By Ayodele Fagbohun

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In 1934, a very outspoken and courageousEgba woman, Mrs. Soyinka, like her sibling, Mrs. Funmilayo Ransome Kuti (Mama Fela and Dr. Beko) gave birth to a son, Wole Soyinka our own William Shakespeare in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
His father and mother hailed from Ishara in Ijebu. and Egba tribes, within the Yoruba national, ethnic or linguistic group in the federation of Nigeria.
Wole, a precious child who later in life coined his own nativity, Ije-gba from Ijebu/Egba. A son of a school headmaster who at the age of three literally converted the modest library of his father as private study where he imbibed and cultivated the habit of avid reader which did not depart from him.
Little wonder, Wole Soyinka eventually became the first in Black Africa to win Nobel Prize for literature in 1987. What a star in so called benighted dark continent of Africa!
Wole Soyinka is a daring cosmopolitan character of no guile. An erudite professor of literature, a public spirited person with tremendous network of global connection. He has naturally inherited noble trait of courage from his matrilineal background, an embodiment of passion for his great country Nigeria. This is as a result of his own God given endowment and personal exploits.
Daring personal risk to himself and perhaps to his immediate family, Professor Soyinka has contributed in no mean measure to grow the country into a federation of haven of peace and prosperity where no man is oppressed.
At 87, he will not “siddon look” to see Nigeria shipwrecked as a result of the sheer ineptitude of the corrupt and tribal ruling caste totally bereft of vision and ideas to govern very well.
Ironically, the country’s political leadership has wittingly or unwittingly capitulated to the regime of banditry, kidnapping and insecurity where everybody is to himself and God for all.
Under this confused and entrapped atmosphere and in the absence of imaginative and right ideologically oriented leadership, there is bound to be inane and stupid calls for secessions and secretarian violence as we currently experience in the country. Life will continue to remain ever forlorn, brutish, short and nasty.
On secession calls, Prof. Soyinka said, “I don’t like the sound of a Yoruba nation anymore that I like the sound of a Tiv nation or an Igbo nation.”
“The reason is this: there are certain pejorative overtones, chauvinistic overtones attached to it. That’s not the issue. When you talk about a Yoruba nation, are we talking about the creation of a nation within Nigeria alone or across colonial borders into Cotonou, Benin Republic, where Yoruba exists, on to Togo and even Ivory Coast? Prof. Soyinka is completely at sea about the whole bizarre contraption called Yoruba republic in the offing.
It is high time all genuine stakeholders, in Nigeria’s project as jealously guarded virile, independent sovereign Federal Republic, threw off mental indolence and slavery to Hausa/Fulani oligarchy to embrace the practice of true federalism and liberal demoracy as a panacea for unity and progress of Nigeria.
Prof. Wole Soyinka, Commander of Federal Republic (CFR) always speak with candour, with heart of steel and calls the cant and humbugs for what they are. His not a political demagoguery but a damning verdict against military oligarchy and to give constitutional powers to the people. For political power to rule flows from the people not from the barrel of gun.
Now, it is high time for whoever cares to lead must be prepared to eschew cowardly, immoral conduct and inflammatory statements to put the country on the edge of the cliff. Any true leader must be resourceful and resilient to fight the battles and determined to win the war with brains, brawn and shrewd diplomacy. Not with anachronistic and antediluvian methods or devices that cannot stand the awesomeness and onslaught of modern arsenal and international diplomacy.
In 1967, Nigeria drifted into inevitable but unavailable internecine civil war, Soyinka was convinced that the war was misguided and needless waste of precious lives and properties. He went for handshake across the Niger to negotiate for truce with Lt. Col. Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the military governor of Eastern Region.
Soyinka was arrested and detained during the war by Gowon military junta 1967-1969. He later wrote “The Man Died”, prison note about the enormity and bestiality of military rule, sheer inhumanity to man.
A renown journalist, one Sowemimo, on assignment was mown down by a soldier at a public square in Ibadan (1967) and the people kept mum in the face of the tyranny; and the man died.
A man of implacable, ingenuous and revolutionary outlook who remorselessly and gallantly fought military rule to exit with ignominy, Wole Soyinka proved candidly that pen is mightier than sword organized his own pro-democracy group, NALICON and returned to the trenches.
