Author Wants National Theatre Named after Soyinka

Author Wants National Theatre Named after Soyinka

By Yinka Olatunbosun

Author of popular children’s book ‘Igho Goes to Farm’ and Head of Politics at The Guardian, Mr. Anote Ajeluorou, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari and the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, to name the National Theatre in Lagos after black Africa’s Nobel laureate in literature, Prof. Wole Soyinka. He made the recommendation as part of activities marking the eminent poet, polemicist, activist, and playwright’s 86th birthday.

Ajeluorou said Soyinka’s pioneering contributions to the emerging theatre practice in the country placed him in a firm position to be so honoured. Although he lamented that Soyinka might not have done enough to spread the gospel of theatre infrastructural development across every corner of the county, he said the foremost artist’s singular prowess in fictional writing that saw him bringing world acclaim to the country and continent as first black Africa’s Nobel Prize winner in 1986 earned him the deserved honour of the theatre edifice being named after him.

The children’s author also said such honour done to an icon of the humanities would provide added impetus to younger writers to strive for more excellence as ambassadors of the pen profession. He also lamented that the noble and humanistic virtues and values that Soyinka stands for – in terms of his writing to change society, his activism and sundry crusaders to make Nigeria a better place were daily being eroded because the Nigerian society is yet to tap into Soyinka and other eminent writers’ social vision.

According to him, “Nigeria is where it is today stagnating because the noble visions of founding humanists like Soyinka, JP Clark, Chinua Achebe, Christopher Okigbo, and Buchi Emecheta have not been mainstreamed into social consciousness. Strangely, these men and woman of noble and compelling vision still occupy the periphery of society.” He also lamented that their legacies were yet to be properly appropriated to build a better Nigerian society.

“Elsewhere, these men and women would be the very standards by which society is modelled. Sadly, the Nigerian political construct is not wired that way, but in ways that leaves much to be desired. Does anyone wonder why the country has continued to drift?

“But it is not too late to retrace our steps and redeem the past, reorganise the present, and reshape the future. That may have begun with the transfer of the National Theatre to private concerns, led by the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Bankers’ Committee, to develop the theatre and run it profitably. Similar culrural edifices can be built and named after our literary, iconic ancestors like Achebe and Okigbo and Emecheta to immortalise them and be handed over to private hands to run as well. Clark, too, deserves such honour even while he is still alive. The University of Lagos has done him similar honour. But a national one is well-deserved and long overdue,’’ he argued.

Ajeluoruo noted that such honour would celebrate the great virtues of other Nigerian writers who are globally recognized for their writings and had won coveted international prizes.

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