Akeem Lasisi
– He is a practising hunter.
– So daring is he that he once stormed a radio station in Ibadan where he stopped the announcement of the result of an election he believed was rigged, and announced the ‘correct’ one.
– He does not cut his hair because he feels he cannot afford the time to repeatedly do so.
– When Soyinka writes and publishes a book, he hardly revisits it for re-editing. His equally legendary contemporary, Chinua Achebe, believed in continual updating/editing of such.
– When the Babangida junta annulled June 12presidential election won by the late MKO Abiola, one of the statements Soyinka first made is, ‘Oro pesije’, a Yoruba expression meaning ‘a matter beyond words’.
– When he continued to fight the military for the actualisation of June 12, the bloody Abacha junta declared him wanted and pasted his poster/photo in some barracks, saying, ‘Soyinka, you can only run, you cannot hide.’
– Soyinka did not finish with a Third Class at UI as some people say, he did with Second Class Upper.
– His most acclaimed play is ‘Death and the King’s Horseman’, recently staged by Bolanle Austen-Peters, and now turned into a film by Mo Abudu.
– He is ever angry when people just describe the play as the dramatisation of cultural clash.
-One of the finest lines in ‘Death and the King’s Horseman’ is ‘Life is honour. It ends where honour ends’, said by cunning-man-die Elesin Oba.
– Soyinka loves satirising terrible African leaders – as he does in ‘A Play of Giants’ (Idi Amin) and ‘King Babu’, which satirises Sanni Abacha.
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I don’t resent the British for forcing their language on me – Soyinka
– Many believe that Soyinka is a difficult writer, based on how tough it is to decipher the language and content of the likes of ‘The Interpreters’ (a novel), ‘The Road’ (a play) and ‘Ogun Abibiman’ (a poem).
Some of his ‘easy’ and most popular works are Child Internationale , The Trials of Brother Jero and Death and the King’s Horseman.
– Soyinka is related to Afrobeat Legend, Fela Anikulapo Kuti.
· He lost the Oxford Professor of Poetry.
· He fled Nigeria on a motorcycle hounded by Abacha.
· He wrote poems on tissue paper while in prison.
– Soyinka does not operate any social media account, but some goons opened fake ones in his name.
– He is a cancer survivor.
– He loves wines and – women?
– Soyinka and former President Olusegun Obasanjo are from the same Ogun State but they hardly agree on any issue.
– The Nobel laureate is always the focus of cameras at events, with journalists so much concentrating on him that he has to often protest to save his eyes.
Meanwhile, enjoy this poetic tribute to the legend: ORI AGBE by Akeem Lasisi:
