The University of Ibadan (UI) has announced the establishment of the Wole Soyinka Institute in honour of its distinguished alumnus, Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka.
The announcement of the university’s council decision was made by the Vice Chancellor, Professor Kayode Oyebode Adebowale, on Tuesday, November 19.
The announcement followed a special performance of Soyinka’s latest play: “CANTICLES: A Pyre Foretold,” at the decades-old Wole Soyinka Theatre (formerly Arts Theatre).
Directed by Dr. Tunde Awosanmi, the 50-man cast production had earlier premiered as part of the university’s convocation events.
According to Professor Adebowale, the Wole Soyinka Institute will focus on research, teaching, performance and intellectual exchange inspired by Soyinka’s works and ideals. He described the institute as a platform for “renegotiating global status for Nigeria, Africa, and black humanity,” while celebrating Soyinka’s profound impact on literature, civil rights and global discourse.
He said Soyinka being an alumnus of the university, establishing the Institute in his honour is his “Alma Mater’s way of celebrating and immortalising him”.
Continued the VC, “For our institution, the Wole Soyinka Institute shall function as a window of seeing the world through new prisms. The institute shall be a platform for renegotiating global status for our nation, the African continent and the entire black humanity. It shall midwife global discourses that are as fierce and at the same time are as humanising as the politics, ideology, philosophy and ideas of the legend, Wole Soyinka. Through the gravitation of the minds and psyche of young thinkers and researchers across races, the institute shall be Africa’s major contribution to the intellectual understanding of the human race into centuries to come.”
The VC praised the prowess of Soyinka as a creative thinker, philosopher and fighter for the civil and human rights of individuals as well as the collective.
Tracing Soyinka’s footprints in the university community and linking same to his global accomplishments, including being the very first African Nobel laureate, the VC, said though Soyinka has been widely celebrated across the globe since he turned 90 in July 13, the University of Ibadan “insists on having its own celebration of Professor Wole Soyinka’s attainment of the nonagenarian decade.
“He means so much to our university. He is not just one of our institution’s most visible products, he has brought the highest recognition to the University of Ibadan and gave her an exceptional place on the global map of academic and creative reckoning. The announcement of Professor Wole Soyinka in 1986 by the Nobel Foundation as the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and as the first African to have won the award, topped the numerous honours which he has brought to his Alma Mater.”
Professor Soyinka, who was also conferred with the PINK International Award at the event by the Veronica Isioma Joei-led La Veronica Magazine, thanked the Vice Chancellor and the university community for the recognition, restating his enduring commitment to the cause of humanity. He also praised the presentation of his play by the students of the university, reiterating that he was not surprised at the quality performance as the University of Ibadan is known for “quality productions and outputs.”
Titled ‘Lifetime Achievement Award for Literary Excellence and Social Impact’, the PINK Award was presented by Dr Joe Odumakin, president of WOMEN ARISE for CHANGE and promoter of the Pink International Award, supported by the initiator Dr Veronica Okei and Professor Adebowale.
In her remarks, Princess (Dr) Veronica Okei said her organisation decided to confer its 11th anniversary and 6th Annual Award on Soyinka because he represents the core values for which the magazine and awards were set up: “A symbol of excellence, a source of inspiration, and a testament to what can be achieved when passion, dedication and talent come together.”
In presenting the award to Soyinka, Dr Odumakin traced the Nobel laureate’s “over 60-decades of activism even at great sacrifices and grave personal risks.” She said Soyinka’s personality and career in writing and activism epitomise core values of revolution — Resistance, Resilience and sheer commitment to the protection of the rights of the individual in the society, as well as the survival of our collective humanity.”
CANTICLES… was written by Soyinka while serving as a Scholar and Teacher of Performing Arts at the New York University, Abu Dhabi. The play had also been performed by the students of the school as directed by the head of the department of Performing Arts at the school, Professor Joanna Settle, who had visited Nigeria in July to conduct research into the world of Soyinka’s dramaturgy.
In his authorial preface to the play, which is heavily critical of religious extremism and bigotry, especially as witnessed in Nigeria in recent years, says, “CANTICLES is a narrative of the logical end of such toleration, where it becomes unremarkable to kill, instigate killing, bless the act and beautify the killers, then jet off to Paris, Dubai or Singapore with your family for a vacation, confident in the workings of this superstitious claim on solidarity… however, it is not an indictment of just one national instance of a serial, moral dereliction. It is a question thrown at the human claim to rational existence, and a “fundamentalist” pact of solidarity with the sanctity of every human life.”
