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Prof. Wole Soyinka
(standing, middle) flanked by Dr. Wole Okadiran (left) and Prof. J.P. Clark at
a memorial reading session held in honour of the late poet Kofi Awoonor who
died in Nairobi, Kenya, at Freedom Park Broad Street, Lagos... yesterday
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Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole
Soyinka, has said that the late Ghanaian diplomat and poet, Kofi Awoonor
and himself could have been together at the Storymoja/Hay Literature Festival
held in Nairobi, Kenya.
He said he was invited to the same
festival but could not attend.
Awoonor was killed by terrorists
last Saturday at the Westgate Shopping Mall shooting in Nairobi.
Soyinka said two commitments: a
public conversation with a very brave individual, Karima Bennoune, an Algerian
national, whose trenchant publication – Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here, and the
annual conference of international investigators in Tunis, were responsible for
his inability to attend the festival.
He said: “My absence was
particularly regrettable, because I had planned to make up for my failure to
turn up for the immediate prior edition. Participant or absentee however, this
is one edition we shall not soon forget. It was at least two days after the
listing of Kofi Awoonor among the victims that I even recollected the fact that
the Festival was ongoing at that very time.
“With that realisation came another:
that Kofi and I could have been splitting a bottle at that same watering hole
in between events and at the end of each day. My feelings, I wish to state
clearly, did not undergo any changes. The emotions of rage, hate and contempt
remained on the same qualitative and quantitative levels,” he added.
Soyinka spoke in Lagos yesterday
during a memorial reading session tagged Humanity and Against and held in
honour of the late Ghanaian poet.
He described the late Awoonor as a
passionate African who gave primacy of place to values derived from his Ewe
heritage. “That, in turn, means that he was thoroughly imbued with the spirit
of ecumenism towards other systems of belief and cultural usages – this being
the scriptural ethos that permeates belief practices of most of this continent.
We mourn our colleague and brother, but first, we denounce his killers, the
virulent sub-species of humanity who bathe their hands in innocent blood,” he
added.
Renowned poet, Prof JP Clark
explained why Soyinka and himself were not at the funeral of the late Chinua
Achebe at Ogidi, Anambra State, blaming it on politicians that hijacked the
funeral. He noted that Prof Soyinka and himself did not sit and plot action on
whether or not to attend Achebe’s funeral in Ogidi.
“Politicians hijacked the Achebe’s
funeral. I said to myself, if there is life after death, Achebe would be
laughing at the politicians. So, writers could not have found a space in
Achebe’s funeral. From the President to the Governors, they hijacked it,” he
noted.
Clark said critics might be
wondering why a memorial is being held in honour of Awoonor in Lagos unlike
when Chinua Achebe died.
President of the Association of
Nigerian Authors (ANA), Prof Remi Raji, who read from his collection of poems,
The Fire Next Time, said of the late Ghanaian poet: “African literature has
indeed lost an influential voice. The name, Kofi Awoonor, was very present in
our minds as young students. Though I never met him in person, his writings
have been influential. The ANA has sent a condolence letter to the Ghana authority.
Today’s memorial is very instructive. His death is a reflection of the urban
barbarisms in the globe today.”
Other scholars who read excerpts at
the memorial were Prof Kole Omotoso, Prof Femi Osofisan, Dr. Wale Okediran and
Lola Shoneyin.
Tags
Society