The two events came in one week. One was the celebration of the 60th anniversary of foremost Nigerian legal icon, Chief Afe Babalola, at the bar and the other was the iconic celebration of the 89th birthday anniversary of the Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka.
The events captured the lives of two great Yoruba sons and their exemplary contributions to the development of humanity, Nigeria and Yorubaland in particular.
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Chief Afe Babalola’s contributions to the legal profession is next to none. He has been an outstanding legal icon that stands like an Iroko tree and one of the greatest lawyers that ever came from Africa.
Also Chief Babalola’s contributions to education development is of great note and God has helped him with everything that you can think of in life. At almost 94, the Ekiti State born legal icon has produced more successful lawyers and Senior Advocates of Nigeria than any other lawyer in Nigeria and his lifestyle showed to a great extent that he is a man with a large heart.
As an erudite lawyer, his name is like a key that opens a window of opportunities and he is a complete omoluabi, whose passion for the development of humanity is legendary.
Watching the testimonies of people on how Chief Afe Babalola had impacted his world positively at the event organised to celebrate his 60th anniversary at the bar taught me a great lesson about how best to live for the service of humanity.
Despite his intimidating resume and experiences, Chief Afe Babalola had never held a political office, yet his imprints are indelible across the sociopolitical divides. People from all over the world celebrated him like no other person person because he had lived a fulfilled life that is worthy of emulation. As a Yoruba man, he knows what is best for the race and he is always ready to support the cause of Yoruba race.
Chief Afe Babalola’s University in Ado, Ekiti State is a legacy of a life time that will outlive baba, but I am happy his life has always been a blessing to our race. The most inspiring aspect of his life is that the nonagenarian started his life with nothing and he ended up becoming something with the help of the most high God and a lot of determination.
And today, he is the rallying point to people from all over the world. It is my prayer that God will continue to bless Chief Afe Babalola with good health and sound mind for him to continue to be such a blessing to humanity.
For the Kongi, Prof.Wole Soyinka, it is always a celebration of a worthy life. Prof. Wole Soyinka is no doubt an inspiration to many. Apart from the fact that he is a proud son of Yorubaland, Prof. Wole Soyinka is a product of God’s divine grace.
From his life story, you can easily understand where he was coming from as a man of fate. Prof.Wole Soyinka was born on July 13, 1934 in Abeokuta, Ogun State. After preparatory university studies in 1954 at Government College in Ibadan, he continued at the University of Leeds, where, later, in 1973, he took his doctorate. During the six years he spent in England, he was a dramaturgist at the Royal Court Theatre in London from 1958 to 1959.
In 1960, the great man of Yoruba race was awarded a Rockefeller bursary and returned to Nigeria to study African drama. At the same time, he taught drama and literature at various universities in Ibadan, Lagos, and Ife, where, since 1975, he has been professor of comparative literature.
Not resting on his oars, Prof. Soyinka in 1960 founded the theatre group: “The 1960 Masks,” and in 1964, the “Orisun Theatre Company”, in which he has produced his own plays and taken part as an actor. He has periodically been a visiting professor at the universities of Cambridge, Sheffield, and Yale.
During the civil war in Nigeria, Prof. Soyinka appealed in an article for ceasefire. He was arrested in 1967, accused of conspiring with the Biafra rebels, and was held as a political prisoner for 22 months until 1969.
With very intimidating resume and knowledge of literature, Prof. Soyinka is a voice in the global community and he is very radical in his approach to situation. He has published about 20 works: drama, novels and poetry. He writes in English and his literary language is marked by great scope and richness of words.
I have had the privilege of learning from his wealth of knowledge and I am happy to identify with the Kongi as one of his students of literature.
In one of books titled: “Isara: A Voyage Around Essay, the Ijegba playwright told a story of his background as a son of a teacher. And from the book, you can easily understand his drift as a man of destiny.
As dramatist, Soyinka has been influenced by, among others, the Irish writer, J.M. Synge, but links up with the traditional popular African theatre with its combination of dance, music and action. His writing is based on the mythology of his own tribe: the Yoruba, with Ogun, the god of iron and war, at the centre.
He wrote his first plays during his time in London, The Swamp Dwellers and The Lion and the Jewel (a light comedy), which were performed at Ibadan in 1958 and 1959 and were published in 1963.
Later, satirical comedies such as The Trial of Brother Jero (performed in 1960, published in 1963) with its sequel, Jero’s Metamorphosis (performed 1974, published in 1973), A Dance of the Forests (performed 1960, published in1963), Kongi’s Harvest (performed 1965, published in 1967) and Madmen and Specialists (performed 1970, published in 1971) featured in his works.
Among Prof. Soyinka’s serious philosophic plays are (apart from “The Swamp Dwellers”) The Strong Breed (performed 1966, published in 1963),The Road (1965) and Death and the King’s Horseman (performed 1976, published in 1975).
In The Bacchae of Euripides (1973), he has rewritten the Bacchae for the African stage and in Opera Wonyosi (performed 1977, published in 1981), based himself on John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera and Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera. Prof. Soyinka’s latest dramatic works are A Play of Giants (1984) and Requiem for a Futurologist (1985).
With his versatility and erudition, Prof Wole Soyinka has been a blessing to the literary world with many of his works becoming reference materials for research all over the world. For instance, two of his novels: The Interpreters (1965), narratively, a complicated work which has been compared to Joyce’s and Faulkner’s, in which six Nigerian intellectuals discuss and interpret their African experiences, and Season of Anomy (1973) which is based on the writer’s thoughts during his imprisonment and confronts the Orpheus and Euridice myth with the mythology of the Yoruba.
Also purely autobiographical are The Man Died: Prison Notes (1972) and the account of his childhood, Aké (1981), in which the parents’ warmth and interest in their son are prominent. Soyinka’s Literary essays are collected in, among others, Myth, Literature and the African World (1975).
However, Prof.Soyinka’s poems, which show a close connection to his plays, are collected in Idanre and Other Poems (1967), Poems from Prison (1969), A Shuttle in the Crypt (1972) the long poem Ogun Abibiman (1976) and Mandela’s Earth and Other Poems (1988).
For me, Prof.Wole Soyinka’s life is so inspirational to many youths around the world. He is an Iroko tree and a living legend that lives a moderate and spartan life. He is a scholar of a reputable standard. A Yoruba man to the core that believes in Yoruba culture and tradition. He is an educationist per excellent, a writer, novelist, scriptwriter, poet and a grammarian well respected globally.
Well, there is nothing that is too much to say about the exemplary life of both Chief Afe Babalola and Prof. Wole Soyinka other than to learn great lessons from the lives of the legendary duo. They are both of the blessed race: the Yoruba, and God has also made them such a blessing to humanity. May the good Lord continue to bless the revered Silk and the Kongi.
. Kehinde Aderemi writes from Lagos.
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