At the beginning of the Nigerian Civil War, Professor Wole Soyinka was arrested by the Nigerian Government and imprisoned. In 1969, he was released. His book, The Man Died, is mostly a portrayal of his thoughts and actions while in prison. The level of political activism which he pursued against the Gowon government while incarcerated made the administration uncomfortable. He went on a hunger strike for week after week, determined to protest against the injustices he found in the society propagated by the government and also for the conditions in which he found himself in prison. This article x-rays his thoughts and actions as demonstrated in the book as a means of analyzing his mindset and belief system against subjugation. His, is an exemplar of a man who will not keep silent in the face of tyranny.

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A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SOYINKA'S POLITICAL ACTIVISM IN "THE MAN

DIED"

Jeff Unaegbu1

Rev. Fr. Jude Ani2

1. Principal Cinematographer 1, Institute of African Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka,

jephthah.unaegbu@unn.edu.ng, 08035272576.

2. Postgraduate Student, Institute of African Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

judeani045@gmail.com, 08063745088

Abstract

At the beginning of the Nigerian Civil War, Professor Wole Soyinka was arrested by the Nigerian

Government and imprisoned. In 1969, he was released. His book, The Man Died, is mostly a portrayal of his

thoughts and actions while in prison. The level of political activism which he pursued against the Gowon

government while incarcerated made the administration uncomfortable. He went on a hunger strike for week

after week, determined to protest against the injustices he found in the society propagated by the government

and also for the conditions in which he found himself in prison. This article x-rays his thoughts and actions as

demonstrated in the book as a means of analyzing his mindset and belief system against subjugation. His, is an

exemplar of a man who will not keep silent in the face of tyranny.

Unaegbu, Jeff and Ani, Jude (2018). "A Critical Analysis of Soyinka's Political Activism

In "The Man Died"in Nwabueze, Emeka (ed.). Wole Soyinka and the Poetics of Commitment.

Enugu: CNC Publications. Pp.173-183.

Keywords: Tyranny, Political Activism, Critical Analysis

1

1. SOYINKA'S ACTIVIST MINDSET AS DEFINED IN THE BEGINNING

PAGES OF The Man Died:

From page vii to page 26 of the 1985 edition of the book, The Man Died, Wole Soyinka

gave a background of his feelings about the Nigerian situation from 1960 to 1983. Wole Soyinka

was very active in the background of Nigerian politics from its independence in 1960 to the civil

war in 1967. His attempts to stop the civil war led to his incarceration by the Gowon

administration for two years and four months, that is, until 1969. In the first page of the book

which chronicled his experiences and thoughts during his imprisonment, he narrated the Nigerian

situation more than ten years after the civil war. He was appalled that Dr. Segun Arigbede, a man

who was of the same relative social class as him, could be whisked away by a "Special Field

Force Arm" of the Nigerian police force and tortured in an empty cell. Not until his wife, Aduni,

contacted higher police quarters, was he released. He lost the use of both hands for some time.

According to Soyinka, "one is now more or fully recovered. The fate of the other is still much in

doubt, despite daily physiotherapy." The profound reality here is that Dr. Arigbede was innocent

of the imagined allegation of being a member of a group that had a secret training camp. It is

harrowing that some other people who were whisked away in that manner had broomstick

switches driven up their penises. It is even more harrowing to Soyinka that the people who

tortured Dr. Arigbede were students of political science in the University of Ibadan. These

students were sent on special courses by the police and the National Security Organization. To

Soyinka:

A more hideous obscenity has yet to be imagined in the system of power controls

which make it actually possible, even probable, that a student patient at a university

hospital will one day drive electrified needles beneath the nails of his erstwhile physician

or push broomsticks up his genitals!

(Soyinka, 1985:viii).

