Professor Wole Soyinka was his
vintage self responding to
questions about his life,
activism, and muse amongst
others during an interaction
with four undergraduates at
the just concluded Ake Arts and
Book Festival in Abeokuta, Ogun
State.

The audience broke into
spontaneous applause as he
walked briskly into the hall
attired in his trademark collarless
shirt and holding a jacket. They
kept applauding till he climbed
the stage. Then there was
silence. Pin drop silence as he
took his seat.
Though he had not yet uttered a
word, it was as if the guests
inside the Banquet Hall of June
12 Cultural Centre, Kuto,
Abeokuta, Ogun State was aware
of the scintillating performance
that awaited and was thanking
him in advance.
It was vintage Kongi. The Nobel
Laureate was as candid as he
was evasive. He elaborated on
questions he wished to and
parried others that he
considered somewhat too
personal. But the audience,
comprising young and old from
across the world, took no
offence. A Nobel Laureate is
entitled to some privileges.
Twenty-one year old Oreoluwa
Ajewole, a Psychology student at
the Obafemi Awolowo University,
Ile Ife; Oladele Noah, studying
English in the same institution;
19-year-old Tobiloba Oguntona,
an English student of the
University of Lagos and Chime
Adioha from Owerri, Imo State,
were the four lucky
undergraduates chosen to pose
questions to Professor Soyinka at
the session.

They had emerged from an
online competition for people
aged 21 and below, and their
reward was sharing a stage with
Kongi at the Ake Arts and Book
Festival (AABF).

Soyinka’s medical doctor son and
Ogun State Commissioner for
Health, Olaokun, moderated the
segment with the theme ‘In the
Shadow of Memory: An Audience
with Wole Soyinka’ and like his
father, was a true agent
provocateur.
Before the questions started
flowing, there was a special
welcome performance from
masquerades from Soyinka’s
Remo Division of Ogun State.
They paid homage to Soyinka
who gladly accepted their
greetings.
Noah then set the ball rolling. He
wanted to know what kept the
Nobel Laureate going during his
22-month incarceration during
the Civil War and how he was
able to write under such terrible
condition.

Corrupt jailer

Soyinka’s answer was short and
straightforward. “It took a while
before I was able to smuggle in
books. That was at a later stage;
after I managed to corrupt my
jailer. At the beginning I wrote
on sheets of cigarette pack and
at some stage on toilet paper.
I didn’t eat much so I didn’t need
too much toilet paper; I wrote on
them. Later on, I was able to
smuggle in some books; I was
able to write in between the lines
with the ink I had manufactured.
That way I kept my sanity.”
Did winning the Nobel Prize
influence his writing in any way,
Oguntona asked?
“I don’t think that winning the
Nobel Prize affected my writing
in any way. It was a nuisance at
the beginning but I learnt to
manage it. Subsequently, I got
used to writing more in planes
than I normally do in my
sanctuary. All it did was that if
affected me in terms of my
working methods but I don’t
think for a moment it affected
the intensity of what I wrote.”

Military rule as aberration

Apart from his illustrious literary
career, Professor Soyinka’s
antecedent as a social activist is
also well documented. He doesn’t
condone dictatorship of any kind
and has had several run-ins with
the military, culminating in
fleeing into exile in 1994 during
the regime of the late General
Sani Abacha.

How did he survive that
experience, especially having to
leave the country in a manner he
described as an affront on his
sexagenarian dignity?
[b]“I had to take a most unusual
route to exile which I felt was
most un-dignifying. It wasn’t the
first time I would ride on a
motorcycle – as a rider and as a
passenger – but in this particular
instance, I had to go through the
bush being lashed by branches
at night, I felt that it wasn’t
something that should be
happening at my age during that
period,” he said before
explaining his relationship with
the military.

He noted that not all members of
the military are beasts; some are
civil. He even enrolled in the
university’s officer corps as a
student because he thought it
would be possible to go to South
Africa and liberate the country
from apartheid. His only issue
with the military is when they
demand to be treated as gods
and goddesses.
He will also fight them when they
refuse to return power to
civilians as happened during
General Muhammadu Buhari and
Abacha’s regime.
“It’s a question of trying to ease
them out one way or the other,
make their lives difficult by being
hypercritical, if you like, so that
they know from the very
beginning that that particular
regime is unwanted.”[/b]

Earlier that day in a book chat
involving General Godwin Alabi-
Isama, author of ‘Tragedy of
Victory’ and Patrick Okigbo, an
undergraduate had called for the
return of the military because of
the excesses of politicians. What
does Kongi say to such a youth
and others who have no
memories of military rule?
“If you want to have the military
back, dictatorial rule of any kind,
it’s really re-colonisation. Yes,
there was a time when indeed
the civilians were exceedingly
corrupt. What we have learnt
from our experimentation with
military rule is that they are just
as corrupt, incontinent,
unreliable and treacherous
towards civilian existence as the
very worst civilian rule.”

Origin of Pyrates Confraternity

Asked the vision and mission of
the Pyrates Confraternity he and
others established as a student
at the University College, Ibadan,
Professor Soyinka gave a detailed
explanation of what fraternities
are and how they differ from
cults.

