74 - Soyinka became an Overseas Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge and a Visiting Professor of English at the University of Sheffield. He published Collected Plays II.

1975 - This year saw Soyinka return to Nigeria as a Professor of English at the University of Ife. For the next 10 years, Soyinka was a moral, intellectual and political force in Nigeria, speaking out in defense of democracy, and human rights. He was also a distinguished visiting professor at many of the world’s best universities: Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, and Cornell. The Poems of Black Africa was edited by Soyinka. He also wrote the essay, “Neo-Tarzanism: The Poetics of Pseudo-Tradition.” In Transition he criticized the dictatorship of Idi Amin.

1976 - The collection of poems, Ogun Abibiman was published, as well as the book, Myth, Literature, and the African World. Soyinka was also a Visiting Professor at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. In Kenya, the Nairobi High School production of A Dance of the Forests and in Dakar, Gambia, the French production of the same play. Death and the King’s Horseman was produced in Ife. This dramatic work has been characterized as a masterpiece on the order of Oedipus Rex and Hamlet.

1978 - Soyinka wrote the essay, “Language as Boundary.”

1981- In this year Soyinka published Aké. Soyinka describes the book about his childhood biography as “the intellectual watering-hole of Aké and its environs.” According to Soyinka, “This was a period of anti-colonial fervor, so the entire anti-colonial training was something I imbibed quite early, even before the women’s movement.” This has been widely acclaimed as a classic. James Olney wrote in the New York Times that Aké was “a classic of childhood memoirs wherever and whenever produced.” Soyinka also wrote the essay, “The Critic and Society: Barthes, Leftocracy, and Other Mythologies.” Ake won the 1983 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.

1982 - The film, Blues for the Prodigal was released. Soyinka wrote the essay, “Cross Currents: The ‘New African’ after Cultural Encounters.”

1983 - The radio play, Die Still, Rev. Dr. Godspeak; and the play, Requiem for a Futurologist produced at the University of Ife. Soyinka wrote the essay, “Shakespeare and the Living Dramatist.”

1984 - A Play of Giants.

1985 - Soyinka published Requiem for a Futorologist. He delivered, “Climates of Art” for the
Herbert Read Memorial Lecture at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London. Soyinka was named President of UNESCO’s International Theatre Institute.

1986 - Soyinka became the first African to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature by the Swedish Academy that described him as “one of the finest poetical playwrights that have written in English.” According to one critic, Soyinka was a writer “who, in a vast cultural perspective enriched with poetic resonances, stages a dramatic representation of existence.” He was also awarded Commander of the Federal Republic, CFR, Nigeria’s second highest honour. He was also a Fellow, Society for the Humanities at Cornell University; and wrote the essay, “The External Encounter: Ambivalence in African Arts and Literature.” -Critic Stanley Meisler of the Los Angeles Times wrote: “His drama and fiction have challenged the West to broaden its aesthetic and accept African standards of art and literature.”

-For Soyinka, a writer yearning for the space to be creative, the Peace Prize was a mixed blessing. He observed: “A lot of people find this difficult to believe, but for me it was just another prize, only bigger and more demanding on me in terms of what you give back, because everybody wants something as a result of that prize. It has such a prestige and such a hold on people’s imagination in all corners and on all levels that you become the property of the world. I don’t regret it, don’t misunderstand me, but it is a mixed blessing.”

1987 - Six Plays; and Childe Internationale republished.

1989 - A short essay, “The Search,” was written.

1990- Soyinka received Benson Medal from Royal Society of Literature. The second portion of his memoir Isara: A Voyage Around Essay appeared.

- Soyinka received an Honorary doctorate from Yale University.

1991 - In Lagos conducted the Sisi Clara Workshop on Theatre; A Scourage of Hyacinths, a radio play for the BBC African Service. “The Credo of Being and Nothingness” delivered as the First Rev. Olufosoye Annual Lecture in Religion at the University of Ibadan on 25 January.

1992 - From Zia with Love.

1993 - Soyinka received an Honorary doctorate from Harvard University.

