Daily Independent Online.
*
Monday,July 19, 2004.
Gowon apologises to Soyinka over wartime detention
By Segun Adeleye
Special
Correspondent, Abeokuta
Birthday jollity
brought wartime adversaries together at the weekend in the rocky city of
Abeokuta and it led to the righting of historical wrongs.
There, in a rare show
of humility, Nigeria’s former Head of State Yakubu Gowon publicly
apologised to Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka for ordering his detention during the
Biafran war.
He said if his military
regime had failed to put Soyinka behind bars, he would have destabilised
Nigeria, then battling secessionist forces.
He went down memory
lane at a banquet organised by the Ogun State Government to mark the
writer’s 70th birthday.
“I have always
admired your courage and I know what you stood for - we both love our
country as you wanted the best for it”, Gowon told him.
Detaining Soyinka in
the peak of the war was not out of hatred but to prevent “funny”
things from happening, he explained - “we thought if we left this man alone, he might
capture this side (Federal Government) and something funny might happen”.
There was no time the
life of Soyinka was in danger as
“my government at that time did not tolerate any situation like
that. So, he had a nice time, so he wrote a book called ‘The Man
Died”.
Soyinka “is a
pride to Nigeria” who gave his military government a tough time so much
that “some months ago he still narrated to his son and a niece how
Soyinka ‘peppered’ my government.
“You deserve all
the encomium that you have been receiving and you will receive more” he
told Soyinka and prayed God to preserve his life for the good of the country.
Responding, Soyinka
thanked Ogun State Governor Gbenga Daniel for “finding it worthy to
organise the banquet”.
He said Gowon had
hosted him in decades past and that he was hosting him in turn.
Reliving his
pro-democratic activities during the Sani Abacha regime, Soyinka said: “I
went for hunting and I lost my way, suddenly found myself on the other side of
the country’s border riding on okada (motor cycle taxi) through Ibo-Irum
for 10 hours - it was not a joke”.
He expressed
appreciation to one Mr. Rasheed who rode the okada.
The outpouring of
accolade saw Ayo Adebanjo praising the courage of Soyinka to start Radio
Kudirat. Daniel described him as a study in courage, “a personification
of that which is great and noble in the human spirit”.
