Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka has said that he was exposed to danger after becoming the first sub-Saharan African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Soyinka stated this in a recent interview with CNN’s Larry Madowo, noting that he felt isolated and vulnerable after winning the coveted prize in 1986.
“I felt isolated when I won the Nobel Laureate and I felt much relieved when another African won it. I felt isolated because so much was demanded of me overnight. It was like your constituency was expanded simply because you’re from Africa. At the same time, especially in a society like ours, it exposes you more.
“So it exposes me also to very great danger because I refuse to back down on my beliefs and activities simply because I became a Nobel Laureate,” Soyinka said.
Explaining what he meant by danger, he said that the late military Head of State, General Sani Abacha, would have died a happy man if he (Abacha) had been able to hang him.
He said, “I always remind people that the most brutal dictator we ever had here, Sani Abacha, would have gone to his grave a happy man if he hanged a Nobel laureate. If he had been able to put on his CV that he hanged a Nobel laureate. As it was, he had to be content with hanging an activist and writer, Ken Saro-Wiwa.”
During Abacha’s regime from 1993 and 1998, Soyinka escaped from Nigeria on a motorcycle via the Benin border.
Abacha later proclaimed a death sentence against him ‘in absentia’. Soyinka returned to the country in 1999 when democracy was restored.