1994 - Soyinka publishes the autobiography, Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years (A Memoir: 1946- 1965), and Memoirs of a Nigerian Childhood. He is forced to flee Nigeria in November. In September, Soyinka’s passport was confiscated by Nigerian government of General Sani Abacha. Soyinka was faced with house arrest and left Nigeria, again to live in exile until the death of General Abacha. In October 1994 Soyinka was appointed UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for the Promotion of African culture, human rights, freedom of expression, media and communication.

1995 - The Beatification of Area Boy.

1996 - Soyinka published, The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Narrative of the Nigeria Crisis. It is an impassioned examination of the political unrest that paralysed Nigeria for much of the 1990s under the brutal dictatorship of the late General Sani Abacha.

-The Open Sore of a Continent focuses on one day — June 23, 1993 — the day General Abacha annulled the democratic elections of two weeks earlier and imprisoned the elected leader, the late Chief Moshood Abiola. In The Open Sore of a Continent, Soyinka writes “Under a dictatorship, a nation ceases to exist”. And, he continues, “All that remains is a fiefdom, a planet of slaves regimented by aliens from outer space.”

-The Open Sore of a Continent, was named one of the 25 best books by The Village Voice.
-Critic Steven G. Kellerman wrote in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that “in English prose that is at once sumptuous and blunt, Soyinka broods over the combination of avarice, venality, intolerance and cruelty that threatens the virtual collapse of civic society in Nigeria.”

1997 - In March, the regime of dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha – which executed the writer and human rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, charged Soyinka with treason.

1998-99 -When things were most bleak for Nigeria, especially in the period prior to the elections of February 1999, Soyinka took hope from the end of apartheid in South Africa. He characterised this moment as follows: “It was a triumph of the human will and a triumph of racial will for black peoples all over the world. If anything, it is a challenge to Nigeria. Compared to the gap between the self-imposed ruling caste in Nigeria and the populous, the gap between the white minority and the blacks in South Africa is a difference of several light years.”

-While Soyinka has been pressured to return to Nigeria and run for political office, he has eschewed these advances, preferring the solitude of writing. For Soyinka: “If it were a crisis which required a kind of temporary role, understood that it would be temporary, it’s possible that I might consider it.”

However, in an interview on CNN prior to the February 1999 elections in Nigeria, Soyinka reiterated his desire to write. He also expressed a scepticism about the legitimacy of the elections and the process. His view on the involvement in electoral process was noted sometime ago when in 1996 he stated that long-term political office was not his calling:

-Interim involvement in politics was possible. “But not as a regular structured thing for four or five years. You can forget that. Me, I don’t want any such prediction to come true. I just hope that we can win this battle, and I can settle down to a normal life of writing and directing and spasmodic teaching here and there. That’s what I want.” Wole Soyinka is also the author of:The poetry collection including, Mandela’s Earth and Other Poems.

-A new volume of poems entitled Outsiders was released.

2001-Soyinka’s new play King Baabu, premiered in Lagos. A naked satire on the rule of General Abacha in Nigeria, the play chronicles the debauched rule of General Basha Bash who takes power in a coup and exchanges his general's uniform for a robe and crown re-christening himself King Baabu. In the manner of Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi, Soyinka develops a special childish language for his cast of characters who have names like Potipoo and General Uzi. Weaving together burlesque comedy, theatrical excess and storytelling, King Baabu has already been coined as a pet name for the despot par excellence. "We turn Guatu into kingdom, ruled by kings. Nobody complain any more. General Basha Bash is dead. Long Live King Baabu."

2002-A collection of poems, Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known, was published by Methuen. Many of these poems were written whilst Soyinka was in enforced travel after a price was placed on his head by Sani Abacha, the Nigerian dictator, and thus address themes of journey and exile. "One of the liveliest, most exciting writers in the world today."-The New York Times

2005- Soyinka received an Honorary doctorate from Princeton University.

2006- In April, his memoir You Must Set Forth at Dawn was published by Random House. He cancelled his keynote speech for the annual S.E.A. Write Awards Ceremony in Bangkok to protest the Thai military's successful coup against the government.