What sort of society is one a part of? Soyinka asked. A society where power is not in a

sane order. A society where a student may kill a lecturer without batting an eyelid and with

impunity. A society where a labour leader died like a dog in the dungeons of Dodan Barracks,

"without a voice raised in protest, or a demand for explanation?" and, a society where there is no

labour solidarity. Soyinka was concerned that the labour leader, the Secretary-General of the Post

and Telegraph Workers, Gogo Nzeribe, had no one who voiced out against his incarceration. He

2

was said to have been starved to death. He was arrested for a reason that Soyinka could not

decipher, and he was brought out for daily flogging. One day, he fought back and this resulted in

orders that he should be permanently locked up in a solitary cell and "forgotten". Aside the fact

that such cruelty was meted out on a man of that standing, Soyinka explains that:

What matters always is the criminal complicity of his own peers, through silence,

and the failure of self-asserted progressive voice of the nation's intelligentsia to ask

questions, the failure to understand that such events are habit-forming in the psychology

of power, and that the boundaries of the geography of victims eventually extends to

embrace even those who think they are protected by silence.

(Soyinka, 1985:ix).

Soyinka reasoned that people also conveniently accuse the "troublesome left", who are

more troublesome than labour activists who are simply fighting for their wages, as being

responsible for the attacks they get from government. Such Leftists could be people fighting for

secession etc. In essence, Soyinka could be termed neatly as a progressive and to some sober

extent, a Leftist. He wondered why even the civil service, an institution that has nothing to do

with leftism or which did not concern itself with politics could have one of its leaders gunned

down simply because a supreme military leader was concerned with what would happen if the

man, Head of the Federal Medical Services of the Medical Department, Dr. Adeyemi Ademola,

carried out an autopsy on the body of the former officer heading one of the Armed Forces

Division and announced the result. It did not help matters that Dr. Ademola was the brother of

the then Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Adetokunbo Ademola. The police went quiet. Even the

labour union the man belonged to went mum. Soyinka himself was shushed up in fear by people

he asked when he came out of detention. He was concerned that such impunity by the military

government could become habitual and continuous. After narrating his observations of the

inaction of the labour union and the civil service to bloodletting by the government on these

bodies, Soyinka was equally appalled by the "avoidance strategy" of the intellectual in ivory

towers (Soyinka, 1985:xi). The intellectual was simply concerned with reputation and

remuneration or in the simplest language advanced by Achebe: "status and stomach. And if

there's any danger that he might suffer official displeasure or lose his job, he would prefer to turn

a blind eye to what is happening around him." (Ezenwa-Ohaeto,1997:197).

3

Soyinka showed his belief in the media, especially the electronic media for making the

average American understand the horrible nature of the Vietnam war, leading to a call by

Americans to their leaders to stop taking sides and prosecuting the war. This outcry eventually

ended the war.

Soyinka also advocated for cultivating a strong language from which pro-action against

political oppression would derive its fuel. Such a language must not be criticized for being

strong. The criticism should instead attack the source of the anger of that language which, of

course, is the political oppression which the language attacks. To Soyinka, the strong language

used against oppression in writings has its very nature:

Such language does not pretend to dismantle that structure of power, which can only be a

collective endeavor. In any case, it does, however, contribute to the psychological reconstitution of

public attitudes to forms of oppression. Language needs to be a part of resistance therapy. When it

plays such a role successfully in advance of the right circumstances for change, the political will

escapes paralysis by the aura of the sanctity which, the longer it lasts, power hypnotically

exercises over all and sundry, but most especially the rationalizing, self-excusing intelligentsia

(Soyinka, 1985:xiv).

By the time of his writing in 1983, Nigeria had held an election. The presidential

elections were held on August 6, 1983. The result was victory for the then incumbent President,

Alhaji Shehu Shagari. He won 47.5% of the vote. Chief Obafemi Awolowo of the UPN came

second with 31.2% and Dr. Azikiwe of the NPP came a distant third with 14% of the vote. The

outcome of the elections brought much disenchantment with the Shagari administration by the

Igbo (Unaegbu et al., 2018:188).

Soyinka recognized a change in the society. People were more concerned in fighting

leaders who came from ethnic groups different from theirs, a situation which was not that

pronounced in the 1965 election. Soyinka had not lost sight of the fact that members of the same

ethnic group fought themselves to assert their loyalty to either Awolowo or Akintola. This shift in

action proves a retrogressive attitude in the society. However, an optimistic Soyinka asserts that

those who make peaceful change impossible, makes violent change inevitable.

