Former Vice President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo has narrated a story of how Nobel Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka granted him a priceless favour in 2007, and also caused a stir among his pastor friends.
According to the report by PM News, Osinbajo made this known at the Soyinka International Symposium, organized by the Nigerian Academy of Letters, to honor Soyinka’s 90th birthday.
Delivering a speech titled “Soyinka; The Imperative of a Public Conscience” at the J.F. Ade Ajayi Auditorium, University of Lagos, the former Vice President reminisced about Soyinka’s acceptance of his invitation to launch The Orderly Society Trust in 2007.
He said that ahead of the launch of The Orderly Trust Society, he reached out to Soyinka’s friend, Makin, who happens to be his friend, and asked him if he could talk to his father to attend the event. He said that Soyinka was travelling and he wasn’t sure he was going to make it to the event.
He said that despite not knowing Osinbajo well then, Soyinka attended the event, delivered a speech, and sparked controversy among his pastor friends by suggesting that heaven might not exist.
He said, “But the unbelievable happened. Prof. came and attended the event, spent the whole time there, and even created a controversy among my many pastor friends when he suggested that there might not even be heaven.”
He said that he was grateful for the opportunity to be at the symposium because it gave him the chance to repay the favour that Soyinka granted him in 2007.
The symposium, themed “Eni Ogun: An Enduring Legacy,” featured a keynote address by Prof. Niyi Osundare, a playwright and emeritus professor at the University of New Orleans, United States….Seë_Morë