2009-Soyinka won Academy of Achievement Golden Plate Award

2013- Soyinka won the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award

http://www.ualberta.ca/~afso/documents/soyinka.pdf, wikipedia, New York Times etc.

And he (Soyinka) deployed his depth of wisdom; the acme of his professorial and literary sagacity to inform those from the 'Delta swamp' that apart from oil, the other things they are good at producing are mammy watas, manatees, hippopotami, and mermaids. I am very sure the people of 'Delta Swamps' will rejoice exceedingly at this well crafted, apt characterization of themselves by the infallible and erudite Prof. Either that or this sagacious professor called a woman - someone's mother, a wife, a sister - hippopotami. Either way, since he is a Nobel Laureate, I must harken to say, his is right, just and honorable! He is utterly flawless, and wiser than Solomon!

Please join me in hailing Saint Soyinka, the man who does not even honour God!!

PointB: And he (Soyinka) deployed his depth of wisdom; the acme of his professorial and literary sagacity to inform those from the 'Delta swamp' that apart from oil, the other things they are good at producing are mammy watas, manatees, hippopotami, and mermaids. I am very sure the people of 'Delta Swamps' will rejoice exceedingly at this well crafted, apt characterization of themselves by the infallible and erudite Prof. Either that or this sagacious professor called a woman - someone's mother, a wife, a sister - hippopotami. Either way, since he is a Nobel Laureate, I must harken to say, his is right, just and honorable! He is utterly flawless, and wiser than Solomon!

Please join me in hailing Saint Soyinka, the man who does not even honour God!!

There's no fair description of what's bad. Patience-be it mother, wife, sister, whatever-is behaving fatuously and merited all the adjectives that had been used to describe her from loud, silly, and perhaps thoughtless .

Prof Corruption:

There's no fair description of what's bad. Patience-be it mother, wife, sister, whatever-is behaving fatuously and merited all the adjectives that had been used to describe her from loud, silly, and perhaps thoughtless .

We are basically saying the same thing. Squabbling publicly with a woman (whom he clearly called 'mere') and other name calling makes him god-like. It's all good. Let's hail him!

Prof Corruption:

1965 - Soyinka was arrested and imprisoned. He was falsely accused of broadcasting false election results on radio. Internationally renowned writers such as Norman Mailer and William Styron led protests of Soyinka’s imprisonment. Soyinka was freed after 3 months.

1967 - During the Nigeria civil war in which the republic of Biafra attempted to secede, Soyinka was falsely accused of supporting the rebels. He was arrested, but never charged, and spent 27 months in prison (1967-1969). He was placed in solitary confinement in a cell that was 4x8 feet.

The price for freedom of expression is no longer as steep for literary icons. The present GEJ administration and political system represent a quantum leap in civility compared to our past leaders. Where you used to get detention, you get smear campaigns by Abati/Okupe and other smear merchants.

The record of this man can not be smeared by anybody. You can take that to the bank.

Prof Corruption: 1967 - During the Nigeria civil war in which the republic of Biafra attempted to secede, Soyinka was falsely accused of supporting the rebels. He was arrested, but never charged, and spent 27 months in prison (1967-1969). He was placed in solitary confinement in a cell that was 4x8 feet.

I find it ironic that the people he stood up for, are people trying to disparage his person and calling him unprintable names.

debetmx:

I find it ironic that the people he stood up for, are people trying to disparage his person and calling him unprintable names.

He stood up for what he believed in. Now that doesn't make him infallible.

When you go about insulting people and calling them names; you are not solving any problem, you are fomenting crisis, and should accept responsibility for your action. That is what is happening to WS now. Let him deal with it by measuring his utterances like a statesman.

PointB:

He stood up for what he believed in. Now that doesn't make him infallible.

When you go about insulting people and calling them names; you are not solving any problem, you are fomenting crisis, and should accept responsibility for your action. That is what is happening to WS now. Let him deal with it by measuring his utterances like a statesman.

For once in your entire NL life, you utter sensible words.

Truth be told, Wole Soyinka [b]was [/b]an Icon. He spent years building a reputation. One that would have been the envy of history books.