While in prison, Soyinka wrote fragments of plays, poems, a novel and portions of the

prison notes which made up The Man Died. He successfully wrote all these by scribbling them

between the lines of Paul Radin's Primitive Religion and his own Idanre. He had to do the

defacing of these two books because prison officers did not allow blank sheets for him. The two

4

books themselves were smuggled to him by courageous and friendly warders. According to

Soyinka:

Books and all forms of writing have always been objects of terror to those who seek to

suppress truth. Yet in spite of the most rigorous security measures ever taken against any prisoner

in the history of Nigerian prisons, measures taken both to contain and destroy my mind in prison,

contact was made (Soyinka, 1985:9).

He gives us an idea of what psychological torture he went through by using as an

example the written experiences of George Mangakis, a professor who was incarcerated in

Greece by fascist dictators. Professor Mangakis wrote in his A Slow Lynching that in the prisoner

there was "the deep need to communicate with one's fellow human beings." Prisoners whose

minds are ever busy had to protect their minds from insanity by forming the habit of constant

writing.

At this stage of orienting our minds, Soyinka revealed the source of the title of his prison

memoirs, The Man Died. It was the words written on a telegraph which was a response to his

enquiries about Segun Sowemimo, a journalist. Sowemimo was brutally beaten by soldiers on

the orders of a military governor of the West. He was injured in the process. When his condition

worsened, his trade union compelled the governor to fly him to England for treatment. By this

time, gangrene had set into his leg and his leg had to be amputated. When Soyinka made

enquiries, he received the telegraph which simply stated: "The man died".

The mindset of Soyinka is totally contained in the phrase he coined at this stage in the

book: "The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny" (Soyinka, 1985:13).

2. SOYINKA'S POLITICAL ACTIVISM AS PORTRAYED IN The Man

Died:

A. Reasons for imprisonment and framing

Prof. Wole Soyinka provided reasons for his imprisonment and subsequent framing while

in prison.

His incarceration came about because he denounced the civil war in Nigerian papers,

visited the East at the beginning of the war, tried to recruit intellectuals to form a pressure group

which would work for a "total ban on the supply of arms to all parts of Nigeria", and created a

Third Force which was meant to end both the secession in Biafra, and the dictatorship of the

Army, thereby effectively ending the war (Soyinka, 1985:19). In the simplest words, Soyinka

5

was ready to support attempts to overthrow Ojukwu and Gowon if it came to that and to place a

leadership in Nigeria that supported the principles of the Third Force.

In his book, You Must Set Forth at Dawn, he provided the nature of the Third Force:

Someone had to go to the East and have a talk with Ojukwu, head of the

secessionist state, meet with Chinua Achebe and other leading writers and intellectuals in

Biafra. What was required, we concluded, was a revocation of the declaration of

secession, and the calling off of all hostilities. Then, using our international connections,

invoking the aid of neutral countries such as Sweden with her sound credentials of

assistance to African liberation, we would facilitate a return to the conference table….

… In the confrontation between the Federal side and the Biafran, a Third Force,

opposed to the Civil War and prepared to mobilize against it, had become a necessity. If

Nigeria was the thesis, Biafra the antithesis, then the Third Force resulted from the

synthesis— all impeccable dialectics, lacking only an organized movement and the

necessary force to back it up.

(Soyinka, 2006:136)

Soyinka met with Ojukwu and Victor Banjo in Biafra. Victor Banjo then delivered a

message through Soyinka to Obasanjo, who was then the Commanding Officer in charge of the

Western Area Command at Ibadan that even though he was set to invade the Midwest, which was

successful eventually, he was not going to attack the West. He only needed his support in his bid

to pass through the West to Lagos and to overthrow Gowon. Rather than comply, Obasanjo,

reported Soyinka's activities to Gowon! Soyinka was arrested and imprisoned for two years and

four months from 1967 to 1969.

Soyinka's framing came about because of his actions in goal. He was "nearly successfully

liquidated because of" his "activities while in prison". From Kirikiri, he wrote and smuggled out

a letter "setting out the latest proof of the genocidal policies of the government of Gowon. It was

betrayed to the guilty men, they sought to compound their treason by a murderous conspiracy"

(Soyinka, 1985:19).

He was immediately motivated to write this letter because he witnessed the release from

prison of two accused soldiers who killed an Igbo photographer, Emmanuel Ogbonna. The

photographer was abducted from his studio at Ibadan and murdered and thrown into the bush.

