Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka has said he considered it a bit of miracle that he managed to survive the period of late dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha as the man was mad and obsessed with him.
Soyinka, in an interview with press to mark his 90th birthday, said Abacha was really obsessed with him, saying many people paid a heavy price simply because they associated with him.
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“I consider it a bit of a miracle that I managed to survive that period. Because Abacha was mad. He was obsessed. He was really obsessed with me. Many people paid heavy price simply because they were associated with Wole Soyinka, and they were available,” he said.
Soyinka added: “A story which I told the other day at The Metropolitan Club in Lagos was one of my favourite stories. A driver who was now working for yet another military officer had worked for Abacha. And he heard the host and the visitor talking about Wole Soyinka. It was the host who told me the story.
“After the visitor left, the driver went to his new boss and said, ‘excuse me sir, this Wole Soyinka you are talking about, is it the same one who my master used to talk about? Please, just do me one favour.
I want to meet him.’ The boss said, Why do you want to meet him? ‘I want to know the person who gave my boss Sani Abacha such nightmares.’ He said, I want to know that person. Because anytime he heard the name Wole Soyinka, he went into a frenzy. Abacha was desperate.”
Soyinka said Abacha and his goons set up consulates outside that were not real consulates, adding that they also set up trading companies that were fake.
“One was situated in Bayswater, where I used to stay, not far from where Muhammadu Buhari attempted to kidnap Umaru Dikko in the UK. It was purely to trap, to get hold of us. Several security units of police added us on their watch list. Afterwards, watching for us and for those who they were tracking. I wasn’t the only one.
“In Atlanta, they set up fake consulate. We fought to make sure that the consulate in Atlanta, where I was teaching at Emory University at the time was not set up. The envelope that passed to some of the city counsellors was heavy.
They admitted it. By the way, you know that I am an honorary citizen of the state of Georgia. And so, our American friends told these stories on the day of my investiture about what happened.
“They eventually succumbed to the pressure to set up that consulate, that fake consulate. And the President of my university insisted— because he got his report from the secret service in the US— he insisted that any time I was flying out, I had to be accompanied by policemen. On returning, they would send the police to come pick me up right at the door of the plane. It was quite touching,” he said.
Soyinka said what went on then was one of the reasons he found it so ignoble, so contemptible, that anybody should ever try to trivialise what Nigerians went through during that period.
He stated that whatever their quarrel with him, whatever their beef, they must learn to respect people’s struggle or be neutral.
The Nobel laureate said people should not come years later and then try and trivialise it, debase it and lie about the roles which people played, saying he found it contemptible and sub-human, adding that it is part of the anger which still burnt in him.
“That was a life-changer. People lost their lives. People were tortured senseless. When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission— before the Justice Oputa Panel —there was a gathering at Iyaganku, in Ibadan, at the NUJ Centre, in which many people narrated their experiences.
And one I can never forget was this young man who later on went to work for the governor in Osun State. I won’t mention his name. And at one time they tortured him to try and get him to incriminate other people. And he was a very strong person, strong-willed and he withstood all this torture. So, finally, they brought his parents.
“They brought him out. They said they would now torture his parents in front of him if he did not sign their papers. This fellow happened to be a holder of black belt in judo, by the way. He pounced on the policeman who was wearing a holster. He disarmed him, took his gun. And then put the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger.
“He preferred to kill himself rather than break under the horror of watching his parents tortured. What he didn’t know was that the police don’t normally load their guns, at least some of them, when they have to deal with suspects, just as a precaution.
“The gun clicked, clicked, and nothing happened. That was how vile that time was. When people come around today and talk glibly about that period, I often wish that Abacha would come back and teach them a lesson,” he said.
Quadri Olaitan is a journalist and contributor to Freelanews.com, covering news, public affairs, and human-interest stories.
