80 Years A Titan

Professor Wole Soyinka

“Alagbon”

The first time I met him in real life was late in 2001 when he came to Alagbon Close in Lagos. Alagbon is the home of the Police Force Criminal Investigation Department. He came there after Bola Ige (his close friend and the Nigerian Minister for Justice) had been gruesomely murdered by assassins. He was there to put pressure on the investigators to do their jobs.

I first saw the white “fro” from behind and instantly knew it was him. He was not happy. A good friend had been killed and this was not a place to start saying to him all the things I had in mind to say or ask all the questions I meant to ask. This man was an enigma in real life and had a much larger personality in life than on paper or from hearsay. This man was living history. A life and blood Titan.

“Living Men”

Long before I ever got into university, I knew about him and learned from his works. I learned from seeing his impact on my uncles who were part of “the enlightened ones”. These uncles happened to be the most interesting, fearless and most candid family members I had. They seemed to live by a different code, I adored them and I adored him. I wanted to live by that code.

They lived their life by a simple code guided by the 7 blades:

1. Deck before Ego,
2. All before Self,
3. Sense before Slogan
4. Truth before Can’t
5. Learn before Leap
6. Change over Stasis
7. Act over Yap

I learned their ways and I have tried to live my life by a simplified code:

What Would A Cap’n Do?

These are his own words and some of the many reasons why I adore this man:

Humanism for me represents taking the human entity as the center of world perception, of social organization and indeed of ethics, deciding in other words what is primarily of the greatest value for humans as opposed to some remote extraterrestrial or ideological authority. And so from that point of view, I consider myself a humanist.

I have nothing but contempt for religions that kill in the name of piety…. If they believe passionately in their deity, they should reserve to that deity the authority to exact vengeance. They shouldn’t make themselves the instrument of imagined wrongs. That applies to any religion, it applies to the insanity between the Hindus and the Muslims in India, to the Jewish extremists in Israel. It applies to any kind of religion in the world.

“OverAchiever”

From studying and following this great man’s life this is my conclusion:

Our biggest tragedy as humans is that we never go far enough. We think “just enough” is enough but it never is. If you want to be Evil, please be an overachiever; similarly for good.

Those who sit on the fence are the vilest of all creatures as they are traitors to both sides. Be a villain and be eliminated on time or eliminate all the saints. Be a saint so we can eliminate all the villains.

Fate may favor some villains in the short term but overachievers for good will always prevail and they will be celebrated as heroes.

Profesor Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka is one of those heroes. A rare one because he is a “living man”. A Titan because he is an overachiever.

My new code as a “living man” is:

Be like CBT, Be an overachiever

As he turns 80 today, may we continue to learn from his words and his deeds. He may be growing older but his impact will live forever.