The two soldiers were charged with his murder. Their trial was delayed and eventually the case

died out, wrest out of the hands of the Western Judiciary by Lagos. The army ostensibly dealt

6

with the men by putting them in kirikiri prison briefly for six weeks before releasing them. By a

struck of fate, they were placed in a cell adjacent to that in which Soyinka was held. He listened

to their conversations and was convinced that the military government condoned the killing of

the Igbo civilians outside Biafra by soldiers around the atmosphere of the Nigerian civil war. The

two accused soldiers did not express guilt for what they had done. Rather one of them loudly

boasted about it. The men were treated as very important prisoners, let out for daily airings and

"treated with deference and privilege even by the most senior staff of the prisons" This irked

Soyinka and three days after the men were released, he wrote a letter discreetly, intending to

smuggle it out to his friends for immediate action. As contained in the letter, he wanted two

things:

First and foremost, that the judiciary of the West be declared independent…. The

Western Judiciary [should] place itself in such a position that no power within or without

the region can ever again interfere with its judiciary processes and render it, as it is today,

accomplice by default in the doctrine of justifiable genocide.

Two: that some form of law be passed in the region which makes it a crime for

any man or group to molest or in any way interfere with another for reasons of tribe, or

practice any form of discrimination based on tribe (Add religion, if you wish to make it

comprehensive)

(Soyinka, 1985:22).

He warned that such cases of lynching as that of Emmanuel Ogbonna, if allowed to

fester, will produce a mass psychology of mass exterminations. We are reminded of Indonesia,

Asaba, My Lai, Pakistan and Burundi massacres….

Parts of the letter formed the preface of the book before we are allowed into the horrible

experiences Soyinka passed through in goal.

B. The Arrest

When Soyinka returned from Enugu, he made sure that he did not allow himself to be

arrested directly by the Army intelligence and the Gestapo from Lagos. He sensed that the

special squad from Lagos may take him away and "liquidate" him promptly. He submitted

himself willingly to a lone uniformed local policeman who allowed him to organize a number of

preliminary precautions, including a shielding by the West. These precautions protected him in

Ibadan for some hours. The military governor of the West tried to prevent his being moved to

Lagos. But Gowon was determined that he be brought to Lagos. An arrangement was reached

7

between the governor and Gowon. Soyinka would be escorted to Lagos by a senior police officer.

Gowon would ask him one or two questions on his activities and he would be returned to Ibadan

the same day.

Of course, Gowon reneged on that agreement. As soon as Soyinka was brought to Lagos,

his travails began. The Nigerian Secret Service "E" Branch held him in custody in their

"Gestapo" storeyed office building and asked his escort to go back to Ibadan. His escort tried to

stop that line of action, insisting that the order he received was to take Soyinka to Gowon and to

return with him to Ibadan. But despite his insistence, he was pressured to agree to the iron will of

the "E" Branch. Soyinka was not brought before Gowon. He faced a Mallam D who later

interrogated him, looking for names. Soyinka was aware that reeling out names, even innocent

ones, would lead to the arrest of people who were not supposed to be in goal. He

psychologically mastered the situation. Mallam D. asked him to write down everything about his

activities and his first thought was to be careful not to yield his own handwriting on any sheet of

paper. He asked for a typewriter. But Malam D. returned from ostensibly looking for one and

told him there was not any. Soyinka resolved to carefully construct a statement in bulk

handwriting. He reasoned that a piece of statement from him can be used as a police trick to

convince other captors that he had confessed and that they also had to confess to being part of the

Third Force.

C. Hunger strike versus Chains

Then, the unthinkable happened. Three men entered with "heavy manacles and chains the

like of which [Soyinka] had seen only in museums of the slave-trade". They had been instructed

to chain his legs together. Soyinka felt humiliated as soon as the chains closed around his legs:

I defined myself as a being for whom chains are not; as, finally, a human being.

In so far as one may say that the human essence does at times possess a tangible quality, I

may say that I tasted and felt this essence within the contradiction of the moment….

