The immortal words of Elbert Hubbard aptly describe the literary liberation of a country and continent reputed to be an habitat for illiteracy. Hubbard said: “The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.”
Prof Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka won the coveted Nobel Prize in Literature in October 1986. Thus, he became the first African and Nigerian to be awarded the much-respected prize.
Soyinka had his first play, A Dance of the Forest, published in the late 1950s and since then he has been engraving the yet-to-be-mined African literary treasury on the pages of world literature. With his grey beard and hair, Soyinka’s literary prominence soars like a bizarre hunter, becoming the giant of creative minds in our history.
The prize was a glorious dawn, especially at a time in Africa when fate was being worshiped as a god and failure was seen as the compulsory cover page of any book coming out of the African literary and arts factory. The Abeokuta-born playwright confirms the words of George Bernard Shaw, who said: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” Soyinka’s feat has motivated Africa’s upcoming writers.
However, celebrating Soyinka’s Nobel Prize at 27 when our campuses are shut because of strike seems to be not-so-good news for Nigeria. Do we know how many Soyinkas Nigeria could have produced had its education system functioned properly?
Singapore education system has been described as one of the best in the world. Surprisingly, one would have expected bulky curricula like we have in Nigeria but no. According to the homepage of the Singaporean Ministry of Education, the country has been moving in towards a system that is flexible and diverse. The aim is to provide students with greater choice to meet the current reality. Being able to choose what and how they learn will encourage their students to be more knowledgeable. But we are lagging behind.
Joseph Addision says: “Education is a companion which no misfortune can depress, no crime can destroy, no enemy can alienate, no despotism can enslave.” Without education, what would become of a man? He would be a slave of knowledge; his reasoning would be savagery.
But in Nigeria, we seem to be seeing opportunity in illiteracy. For four months, the lecturers have gone on strike. Students are complaining, parents are not happy but government and lecturers seem not concerned. Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) boasts of four-month strike, but can we, undergraduates, boast of four-months of individual intellectual development?
Four months of having not reading any books. Four months of being out of the classroom. Four months of having not attending life-changing seminars. Four months of waste in our education system. Four months of not thinking big ideas! When the strike is eventually called off, are we not going to celebrate four months of academic indolence?
But out of this, we should be hopeful with the feat of the likes of Soyinka whose achievements have continued to inspire right-thinking youths. May God continue to spare his life and make him an inspiration to the next generation of writers that will take the country to high places.
To every aspiring writer, match your inspiration with necessary perspiration, for inspiration without perspiration is a daydream; perspiration without inspiration is a night mare. A greater Soyinka is in you; but are you willing to pay a greater price than Soyinka paid?
•Opeoluwa, 400-Level Law, OAU Ile-Ife
