Professor Wole Soyinka. My tribute to the great man.

Professor Wole Soyinka the Nobel  laureate no doubt is the conscience of the nation, During the mad days of Sanni Abacha, the most brutal dictator ever to rule Nigeria, he spoke fiercely when many kept quiet and even went militant and was force to go into exile when the killer squad was sent after him. It was a period in Nigeria history when 'Night Fall In Soweto' by Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali, the South African poet came to mind:  "Man has ceased to be man

Man has become beast
Man has become prey.

I am the prey;
I am the quarry to be run down
by the marauding beast
let loose by cruel nightfall

from his cage of death".

 On his 80th birthday on July 13 2014, I paid tribute to him with some of his memorable quotes.

Quotes from the Great Man.

'The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny'.

'Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie'.

'Under a dictatorship, a nation ceases to exist. All that remains is fiefdom, a planet of slaves regimented by aliens from outer space'.

'The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism'.

'Looking at the faces of people, one gets the feeling there's a lot of work to be done'.

'I am convinced that Nigeria would have been a more highly developed country without the oil. I wished we'd never smelled the fumes of petroleum'.

'I cannot belong to a nation which permits such barbarities as stoning to death and amputation-I don't care what region it is'.

'All religion accepts that there is something called 'criminality'. And criminality cannot be excused by religious fervour'.

'Human life has meaning only to that degree and as long as it is lived in the service of humanity'.

'Education is lacking in most of those who pontificate'.

'For me, justice is the prime condition for humanity'.

'We Nigerians must reclaim our sovereignty, our civic entitlement'.