Professor Wole Soyinka

By Korede Abdullah

Professor Wole Soyinka, the Nobel Laureate, once vividly recounted his near-death experience in the air while the aircraft he boarded was on the verge of crashing, tossing here and there like a ship caught amid a raging storm.

In the midst of the hurly-burly in the high altitude, the bard burst into rendering some snappy Yorùbá incantations:
Ọmọ Ògún ni mí
Ògún kì í pa ọmọ Ògún
Ògún kì í fi ọmọ Ògún rúbọ.

Translation:
I am a child of Ogun,
Ogun never offers
His own son as a sacrifice.

Ogun, the god of iron and hunting, is the most dreaded and most venerated in the Yorùbá pantheons. Ogún is also the god of war and patron deity of blacksmiths and craftsmen.

After some time of panic and cries of woes, the pandemonium created by other air passengers subsided like a calm weather after a heavy tornado. They all heaved a sigh of relief. The literary connoisseur just giggled to himself. He had become Kúyẹ̀ – ikú yẹ̀ lórí mi! (Death has spared me)!

The Kongi himself is an Ogun incarnate – fearless, able to face dangers and danmn the consequences and he’s as strong as iron. In the course of his life’s odyssey, he has traversed the forest of a thousand daemons, battled different denizens and come out unscathed.

In 1967, when it was almost certain that one might pay the supreme price for associating with the enemy during the time of war, WS, driven by empathy and common humanity, found his way into the labyrinth of the war-ravaged Biafran landscape to hob-nob with General Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, the leader of the secessionist country in solidarity.

He would later be picked up like a common criminal and in a gestapo-like manner on the orders of General Gowon, the Nigerian military head of state. He was put in a solitary confinement for solid three years. Yet his spirit remained unbowed and his soul was unconquerable! To him, justice is the first condition of humanity.

At 90, it’s a mystery how the nonagenarian global icon and literary god still luxuriously bristles with life with an incredible, effervescent agility of an adolescent and with unusual mental acuity and alertness. This is a rare special grace. WS has fashioned imperishable syllables on the pages of time, as blacksmith forges irons. He lives forever!

Happy 90th in advance the Òrìṣà of literature!

Wọlé Ọmọ Soyinka
Mo fún ọ l’óbì jẹ,
Obì ni í bi ikú
Obì ni í bí àrùn
Mo fún ọ l’órógbó
Wà á gbó
Àkàlàmàgbò kì í p’ọdún jẹ.

Wole, the son of Soyinka
I offer you kolanuts
It’s Kolanuts that wards off death
It’s Kolanuts that wards off illness
I offer you bitter kola
You’ll live long like bitter kola.
Like, hornbill bird, you live forever!

*Korede Abdullah, lawyer, writer and public affairs analyst, writes from Lagos