Project WS@84 celebrates Soyinka’s commitment to truth

The Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka’s commitment to exposing falsehood is acknowledged by dedicating the 2018 Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange Project to the pursuit of truth.

ORGANISERS of the annual Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange Project (WSICE) have announced ‘The Pursuit of Truth (Truth and the National Psyche’) as the theme of this year’s event holding from July 12 to 15 in Abeokuta, Ogun State.

Featuring essay writing competition, creative workshops and mentoring sessions, among other for secondary school students, the WSICE has been held since 2010 to mark the birthday of Professor Soyinka, who clocks 84 this year.

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It was initiated by the founder of ZMirage Multimedia Company and theatre exponent, Teju Kareem, and the US-based theatre director and culture scholar, Professor Segun Ojewuyi to celebrate Soyinka’s sterling qualities.

Explaining the choice of this year’s theme that could otherwise be interpreted as ‘The Pursuit of Truth in Our Country’, Kareem, disclosed that it was inspired by Soyinka’s preoccupation with “the devastating consequences of lying in our national psyche, which also extends to global discourses, especially the invention of the term fake news, which now seems to pervade public discourse and information flow.”

He added that Soyinka’s engagement with the pursuit of truth “has been consistently captured in his latest publications – The two new Intervention series (Vol. 6 &7) and the earlier volume, Inter Inventions.’ Kareem quoted Soyinka as affirming in ‘Inter Inventions: Between Defective Memory and the Public Lie – A Personal Odyssey in THE REPUBLIC OF LIARS’ that “My commitment to the belief in the fundamental right of all human beings NOT TO BE LIED AGAINST remains a life obsession… I despise that species of humanity whose stock in trade is to concoct lies simply to score a point, win an argument, puff up his or her ego, denigrate or attempt to destroy a fellow being”

On activities for the event, Kareem said the competition would feature 84 students writing analyses of three of Soyinka’s poems – in a reality television-like setting at the 1000-seater amphitheatre situated in the neighbourhood of the Laureate’s Autonomous Residency Ijegba (ARI) in Ibara Housing Estate, Abeokuta.  The particular poems will be unveiled to the participants only minutes before the commencement of the essay writing exercise.

Sample entries, he said, had been collected from senior secondary schools around the country for the essay competition.

All submitted entries have been marked and the 84 students with the highest scoring essays invited for the final competition holding July 13 at the Amphitheatre in Ijegba, Abeokuta.

However, all the participants won’t be the only beneficiaries, as 1000 students from Ogun State schools will join them to participate in creative workshops and drama presentations.

The students will also be given the opportunity to showcase their individual talents and skills during the workshop and a free expressive creative session called Do Your Own Thing.

Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State will visit the pupils on day two of the workshop on July 14 and present awards to winners while the participants will have a mentoring session with Professor Soyinka later that same day. They will be able to ask the Nobel Laureate questions about his life, career and events in Nigeria and globally during the session

Kareem added that this year’s event would feature guest participants from the Southern Illinois University, who would also be on a weeklong tour of key culture and tourism facilities around Nigeria.