But just like it took a few minutes to crash the world trad e centre which was built over a period of four years, so has it taken Wole Soyinka to crash a hitherto well earned reputation.

How do you get into a political fight and take sides without getting your details right. The worst thing that happened is that it suddenly appears like Wole Soyinka was supporting Chidi Lloyd murderous actions in the house.

PointB:

He stood up for what he believed in. Now that doesn't make him infallible.

When you go about insulting people and calling them names; you are not solving any problem, you are fomenting crisis, and should accept responsibility for your action. That is what is happening to WS now. Let him deal with it by measuring his utterances like a statesman.

If WS calling madam Jesus her real name is the reason why you are crying here I pity you and your group. You need to get ready for more challenges. By the time they take madam Jesus to beg the man of honour, e-rats will not be there.

wole wole wole how many times did I call u?

what happens to the Soyinka in you?
why did u allow the wole in you to appear?
now you see the result.

the worst is that the Yoruba folks around that should help are even beating the drum higher.
anyway wole you are mere mortal your(Soyinka) time has gone, lets manage the wole we see now.

LFJ:

If WS calling madam Jesus her real name is the reason why you are crying here I pity you and your group. You need to get ready for more challenges. By the time they take madam Jesus to beg the man of honour, e-rats will not be there.

the above quote is a prove of wat am saying.

the worst is that the Yoruba folks around that should help are even beating the drum higher.

debetmx:

I find it ironic that the people he stood up for, are people trying to disparage his person and calling him unprintable names.

that is when Soyinka is still inside the wole now the Soyinka is gone,

Soyinka is better than wole, you can take the wole and give us Soyinka.

pls can you help him and us to bring back the man Soyinka we don't want the irritating wole.

Whao!!! I can't but marvel to Wole Soyinka's achievements...absolutely second to none.

PointB:

He stood up for what he believed in. Now that doesn't make him infallible.

When you go about insulting people and calling them names; you are not solving any problem, you are fomenting crisis, and should accept responsibility for your action. That is what is happening to WS now. Let him deal with it by measuring his utterances like a statesman.

you are ryt

Soyinka has always stood for the truth regardless of the circumstance.

it was even Soyinka who defended Patience when most people including me criticised her appointment in bayelsa.

Wole = woman abuser and serial divorcer. They should check his house. There will be one small girl his he fa-ing everyday.

PapaBrowne: Truth be told, Wole Soyinka [b]was [/b]an Icon. He spent years building a reputation. One that would have been the envy of history books.


But just like it took a few minutes to crash the world trad e centre which was built over a period of four years, so has it taken Wole Soyinka to crash a hitherto well earned reputation.

How do you get into a political fight and take sides without getting your details right. The worst thing that happened is that it suddenly appears like Wole Soyinka was supporting Chidi Lloyd murderous actions in the house.

you didnt get the gist i thought.
Amaechi was becoming a clog in GEJ's govt, someone would remove that clog very soon. (someone fighting for GEJ)
Ask AZAZI.
thats why WS was crying out loud and reducing the source of the pressure (PEJ)

PointB:

He stood up for what he believed in. Now that doesn't make him infallible.

When you go about insulting people and calling them names; you are not solving any problem, you are fomenting crisis, and should accept responsibility for your action. That is what is happening to WS now. Let him deal with it by measuring his utterances like a statesman.

from my own estimation, there was no where in that article were he particularly mentioned patience name, but if you then deduce from your understanding that the person he must be referring to must have been patience, then it means that patience must have been behaving like a hippo. Also hippopotami refers to two or more so how can he be referring to patience

Chris-OD:
Wole = woman abuser and serial divorcer. They should check his house. There will be one small girl his he fa-ing everyday.

atleast he is not keeping mute by hiding under the skirt of a woman.

Chris-OD:
Wole = woman abuser and serial divorcer. They should check his house. There will be one small girl his he fa-ing everyday.

The man that called a cantankerous coward by in-law, who led your people to their deaths had how many wives in his life time?

He even but an aboki in his will. Who is fooling who. mtcheeew