Write a detailed note on Soyinka’s political activism

He did boast that the ones who came to see A Dance of the Forests night after night were the cooks and cleaners who worked on the Ibadan campus rather than “Dr. PhD, or Lawyer LLB or Minister MHR” with their European-style expectations of the well-made play. However, the fact remains that Soyinka by writing in English is definitely giving less to those Nigerians who know only Yoruba. All they would get from his plays would be the non-verbal element, ( and I am not denying that this is a powerful part of his plays), but not the whole effect.

But it is true that any faith he may have had in Yoruba has definitely been eroded. I am not denying that he and his family have not been harassed by political regimes in Nigeria. Details of such harassment are outlined by him in the 1993 interview he gave to ‘Bsyi Bandele-Thomas. Rut the fact remains that despite the Abubakar regime’s pardon and withdrawal of all charges of treason against him (by the former dictator, Sani Abacha) has been effected (October 1998), he is still not ready to return home.