Nobel laureate, Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka popularly known as Wole Soyinka is celebrating his birthday. He turned 86 today. Many have been pouring encomiums on the iconic Nigerian playwright on his special day. The governor of Lagos state, Babajide Sanwo-Olu sent his birthday wishes for him in a tweet that read:
Born on July 13, 1954, Wole Soyinka had his early education at the Government College in Ibadan before proceeding to the University College Ibadan and subsequently the University of Leeds in England. He worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London and wrote plays that were produced in both Nigeria and UK.
Soyinka is known in literary circles for his exceptional talent and strong criticisms of successive Nigerian governments. He wrote plays such as “The Lion and the Jewel, The Trials of Brother Jero, Kongi’s Harvest, The Interpreters, The Man Died: Prison Notes, Aké: The Years of Childhood, You Must Set Forth at Dawn, and Mandela’s Earth and other poems.”
His role in Nigeria’s political history and the struggle for independence from Great Britain cannot be undermined. In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections. He was arrested and put in solitary confinement for two years in 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War.
Soyinka was forced into exile during the regime of General Sani Abacha (1993-98). The writer escaped from Nigeria on a motorcycle via the “NADECO Route.”Abacha proclaimed a death sentence against him “in absentia” and he only returned to Nigeria when the country returned to civilian rule in 1999.
In December 2017, he was awarded the Europe Theatre Prize in the “Special Prize” category awarded to someone who has “contributed to the realization of cultural events that promote understanding and the exchange of knowledge between peoples”.
The famous writer who was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature is the first sub-Saharan African to be honoured in that category.