The god at 90
Festus Adedayo
(Published by the Sunday Tribune, July 14, 2024)
When I wrote Is Soyinka, the god unraveling?, (April 9, 2023) many people thought I belonged to the rank of those misbegotten children who make a pastime of casting aspersions on the literary avatar, Professor Wole Soyinka. As Yoruba will shout while expressing their indignation, can an epileptic, who makes serial pun of dying, ever be compared to one who dies once and totally? – “taa l’ó ńjé omo akuwárápá níwájú omo akúyányán?” What equation will come on earth that will make a small fry like me look into the eyes of a god like Soyinka?
The truth is, very few human beings are capable of unbuckling the sandals of that literary god. We must however keep the tradition of keen interrogation, fearless x-ray of personas and personages which Soyinka himself taught us through his non-conformist and iconoclastic essays, plays and public interventions. Kongi never taught us that gods were beyond fallibility. As fiery as King Sango was in old Oyo Empire, his major flipside was his scorching temperament which led to his suicide at Koso. Soyinka has his’ and his children-sans-biology like us owe him the responsibility of bringing out what we consider the mucks in his eyes.
Several parts of Soyinka the elephant have been explored and I am not ready to regurgitate them here. However, I am sure Soyinka cannot die. While here with us in human form, his deeds have transited him from mere mortality into enduring immortality. He will live like the Great mythic musician, Orpheus and his wife, Eurydice. Soyinka has left the realm of the human. He is a mythical being who, when this Isara god eventually transits, would just transmute into an imaginary myth recited in incantations. As a hunter, his guild would sing the Iremoje, hunters’ recitals at their colleague’s passage.
Happy 90th birthday to the god we are opportune to behold in human form.
