‘Obafemi Johnson’s death did something to him, actually brought out the Soyinka in him’
* Unpacking resilience, activism in Wole Soyinka’s You Must Set Forth at Dawn at LABAF 2024
By Godwin Okondo
LAGOS Book and Art festival (LABAF 2024), which ended on November 17, 2024 hosted to a lot of literary activists, reviewers, writers and critics, and featured a number of panel sessions around literacy and cultural expressions. One of the panel sessions was centred on one of Wole Soyinka’s four memoirs You Must Set Forth at Dawn which offered an illuminating exploration of the literary, cultural, and philosophical depths of the work.
Moderated by Evidence Egwuono Adjarho, a literature enthusiast, the session featured Adedapo Victor Ayobami of Department of English, University of Lagos and another student Folorunsho Kehinde, who dwelt on the symbolic resonance of the memoir’s title, Soyinka’s reflections on personal and political struggles, and the profound influence of Yoruba culture on his worldview.
Through an engaging discourse, the discussants unpacked the themes of loss, resilience, spirituality, and activism, situating the memoir as both a deeply personal narrative and broader commentary on Nigeria’s socio-political landscape. Their perspectives underscored Soyinka’s role as a fearless advocate for justice and custodian of Yoruba philosophy, art, and heritage, as he weaves these influences into his lifelong quest for liberation and truth.
Adjaro said they were taught in literature to decipher the meaning of a work from it’s title, since a title can be very symbolic, adding, “I was doing a bit of research after I read the book and I realized that the title was taken from a Yoruba saying. The first question I had was with the title You Must Set Forth at Dawn. What does this title register in your mind, and what are the various ways you can explore it?”
While responding to Adjaro’s question on symbolism and title, Ayobami said, “The first time I came across the title, I was so fascinated I wanted to read the book. Most times, when we say ‘dawn,’ it’s more like we want to set forth very early in our lives, but immediately I got a grasp of the title, my desire was to know what this book is about. When I started reading it, I got to see Prof. Wole Soyinka’s perspective. I think there is no big difference from what I thought initially and what he actually documented.
“Growing up, there are specific times in your life that you must have to get things done, and if not done at the time, there’s a high tendency that you won’t be able to achieve the aim of that particular thing. Basically, let me just say Soyinka was able to achieve all he achieved, because he started early. He had his own conviction at an early age. When you read his first memoir Ake, you discover that he was able to ask questions and get answers, and decided on the path he was going to take going forward. I was able to discover that in life, make sure you do certain things at a very early age, so that you can go far into achieving what your aim is.”
For Kehinde, “The book gives a pictorial representation of getting down to the task of liberation, getting down to fighting for what is right, getting down to a just cause, because the whole book revolves around his many fights, not as a politician, but someone who knows the vision of an independent nation. So, he sees it as his sole responsibility to fight for justice, and at any point in time that injustice breaks out, you always see him here and there, wanting to talk to the government and speaking to the face of the oppressor.”
Ayobami also spoke on why Soyinka started the memoir on the theme of loss, and how it influences the entire book, “The first time I picked up the book, I saw how he describes fleeing from his dead friend’s body, Obafemi Johnson. We need to understand that this particular memoir documents his life when he was returning from Leeds University, down to 2005. I feel that what necessitated his coming back to Nigeria was because he needed to lay his friend to rest. That was what I thought when I read it, but on a closer look, you find out that he’s trying to pay homage to his late friends.
“In every memoir, you get to document your personal life, your friends, close relatives and all those that have significantly done things in your life. So, for Wole Soyinka, Obafemi Johnson’s death did something to him. His death was something that actually brought out the Soyinka in him, that he had actually not known before then. I think it was his death that actually led to his doggedness, in a way.”
Prof. Wole Soyinka
Kehinde agrees with Ayobami when he said, “I believe strongly that Obafemi Johnson’s death in this work is a motif, generally, and on a wider scope, the book opening on that note of grief sets the tone of the journey motif that permeates Soyinka’s works, especially his memoirs. Now, apart from the death of Femi Johnson, you have the last paragraph. The death of Femi Johnson and bringing back his corpse to Nigeria all together suggest the mood of the work entirely. So it’s the death of the person, death of history and where we have missed it as a country.”
The discussants also offer historical and political contexts that Soyinka’s experienced with various military regimes, especially under Gen. Sani Abacha, with Kehinde saying, “Soyinka believed that the military regimes did nothing but institute fear in the country. The civilian regime still operates like the military regimes, so there is not much difference in terms of freedom of expression. In the book Climate of Fear, it says, ‘the tendency to eradicate all vestiges of humanity is crucial to the project of domination, or diminution of the status of others,’ and by domination, I do not refer simply to military or colonial domination, but to ideological, religious, cultural and allied forms of subjugation.
“At the heart of it lies intolerance, which is very much a child of ignorance, as it is the fear of external knowledge. So, the politics in this book is Soyinka’s personal acquaintance with the climate of fear, so much so that all sectors of the economy felt that heat of power. In this book, Soyinka satirizes the political misadventure and ineptitude of military regimes in Nigeria, and how it was characterized by feudalism, power play, greed and its attendant effects being the consequence of mismanagement of human resources.”
Ayobami spoke to the acceptance of the military when they come to power with the false hope they give the citizenry but which soon evaporates to reveal the underbelly of their fraudulent nature. But by the time the populace realises its error, it’s too late as the military would have entrenched itself in power.
“The people see military government before they took over as their saviour, because people had expectation that they were going to be saved from hardships, not knowing that these particular generals are also going there to be something worse than the so-called civilian government. Soyinka explained his direct experience with these military rulers, especially Sanni Abacha, who declared him wanted. So, these persons who we thought had our interests at heart are going there to do what we thought only the civilians could actually do. The civilians are much easier for you to go against, but when you want to go against the military regime, you are scared for life. Soyinka, in this case, stood strong and spearheaded most of these agitations, and that’s why in this documentation, we can say that Soyinka’s doggedness really paid off for the masses of Nigeria today.”
