Permit me to express my infatuation with Professor Wole Soyinka’s ideas and work, whose international reputation as a playwright and writer tends to outweigh his stature as an accomplished poet and social critic. It was this combination that invoked the muse in him to mock the All Progressives Congress (APC) over their loss of the July 16 Osun State gubernatorial election to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Governor-elect, Senator Ademola Adeleke, the scion of Adeleke family, reputed for grassroots politics and mobilisation.

President Muhammadu Buhari, while congratulating him, described his victory as the “peoples’ wish”.

He asserted that the outcome of the election indicated Bola Ige’s voice resounded from the grave where he was buried after suggested gunmen assassinated him at his Bodija-Ibadan residence on December 23, 2001, while serving as Attorney General and Minister of Justice.

In a statement, issued on Sunday immediately after INEC declared the outcome of the election, entitled: ‘Osun state elections: Iges’s voice’, the Nobel Laureate wrote: “The voice of Ajibola Ige, a Minister of Justice, resounds from the grave. Those who conspired to catapult his destroyers to unmerited national prominence to insult the memories of the living, and jettison basic ethical constraints have been justly served.”

Although, Soyinka did not mention anybody’s name but the newspaper reporter, in his explanation wrote: “The playwright in April 2022 protested against the emergence of a former Deputy Governor of Osun State, Chief Iyiola Omisore as APC National Publicity Secretary of the party at the 2022 National

Convention held between April 26 and 27 where 77 national officers emerged.”

It is at this stage that one may ask what does Soyinka want? Does he want the trial re-visited as demanded by him from President Muhammadu Buhari? Does he want fresh suspects arrested and tried? I am not a lawyer; neither do I have the mandate of Omisore to launder his image. But one thing derivable from Soyinka’s statement is to await the Lagos Governorship election and see whether Funsho William’s voice will resound from the grave too. Engineer Funsho Williams was a veteran gubernatorial aspirant on the platform of PDP before his gruesome murder. His assailants had waited for him in his Dolphin Estate, Ikoyi home on that fateful day. I had attended the media unveiling his gubernatorial ambition at a cosy restaurant on Kofo Abayomi Street, Victoria Island, Lagos in company of Kanmi Ademiluyi, former Chairman Editorial Board, Daily independent Newspaper, who later worked during ex-Governor Rauf Aregbesola second term in office as a media aide. The media unveiling was put together by STB McCann. At the event one could be amazed that charismatic and soft spoken Williams who could not hurt a fly could be murdered in that manner.

Hush! Let the Lord of vengeance react now. Those that were arrested but later freed then were Senators Adeseye Ogunlewe, who was a close associate of Williams, and Musliu Obanikoro, who defected then from the Alliance for Democracy to the ruling party.

Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, APC presidential candidate was holding forte then as Lagos State Governor when bandits were not on the loose then compared to what is being experienced in Nigeria today. Therefore it is assumed that it was a political assassination. Those freed then are already staunch members of APC.

Reacting, the Lagos PDP said it is looking forward to a replay of the Osun scenario in the Lagos forthcoming gubernatorial election, but its APC counterpart is of the belief that PDP is hallucinating. Time will tell.

My interest in Soyinka was aroused as a young school boy when debonair Ovation Publisher and former PDP Presidential aspirant, Basorun Dele Momodu and I were on our way to Dr. Ajayi’s (Dele’s brother’s) apartment at O.A.U Staff Quarters. Dr. Ajayi, who had just returned to Nigeria, was employed by the University of Ife, which was then regarded as one of the best university’s in the West Africa Sub-region, unlike today when sex-for-marks and other criminal activities hold sway.

As soon as we (Dele and I) alighted from the bus that took us from Ife town, Dele spoke glowingly about Soyinka who was then a resident in the university quarters, and since then my mind stayed glued to his person. So, when I had the opportunity to exhibit this, I interpreted some of his poems on social protests in my final year project for my bachelor’s degree in English. At an event in Muson Centre Lagos, some years back, I intimidated him that I worked on him for my first degree project, for which he instructed me to drop a copy of my long essay with his son, Makin, at Freedom Park in central

Lagos. Though I met Makin several times, I never discussed dropping it for him, because I had just one copy with me.

For those who don’t know Soyinka well, it might be of interest to profile him thus: Professor Oluwole Akinwande Soyinka was born on July 13, 1934 to an Ijebu father from Ishara in Ijebu-Remo and an Egba mother from Abeokuta, a combinations that made him to call himself “Ijegba” in his autobiographical work, ‘Ake, the Years of Childhood’. Cosmopolitan in outlook, he shuns cultural restrictiveness and freely absorbs the Alien into his receptive personality. This enables him to blend traditional African culture with Judeo-Christian and Western literary tradition. His 88-year-old finger is on every available pie.

We have Soyinka the lyricist, singer, actor, writer, hunter, scourge, rebel, revolutionary, and the quintessence of creativity. From the then university of Ife, he moved to Unilag till August 1967, when he was appointed Director, School of Drama at the University of Ibadan, a post he never held until October, 1969 when he was released from his two-year detention by the Yakubu Gowon regime, on the allegation that he tried to help secessionists in the Nigeria-Biafra war.

He had several encounters with the then Western regional government from about 1962. In 1965 he was detained and tried on a charge that he had held up a Radio Nigerian continuity announcer in Ibadan at gun-point, and substituted his own tape for the supposed one to be broadcasted by the then Premier, Western Nigeria, Late Ladoke Akintola. He was, however, discharged and acquitted by the presiding judge.

Underlining all Soyinka’s social activities is the firm belief that life could be more disciplined, responsible and better. Kudos to Kongi at 88.

Goke Awoyemi, a media consultant, sent this piece from Ile-Ife. Osun State and can be reached at: olagokesolomon18@gmail.com 08039506843 (SMS Only)