And it occurred to me, not then, no, only now, with the scene of the chaining

passing before my eyes, that we were all black, that Mallam D., another black man, had

given the order and fled, that I was not a "convict" in a chain-gang in South Alabama or

Johannesburg but that this human antithesis had its enactment in the modern office of a

modern skyscraper in cosmopolitan Lagos in the year 1967

(Soyinka, 1985:40,41)

8

At once, he commenced a hunger strike. He began to drink a glass of water a day. On the

fourth day, Mallam D. had to remove the chains. But by then, the foreign press was already

carrying the news of Soyinka's arrest and insinuating that he was being ill-treated. Soyinka did

not stop the hunger strike even after the chains were removed. Sometime later, Soyinka was

transferred to Kirikiri prison.

D. Representatives of the Government in Goal

In prison, his close companions were the books he brought with him. After some weeks,

he saw how the two soldiers previously mentioned were treated with special privileges. Soyinka

was chained again and he resumed his hunger strike. The interrogation from Mallam D. was

conducted in the Gestapo office. So Soyinka was moved from Kirikiri to the office whenever the

interrogation was to be held. The interrogation became very compounded until the interrogator

became confused himself. Soyinka maintained a strict line for the truth and a boldness that came

from his core. The interrogator had to admit sometimes that he was "beginning to get confused".

At a time, Soyinka felt that Mallam D. could be salvaged from being a tool of the government.

After a while, he jettisoned the idea. In fact, "later event soon assured me he was a non-starter.

Mallam D. will go on forever, Bulwark of the Cosa Nostra's cosa nostra". The Cosa nostra is a

criminal organization. Soyinka was saying that the government was criminal and that Mallam D.

was deep into it.

E. Soyinka's First Attempt to Contact the Outside World

One day, Soyinka saw an opportunity to visit his doctor when a man who was being

questioned was scheduled to visit a hospital. Soyinka knew that if he was able to see his doctor,

he would finagle a chance to make very important contact with the outside world. He lied he was

scheduled to see his doctor and that Mallam D. had okayed the visitation. Koku, his doctor,

asked for his samples and asked him to return three days later. The prison authorities arranged

the second visit but it was cut short by the Security Branch. Because of this breach in security by

Soyinka's deft moves, his doctor was brought in for questioning and Soyinka became concerned.

He refused at first to be examined by another doctor which the security personnel recommended.

F. The Smuggle of the Letter

When the two soldiers who killed the Igbo photographer were released, Soyinka wrote

and sent the letter aforementioned to his "political colleagues". But then, a mishap happened:

9

While my colleagues dithered over the demands of this renewed call for justice,

knowledge of the existence of the letter came to one of the hundred government stooges

among the academic staff in Ibadan. He contrived to obtain the letter, made a Photostat

and dutifully passed it on to his military bosses.

(Soyinka, 1985:71)

It was unfortunate that already a decision had been taken to release Soyinka based on the

reports from Mallam D. and one Chinkafe. The order for his release had been made and the

information had been leaked by the police press office and a journal actually carried the news.

G. Unsuccessful Plan to liquidate Soyinka

Meanwhile, the government obtained Soyinka's fingerprint by deceit and published a

false confession of Soyinka in which they stated he came to an arrangement with Ojukwu to

assist in the purchase of jet aircraft to be used by the rebel Air Force. They also alleged that

Soyinka agreed with Colonel Victor Banjo to overthrow Gowon.

Two of Soyinka's faithfuls took up residence near the medium security prison as ordinary

citizens. They were there to carry out espionage for Soyinka and to collect any mail for delivery

to the outside world. They easily made friends with the soldiers and prisoners who came out of

the prison to mow the grass and perform other suchlike duties. Soon, Soyinka's network of

friends extended to a soldier who began to leak information to him and the other faithfuls in the

network. Fatefully, one day, one of the faithfuls leaked to Soyinka that he was being moved

ostensibly to Jos prison, but along the way, he would be killed, so he needed to stop the fatal

plan. This plan being hatched by government agents was as a result of their discovery of the

letter he wrote. Before Soyinka took action on the matter, he already drafted a letter denouncing

the publicized fake confession and handed it to a friendly detainee who was expected to deliver it

in any given opportunity to the faithfuls who were living near the prison for publication in the

papers. At a moment's notice, Soyinka discovered that he had to fight to save his life. He tried to

contact the Superintendent of the prison, but the latter refused to show up. By luck, Soyinka had

two inmates he had been "proselytizing" for the few weeks he was in Kirikiri. He wanted them to

instigate a riot that would force the Superintendent of the prison to arrive. These inmates had

other inmates who they relied upon. Within minutes, the prison was alive with a roar indicating

that a riot was underway.

