Nigeria’s President, Bola Tinubu, has named the National Arts Theatre in Iganmu, Lagos, after Nobel Laureate Prof Wole Soyinka in commemorating his 90th birthday. A tribute, titled “Professor Wole Soyinka at 90: Tribute to a national treasure and global icon,” was signed by the President and made available to journalists on Friday.
Tinubu expressed delight in joining others worldwide in celebrating Soyinka, adding that July 13 would be the climax of a series of local and international activities in his honor.
The President praised Soyinka for his remarkable literary achievements and dedication to human dignity and justice, calling him “a colossus, a true Renaissance person blessed with innumerable talents…a playwright, actor, poet, human rights and political activist, composer, and singer.“
Mr Soyinka was born Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde “Wole” Soyinka in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria. He attended Government College in Ibadan, University College Ibadan, and the University of Leeds in England. He worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London and wrote plays in Nigeria and the UK, many of which are themes of several movies.
In 1986, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in Oslo, Norway, the first African to be so recognized in the Nobel laureate’s history.
Soyinka has been a strong critic of Nigerian and African governments, particularly military dictators and political tyrannies. Still, in recent years, he has often found himself at the center of political criticism for his support for former President Muhammadu Buhari and his reluctance to criticize the current President, which, to his critics, ran against the more revolutionary instincts he once espoused.
National Arts Theatre
The National Arts Theatre, Lagos, is perhaps Nigeria’s largest conference center, housing over 5,000 guests.
It is located in Iganmu, Surulere, Lagos, and was completed by the then military strongman, Olusegun Obasanjo, in 1977, just in time for the African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC). The Bulgarian company Techno Exporstroy designed the center after the Palace of Culture and Sports in Varna, Sophia, Bulgaria.
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