Soyinka co-founded Road Safety Corps popularly known as “Maja-maja” to halt the road carnage and return normalcy on our highways. He served as chairman, Federal Road Safety Commission 1988-1991.
He is a veritable man of prodigious talents and skills in the selfless and unalloyed services to humanity that could neither be compared nor quantified.
As the founder/grand patron, National Association of Seadogs (Pyrate Confraternity) in his undergraduate days in the University College of Ibadan, in 1952 quits active political activism. It is imperative for the youth to uphold the virtues of Prof. Wole Soyinka particularly in the South West to rebuild the broken walls of unity and progress in Yoruba land and to cover the rest of the country.
Initially, there was a general misconception that Pyrate Confraternity was a secret cult to be avoided like a plaque by the students and be proscribed . Thanks for the tenacity of purpose as one of the sterling qualities of the founder who now turns 87 on earth the association has not been proscribed.
I will quickly and humbly reiterate and suggest that Yoruba should canalize the value of pyrate confraternity as a way forward to stem the ill-tide of security malady in the South west where incidentally the organization originated.
The security network in the South West code named Amotekun co-founded by Governor of Ondo State, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, SAN, and his brother colleagues should liaise with pyrate confraternity for optimal service delivery throughout Yoruba land. With particular reference to the intractable security breaches rampant in Oyo State which is the cynosure of the South West. A stitch in time saves nine!
This writer heartily congratulates Prof. Wole Soyinka, CFR, for his unusual and uncanny feat to live up to this rare and unique milestone in spite of relentless affirmation and passion for the truth, always as constant as the Northern star which is not palatable to the ears of the vicious and vindictive men of violence in and out of corridor of power.
Soyinka’s long-drawn-out struggle from his youthful days, since the heyday of epic of Major Adaka Boro’s epic struggle in the Niger Delta region to free Nigeria from the clutches of colonialism and the neo-colonialist agents who substituted foreign rule with native and local tyranny could be said to be non pareil.
Wole Soyinka is true to his calling as a distinct public figure without any string attached by way of filthy lucre. He won’t succumb to any political demagoguery, vile or violent threat, duress, and cajolery to bamboozle him to betray lofty principle and be a sell out.
Soyinka characterically gave a damaging verdict against the pseudo-civilian regime of President Olusegun Obasanjo under whose watch, the Attorney-General/Ministry of Justice, Uncle Bola Ige (SAN) was gruesomely murdered in his bedroom at Bodija Estate residence in the evening of December 23, 2001.
Chief Bola Ige’s protégé, Second Republic Senator in old Ondo State who doubles as Chairman, Elders’ Forum, All Progressives’ Congress (APC), Senator Olorunnimbe Farukanmi also a critic of military incursion in the nation’s politics, constantly asks the puzzling question, who kills Bola Ige or put it mildly who is the mastermind of the heinous and dastardly mission?
According to the authoritative The Hope newspaper in its editorial on Wole Soyinka on power devolution recently, characteristic of his sustained commitment to Nigeria’s project, Soyinka as public intellectual, warned that if care is not taken, the June 12 celebrated this year may be the last if power was not devolved to the states or at best the zonal regions as the federating units.
Now the die is cast! Those who thoughtlessly call for secession and dismemberment of Nigeria either out of despair or desperation or both should have a rethink and get off or dismount from their Olympian height. They should all join forces to lift the country from morass of current political maladministration, underdevelopment and poverty staring us in the face.
Country men and women of bright ideas imbued with patriotism and dedication should take up the gauntlet and key into Prof. Soyinka’s submission on the vexed issue of power devolution. This will diplomatically and honestly frastrack the country’s progress for peaceful co-existence, and good governance in all its ramifications.
The people must brace up for mass mobilization and articulate the modus operandi to effect power devolution without any further delay. This will cement and foster cordial relations; spirit of brotherhood to live as one indivisible country with one destiny.
Having fought ceaselessly and remorselessly on the side of truth, justice, fairness and equity to right the wrong and put Nigeria amongst international community, it will be unthinkable, unfair and not dignify Professor Wole Soyinka in the evening of life to quickly descend into slough of a patron in a ruptured ethnic Oduduwa republic.
Happy birthday Bro. Kongi, more fruitful years of invaluable service to Nigeria. And prayers of contrite and penitent hearts for our obdurate national leaders to have a positive change for purposeful government in Nigeria.