Celebrated Nigerian playwright and Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka reflected on his harrowing experiences during the regime of the late dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha In a candid interview marking his 90th birthday.
Prof. Soyinka described his survival as a “bit of a miracle,” he recounted the intense and dangerous obsession Abacha had with him, leading to severe consequences for those associated with him.
“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 a heavy price simply because of their association with me,” Soyinka said.
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Soyinka shared a particularly striking story about a driver who once worked for Abacha. The driver, now employed by another military officer, had overheard his new boss and a visitor discussing Soyinka. Intrigued by the name that had caused such turmoil for Abacha, the driver asked his new employer to meet Soyinka.
“A story which I told the other day at The Metropolitan Club in Lagos was one of my favorite 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.
He said, ‘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 favor. 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.”
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Soyinka also revealed that Abacha’s regime had gone to great lengths to trap and monitor him and others, setting up fake consulates and trading companies in locations like Atlanta, where Soyinka was teaching at Emory University at the time.
“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 to 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 a 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 counselors 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.
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“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.