By Charles Pemu 
LAGOS—Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka accepted the honour of having the National Theatre, Iganmu, renamed after him during a glittering ceremony, confessing that he did so with “mixed feelings” given his famous criticism of naming public monuments after individuals.
President Bola Tinubu arrived with traditional rulers and a constellation of Nigeria’s foremost artists to witness the cultural rebirth of the monumental structure.
Soyinka, the centrepiece of the night, addressed the hushed audience, acknowledging his reputation as a vocal critic of the practice of dedicating public assets.
“I am notorious for criticising many appropriations, public monuments by some of our past leaders which end up with naming everything after them,” Soyinka said. “Having been guilty that other people do not merit this kind of monumental dedication, and then I have to stand up in public to watch my name being put up as yet another appropriator; it just didn’t sink very well on me.”
A Debt to the Ancestors
The literary icon explained that he thought it over, considering the history of Nigerian theatre and his predecessors—Hubert Ogunde, Dola Dippo, and Fiberisima—who remain little recognized.
“I said: somebody has to carry the can,” he noted, before humorously adding, “and if a group of bankers came together, using our money in order to honour me, what is wrong with that?”
He reserved special gratitude for the banking consortium that funded the renaming and President Tinubu, whom he called a “great conspirator” for ambushing him with the honour.
“If eating one’s words produces a morsel like this, then it is a very tasty set of words,” Soyinka quipped.
Soyinka also shared nostalgic, if precarious, memories of the building, which was constructed during the military regime—nicknamed “the General’s hat.” He revealed that he was instrumental in ensuring the copied Bulgarian design was enlarged to match Nigeria’s stature.
He added a humorous, yet serious, personal debt the theatre owed him: “This building nearly electrocuted two of my actors,” he stated, recalling a performance where leaking roofs and exposed wires created dangerous pools of water.
In closing, the Nobel laureate expressed his profound hope that the newly revived institution would honour the commitment of African artists and ensure that the continent’s theatre could be watched at home.
“My hope is that with the recreation of this institution, we won’t be going all the way to Abu Dhabi to watch African theatre.”