Soyinka can't take it anymore sitting on the sidelines
By JOHN MWAZEMBA
Afew days after acclaimed writer Wole Soyinka celebrated his 76th birthday on July 13, he made a profound announcement — that he would run for Nigeria’s presidency next year. It is not yet a done deal as he has just formed a political party — the Democratic Front for People Federation (DFPF), which will choose its presidential contender through a democratic process. But analysts claim that he will most likely be its flag bearer. When that happens, then the man famously known for saying, “A tiger does not proclaim its tigritude, it pounces,” would have lived up to the dictum. Indeed, in writing career, Soyinka has pounced so hard that some people have wondered whether he has not become like the young ruler in one his plays, Kongi’s Harvest, who not only had a head that swelled too big for the pillow but also for his mother’s back.
With this announcement, that is what Soyinka’s critics might contend — that he has grown proud and headstrong.
However, close observers are not surprised.
Soyinka has never shied away from political activism.
In 1965, then only 31 years and already famous as a writer, he stormed a radio station with a pistol at the ready.
He was angry that a politician who had rigged an election was about to claim victory so he substituted the politician’s tape with one critical of the usurper.
Soyinka was arrested but later released on a technicality.
Soyinka has fought ferociously for justice in his 20 odd published works, which include drama, novels and poetry.
His first plays were The Swamp Dwellers and The Lion and The Jewel, a light comedy.
The Trial of Brother Jero (once a high school literature set book in Kenya) with its sequel, Jero’s Metamorphosis, A Dance of the Forests, Kongi’s Harvest and Madmen and Specialists are satirical comedies.
The Swamp Dwellers, The Strong Breed, The Road and The King’s Horseman are among Soyinka’s serious philosophic plays.
Purely autobiographical works include The Man Died: Prison Notes and the account of his childhood, Aké (1981).
Soyinka has written two novels, The Interpreters (1965) and Season of Anomie (1973) considered some of the most complicated African narratives.
Soyinka has been consistent and unsparing in his criticism of Nigeria’s bourgeoisie.
He has earned the tag, the “cultural impresario and unofficial diplomat, democratic conspirator and ferocious, unappeasable warrior of justice.”
Like many other African writers, Soyinka has been forced to wear the prophetic garb, complete with lightning-fire certitude and accompanying gravitas; white symbolic beard, poignant eyes and the face of a suffering prophet.
At times in his odyssey — like the biblical prophets of old – standing like a solitary messenger, eye-ball to eye-ball with the formidable forces of Nigerian dictators, he has looked terribly outnumbered. However, he has soldiered on, unbowed.
No one questions Soyinka’s literary genius — he is, after all, the first African Nobel Laureate in Literature, in 1987.
He is a wordsmith with the gift of articulate speech.
Words stream from his mouth like sharp, guided missiles.
He is a revered intellectual and is also very firm and uncompromising on matters of principle, especially human rights.
These are good attributes for one’s curriculum vitae in any career except politics.
It will surprise Soyinka, as happened to one-time American vice president, Al Gore, who asked in his book, Assault on Reason, “Why do reason, logic and truth seem to play a sharply diminished role in the way America now makes important decisions?”
Reason and logic (and their sister, thinking) are apparently not always needed in politics.
Al Gore’s compatriot, late US President John F. Kennedy was more optimistic.
A Pulitzer-prize winning author for writing Profiles in Courage, JFK wrote that “If more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a better place in which to live.”
Though arguable, JFK probably believed that politics could benefit immensely from the contribution of writers (especially poets).
Most writers have deep insight into the affairs of human beings and one wonders whether they could make better contribution as active players in politics rather than spectators shouting suggestions from the sidelines.
Writing in the Nigerian tabloid, The Sun, Mike Jimoh names some writers who were active politicians: Winston Churchill was both prime minister and celebrated author, winning a Nobel for literature in 1953.
Valery Giscard D’Estaing was both a poet and prime minister of France.
Vaclav Havel was a writer who later rose to become Czech president.
Mario Vargas Llosa very nearly became President of Peru.
African writers have generally been cautious in joining active politics.
Some have written books that have shaken regimes to the core — but only ended at that.
We have heard a few African men of letters who were great politicians.
The poet Leopold Sedar Senghor, rose to become president of Senegal.
The question one may ask is, was Senghor great because he was first a writer then politician, vice versa or because of both?
And was Senagal any better for being led by a writer/statesman?
The major hindrance that Soyinka will face when campaigning for votes will be the very thing that makes him great: Thinking! Thinking is not needed in politics.
Even in Washington, someone said, one can actually “do very well with half a brain”. The Nigerian electorate may not care a dime for Soyinka’s issue-based politics (and probably requiring complex intellectual reasoning).
In African politics, corruption, cronyism, sycophancy and tribalism do just fine.
Soyinka may be a great man of letters and highly respected in Nigeria but he would be deluding himself in thinking he will have it any easier because he is more educated (and philosophical) than the current “empty heads” masquerading as the Nigerian political elite.//The East African
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