10

The Superintendent arrived with nearly two dozen prison staff, forced from his

bed at last after ignoring my summons for the entire afternoon. I attacked him at once,

gaining time with a long speech in which I accused the prison of collaborating in the plot

by the government to liquidate me…. I announced my decision to commence a fast to the

death or until the government withdrew the forgery of a confession.

(Soyinka, 1985:77).

Soyinka later learnt that the government had planned to make the public believe that

while he was being flown to Jos, he pulled out a gun, tried to take over the plane and was shot in

the attempt.

H. Maximum Security as Government Reaction

Because the planned assassination had been foiled, the government moved Soyinka to the

Maximum Security Prison and caged him twenty-four hours a day. To make an excuse for this

action, they put out a press release that he was trying to escape after placing a dummy on his bed.

The press also stated that when he was caught, he denied his attempt to escape and said he was

merely protesting against government humiliation.

I. Psychological Warfare against the Government and Quotes of Honour

During Soyinka's confinement, his mind became alert and calculative. He began to

anticipate the moves of his enemies. He had a rather interesting dream about being the last in a

building project of a skyscraper and having a fall from a scaffold after his fellow builders

disappeared mysteriously. The flourish of the language with which Soyinka used in describing

his dream made it rather prophetic. It appears to mean that he and others were trying to build a

civilized Nigeria, but that after a while, his colleagues left him alone in the art and eventually he

had a fall. Here are his words:

Dreams. More strictly, variations on one dream. I would be on the scaffolding of

a building in construction, high up. Cold. Mists. The mist barely reveals the outlines of

my co-workers on other parts of the building. They are shadowy forms in blurred

contours. A relay of hands pass the bricks on to me from the ground. When the last brick

is set in place I signal and a new brick flies through the mists, invisible until the last yard

or two. But the aim each time is perfect. I catch it with barely a glance, literally by

stretching my hand out for the brick to fall into. I place the brick in position, fill the gaps

with mortar and slice off the excess. It is hardly work; every moment is leisurely, slowed-

11

down motion, ritualistic. The mists swirl all about us; from time to time a face passes

close, balancing on the narrow catwalk, trundling a barrow to another part of the edifice.

It is a long while before I know that everyone else is gone. I did not hear the

lunch gong. I could not have suspected it had rung since the bricks continue to drop into

my out-stretched hands. It is the silence that strikes me first and slowly I realize that work

has ceased. The work has proceeded till now in virtual silence but now that silence has

grown deeper. I lean over to ask my own relay if they wish to stop or to continue, until

that line of the wall is completed. Only seven bricks left, I say; the figure is always seven.

There is no response from them and I notice now that they are also gone. A brick comes

flying slowly through the mist though there is no one below. I hold out my hand for it. It

slips. I lunge for it and fall over. I am a long time falling in the void.

(Soyinka, 1985:85).

In his fight to retain his mind in prison, Soyinka wrote many quotable quotes. Here are a

few:

"Man can only grasp his authentic being through confrontation with the vicissitudes of

life." (Soyinka, 1985:88).

"The soul of the revolutionary dance is in the hands of the flutist." (Soyinka, 1985:93).

"Justice is the first condition of humanity." (Soyinka, 1985:96).

After a while, security operatives asked Soyinka to pack his things in the middle of the

night. After a confused wait, he was given his new book, Idanre. He was seeing a copy for the

first time. He was later returned to his cell. For a while, Soyinka thought that his faithfuls outside

the prison had had their intelligence network bridged. But a note soon arrived to show that they

were active, only slowed by the nature of the maximum security area of the prison. After four

months in Lagos, Soyinka was transferred to a prison in Kaduna and placed in solitary

confinement after a while.

J. Bribe

Government tried to bribe Soyinka by asking him to fill a form so that his salaries could

go to a beneficiary. Soyinka recognized this move as a bribe, so he refused to fill the form.

