Society of Nigerian Theatre Artists hails Wole Soyinka @90, National Theatre honour
By Editor
THE Society of Nigerian Theatre Artists (SONTA), made up of academics in theatre theory and practice, has paid glowing tribute to the Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka for turning 90 years and for the honour bestowed on him by Nigeria’s Federal Government that recently named the National Arts Theatre complex after him. In a statement, SONTA president, Prof. Gowon Ama Doki, said the body was “more than proud” of Soyinka, a Distinguished Fellow of SONTA, who he said has finally “found honour in his country” and now enjoys the status of Shakespeare and Ibsen who are equally honoured by their national governments.
“Just as we all continue the month-long celebration of this global citizen, more cheering is the news of the announcement by the federal government naming the National Theatre after Wole Soyinka,” Prof. Doki said. “It is indeed an honour well deserved by Wole Soyinka. This honour now rightly places him in the category of Shakespeare of England and Ibsen of Sweden who have enjoyed such honours by their national governments! Now, a prophet indeed does have honour in his country! As a Distinguished Fellow of SONTA, we are more than proud of Soyinka’s contributions in the field of literature, especially tragic theory as well as political activism over the years. We join the entire world to celebrate him and wish him greater health and peace on the 9th floor.”
Prof. Doki followed his eulogy by recounting the early years and subsequent literary and activism developments of Soyinka leading up to the 90th celebratory events thus, “This month of July has been agog with enchanting activities – all in honour of the one to whom honour is due, Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka who turned 90 on 13 July, 2024. Born the second child of his parents’ seven children in the city of Abeokuta, Nigeria on 13 July 1934, Soyinka studied in Nigeria and the UK, and worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London before returning to Nigeria at independence. He went on to write plays that were produced in both countries in theatres, on television and radio. Playwright, novelist, poet, play director, and essayist, Soyinka took an active role in Nigeria’s political history and its campaign for independence from British colonial rule. In 1965, as a young activist, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections. In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal government and put in solitary confinement for two years for volunteering to be a non-government mediating actor.
“As much of the community followed indigenous Yoruba religious tradition, Wole Soyinka (WS) grew up in a religious atmosphere of syncretism with influences from both cultures; much of this early beginning experience is captured in his memoir Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981). While at the University College Ibadan, Soyinka and six others founded the Pyrates Confraternity, an anti-corruption and justice-seeking student organisation, the first confraternity in Nigeria.
“Soyinka’s literary productions cut across the three genres of literature – drama, poetry and prose – and many critical works from which he became in 1986 the first African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Accordingly, he was described as he “who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence”. Besides the Nobel, he has won several other awards such as the Academy of Achievement Golden Plate Award (2009), Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Lifetime Achievement Award (2012), Europe Theatre Prize – Special Prize (2017), among many others.
“Happy birthday, our WS!”