[b]“College fraternity is a time
honoured tradition. It exists
virtually all over the world where
there are tertiary institutions.
Many presidents of the United
States belonged to fraternities in
their universities; they are part
and parcel of university culture.
“Fraternities, for at least two
decades [in Nigeria], didn’t have
one negative word against them.
But of course, society being what
it is, fraternities became
corrupted. They turned
fraternities to somewhere where
you can exercise macho instincts
and bully the rest of society. Of
course, they [those with ulterior
motives] were thrown out or
they were never admitted in the
first instance which was our idea
of the original fraternity.
“So they went out and set up
their own organisations which
were also called fraternities but
which soon showed exactly what
they were. The Buccaneers,
which was the first to break out;
Eiye Society, Vikings and today
you have Daughters of Jezebel in
some colleges. They are the most
vicious; more vicious than their
male counterparts.”[/b]

The Nobel Laureate also
explained how decadent
politicians began to recruit
students as thugs by enticing
them with money, cars and other
gifts. All these anti-social
behaviour, he reiterated, was not
in the manifesto of the original
Pyrates.
“The only negative thing I can
confidently tell you about Pyrates
Confraternity: sometimes they
get drunk but they don’t molest
you when they are drunk,” he
said.
On what informed the formation
of the fraternity, Kongi said:
“Then at the University of Ibadan
where it all began, the
population of male to female,
was I think about 500 to 1 and
these female students were
abused, insulted and harassed so
one of the cardinal points is for
chivalry.
The Pyrates used to come to the
defence of the women. It was
formed for chivalry, comradeship,
no partisan politics and it was
anti-establishment.
The Pyrates
declared from inception we are
mavericks, we are anti
establishment. Whenever you do
anything positive, you are not
supposed to announce it. You
won’t take credit for it.”

Militant gods

On the pervasiveness of Yoruba
mythology in his works and if
there has there been any
negative reaction to it, Kongi,
who is fond of Ogun, offered an
unapologetic defence. “This is a
result of Western or Eastern
orientations. Christians or
Muslims who think that they have
the ultimate key to the kingdom
of heaven and that if you don’t
follow either scripture, you are
forever damaged.

This is my world, my created
environment; the myths of my
society. Christians and Muslims
must accept this, that they also
exist in mythical worlds but the
thing is that they would not
accept.
“Who would tell me that the
angels and the saints of either
Islam or Christianity are not
mythological figures? Prove to
me that they are not before you
ask me to prove to you that mine
are not decent, respectable and
even creatively enabling
mythological figures.
So let all of us stick to our
mythology. Don’t try and
denigrate mine because if you do
then I will denigrate yours. My
myth does not require me to turn
the other cheek. And stop
claiming knowledge of absolute
truth. Stop saying there is only
one way, path to the god-head.
All religions are equal.”

Women, liquor and collarless
shirts

A question about cigarette, liquor
and women supposedly aiding
the muse drew murmurs of
approval from the audience.
What did for Kongi as a young
writer and what still does for
him?
“I’m against liquor; completely
against liquor. Wine is not
liquor,” Soyinka, renowned for
his excellent taste in wine, said
tongue in cheek as the audience
erupted in laughter.
“Good brandy is not liquor;
single malt whiskey is not liquor.
Palm wine is not liquor. All the
rest are liquor,” he continued,
adding that he knew the
medicinal values of palm wine
right from childhood.
“Anything that is not liquor, I
think hurts the productive
system. Wine is excellent…what
corrodes the body for me is
water. I can’t imagine anybody
being creative with orange juice,
pineapple juice and all that. I
can’t imagine it. It’s very difficult,”
he added.
Soyinka didn’t controvert the
point that women aid the
creative process. “Women? We
have to be careful here. Artists,
painters and others, what is their
favourite model? Very few of
them use male models. The
artists they know what they are
doing.”
On why he started wearing
collarless shirts, Soyinka said: “It
was as a result of my
abandonment of ties. I felt
restricted by ties. Why on earth
should somebody put a rope
around my neck and at the same
time they don’t like being
hanged. Does it make sense to
you? Once I abandoned ties, the
next thing was what was that tie
doing around my neck? There is
nothing mysterious about it;
straightforward practicality.”

The Chemist

Kongi demurred when asked
about his first love. How he
wooed her and got her to accept
his offer of love.
“I have a reputation for total
recall. People are astonished by
how I remember images, events
from childhood and this is one of
those areas where they fall
down,” he said.
But the audience realising that
he wanted to parry the question
protested.
“Look, all of you. You think you
can have tricks of the trade just
free like that,” he said to more
laughter from the audience.

Olaokun intervened with, “I think
the audience can see a political
kind of manoeuvring happening?
Can you move from the particular
to the general then?”
He duly obliged. “I’m not a great
scientist but I believe in
chemistry. When chemistry
happens, you know at once. So
just follow the fumes from the
person. If you don’t succeed, try,
try again.”
Asked his perception of today’s
young people, Soyinka said they
are neither better nor worse
than the previous generations.
His only plea was that they
maintain the highest ethical
standards even in the face of
modernity and technological
advances. He also stressed the
importance of learning from
history in order not to repeat
mistakes of the past.

That was the last question of the
day and the appreciative quartet,
who had realised their dream of
taking on Kongi, thanked
organizers for the unique
opportunity.