K. Books and Pens

He requested for and was granted an interview in which he asked for books to be brought

to him. This was important because it helped his mind. The books were brought after some

12

weeks. They were brought from a public library. After a while, the books were stopped. Locked

away for weeks, Soyinka itched to write. Then, when a doctor came to examine him, he stole the

doctor's pen from his breast pocket! Thinking back, Soyinka "wished that [the doctor] had

known of the robbery. It would have meant the existence of a human conscience at hand, a

lessening of the reality of isolation".

L. Aborted Release and another Fast in Protest

The government made another move indicative of beginning the processes for Soyinka's

release. After a while, the moves were suspended. Because of this dashing of his hope, Soyinka

began another fast which lasted twenty-one days and heavily emaciated his body. He made

another request for books. But was denied this. The toilet papers and cigarette packets he wrote

on were discovered and removed. His ink, which he called Soy-ink, was also removed.

M. Near Madness

Soyinka began to solve mathematics to the extent that he became aware he was losing the

consciousness of his person. He began to monitor himself. Terrified, he destroyed the more

alarming pieces of papers and "commenced a watchful period of my actions, thoughts and

impulses, scanning the guards also to detect any sign of change in their way of regarding me".

(Soyinka, 1985:274).

N. Threats and Papers and the End of Troubles

The security personnel studied the papers and correspondences of Soyinka that they had

ceased and were convinced that someone was helping him. He was questioned to that effect, but

he refused to divulge any names. The government decided to reduce some of the privileges they

gave him, and he decided to commence another fast. What happened next was unbelievable to

him. He was given a realm of clean 500 sheets to write whatever he pleased. He was also given a

typewriter, carbon papers, pencils, a radio and pens! Then, his wife was allowed to visit him. She

saw him go into his cell with these new privileges. But as soon as she left, everything was

removed. But Soyinka was fast. When the items were with him, he was able to hide away some

papers and some pens. The government only wanted his wife to see that he was being treated

nicely. As soon as she left, they returned Soyinka to his original position. But Soyinka's faithfuls

were alert. They slipped a note into the hands of Soyinka's wife as she alighted from a taxi in

front of the prison gates in Kaduna. She flew back to Lagos to complain about what she read in

the note, which was Soyinka's true conditions in prison. It was then revealed that even the

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Gestapo headquarters did not know of some of the ill treatment that were meted to Soyinka.

Soyinka was to later find out that three evil people issued orders which countermanded the

instructions of "E" Branch in August 1969 and who served on the same committee of "mind

demolition as Kem Salem, Yisa Adejo and Giwa Osagie. On all matters that affected me in

detention, this evil triumvirate had much to do and say".

The government organized series of visits to the hospital where Soyinka was treated of

every ailment he had picked up while in prison. Sometime later, he was released.

3. CONCLUSION:

From the foregoing, it is obvious that Prof. Wole Soyinka is a man that would rather die

than succumb to the crushing boot of an oppressive government. Over the years, he had written

papers against government after government. At the end of the book, Soyinka revealed that the

journalist who died and for whom a telegram reading, "The Man Died" was sent, only got into

trouble because the wife of the then military governor of the West felt she was being filmed

while she was dancing! This complaint to the governor ultimately led to Sowemimo being

brutally beaten by soldiers on the orders of the governor. He was injured in the process. When his

condition worsened, his trade union compelled the governor to fly him to England for treatment.

In England, his amputation story began. First, below the knee, then above the knee, then the

whole thing— from the socket— was chopped off. The wound was badly infected (gangrene)

and soon his lungs became impaired. The English people could no longer help him, so he was

sent back home, as a bad case. When Soyinka made enquiries, he received the telegraph which

simply stated: "The man died". He died only after six weeks at home.

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REFERENCES

Ezenwa-Ohaeto (1997). Chinua Achebe: A Biography. Bloomington: Indiana University Press

Soyinka, W. (1985). The Man Died. Ibadan: Spectrum Books Limited.

Soyinka, W. (2006). You Must Set Forth at Dawn. Ibadan: Bookcraft.

Unaegbu, J., Chukwu, S., & Nsofor, C. (2018). Amazing Grace: The Authorized Biography of

Chief (Dr.) Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu. (Publication in progress).

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ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.