Africa’s first Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka joined the exclusive club of nonagenarians on Saturday, July 13.
His influence in Nigeria, Africa and globally has also spanned decades.
Here are nine facts about Soyinka who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986:
1. Soyinka is a music composer. He wrote the songs for most of his stage plays. He has two music albums, one of which was the popular I Love My Country.
2. Two of his works, The Man Died: Prison Notes of Woke Soyinka and Poems from Prison were written on a sheet of toilet paper and smuggled out of prison.
3. In 1952 at the age of 18, Soyinka alongside six friends founded the Pyrates Confraternity, an anti-corruption and justice-seeking student organisation, at the University College, Ibadan.
4. His mother was one of the most prominent members of the influential Ransome-Kuti family. Among Soyinka’s first cousins were the musician Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, human rights activist Beko Ransome-Kuti, politician Olikoye Ransome-Kuti and activist Yemisi Ransome-Kuti. His second cousins include musicians Femi Kuti and Seun Kuti, and dancer Yeni Kuti.
5. Soyinka has lectured at several universities throughout his career. Some of them include the University of Ibadan (1960-1963); University of Lagos, (1963-1964); Cornell University, USA (1964-1966); and Harvard University, USA (1966-1967). Others are the University of Cambridge, UK (1967-1968); the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) (1968-1972); University of Lagos (1972-1984); University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA (1984-1988); Loyola University, Chicago, USA (1988-1991); Harvard University, USA (1991-1992); Oxford University, UK (1992-1993); University of California, Los Angeles, USA (1994-1996); and New York University, USA (1996-2003).
6. Soyinka wrote the first full-length play produced on Nigerian television. Entitled My Father’s Burden and directed by Segun Olusola, the play was featured on the Western Nigeria Television (WNTV) on August 6, 1960.
7. In 1965, at the age of 31, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria regional elections.
8. In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, Soyinka was accused of supporting the Biafra and was imprisoned for 22 months. Also, in 1994, the late General Sani Abacha arrested and jailed him for a short time for his activism and criticism of the government’s human rights abuses. He was later released and went into exile.
9. In 2014, Soyinka revealed he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and cured 10 months after treatment.
