In addition, Gbadebo called on the Federal Government to award Soyinka the second highest national honour, the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger, as he celebrates his 90th birthday.

Egba Land has already decided to celebrate July 13, Soyinka’s birthday, as Wole Soyinka Day to promote his ideals and scholarship among future generations. Gbadebo emphasized that Soyinka, the first African Nobel Prize winner in Literature and a renowned international playwright, deserves such honors in his homeland.

The traditional ruler made this appeal during a press conference in Abeokuta, Ogun State, announcing events lined up for Soyinka’s 90th birthday. Gbadebo described Soyinka as a global icon, living legend, playwright, actor, human rights and political activist, hunter, and respected elder statesman with roots in Ake, Abeokuta.

He said that the theme for the 90th celebration of the Nobel Laureate fondly called, Kongi is “Defiance and Creativity: A Celebration of Soyinka’s Artistic Ingenuity and Impact on Nigeria, Africa and The Entire World”.

Gbadebo said, “It will be appropriate for the Federal Government to adopt July 13 as a national day to celebrate Prof Wole Soyinka given his contribution to literature and humanity globally.

“It will be good to henceforth adopt his birthday which is July 13 as Wole Soyinka Day. In fact, New Orleans in the United States of America has already adopted a day to celebrate him, so why can’t we do so to honour our own too?

“The Federal Government should also in addition to this confer on Wole Soyinka the second highest national honour of Grand Commander of Order of Niger because of his contribution to register our dear nation on the global map.”

The convener of Soyinka’s 90th birthday, Paul Bankole, said the essence of the celebration was to acknowledge Soyinka’s contributions both academically and to humanity as a whole.

Bankole said, “I believe that people like Prof Soyinka should be celebrated while they are alive.

“We must not wait till they are gone before we begin to pour accolades on them. Let them understand that we value them and acknowledge their unique contribution towards having a better world,”

Soyinka, who is the Akintalun of Egba and Giiwa of Ijebu-Remo, noted that such conduct turned, before our very eyes, a once ecumenical city like Kaduna into a blood-stained mockery of cohabitation.

He added that such conduct made it possible for a young College of Education student in Sokoto, Deborah Samuel, to be lynched in the presence of armed police on mere allegation of having belittled the image of a revered prophet.

The Nobel Laureate in a statement on Thursday titled, “Isese festival: An open letter to Sulu Gambari,’’ noted that “The greatest avatars that the world has known were not without human frailties, flaws, and errors of understanding. You are not omniscient. And you are not omnipotent.’’

Some Islamic clerics who were members of a Muslim group known as Majlisu Shabab-l-Ulamah Society earlier visited the priestess at her residence to tell her that the Emir of Ilorin sent them to warn her to desist from holding the three-day festival scheduled for between July 22 and July 24, 2023 in Ilorin.  The priestess thereafter cancelled the festival through an online video, disclosing that her life was in danger having received several death threats.

The Akogun of Isara in the statement said, “Your Royal Highness, so soon after the Moslem season of spiritual purification, it is sad to see the ancient city of Ilorin, a confluence of faiths and ethnic varieties, reduced to this level of bigotry and intolerance, manifested in the role of a presiding monarch. The truncation of a people’s traditional festival is a crime against the cultural heritage of all humanity. Year after year, Ramadan has been celebrated in this nation as an inclusive gathering of humanity, irrespective of divergences of belief. Not once, in my entire span of existence, have I encountered pronouncements by followers of any faith that the slaughtering of rams on the streets and market places is an offence to their concept of godhead. Vegetarians hold their peace. Buddhists walk a different path. Prior to Ramadan, non-Moslems routinely join in observing the preceding season of fasting as a spiritual exercise worthy of emulation.’’

The elder statesman further said that it might interest the emir to know that, in Abu Dhabi, numerous programmes were pursued, at government expense, for the evolution of a humanised community based on religious tolerance and mutual respect.

He stated, “Your Royal Highness, it is conduct like this that has bred Boko Haram, ISIS, ISWAP and other religious malformations that currently plague this nation, spreading grief and outrage across a once peaceful landscape, degrading my and your existence with their virulent brand of Islam. It is conduct like this that has turned, before our very eyes, a once ecumenical city like Kaduna into a blood-stained mockery of cohabitation. It is conduct like this that makes it possible for a young student, Deborah, to be lynched in the very presence of armed police, on mere allegation of having belittled the image of a revered prophet.’’

According to the essayist, this continent has endured centuries of disdain and despoilation at the hands of alien religions – Christianity and Islam at the forefront.

He added, “Your conduct is an affront to my sense of racial being, and that holds true for millions beyond these national and continental borders, stretching into the Americas and the Caribbean. There you will still encounter Isese and allied spiritualities. There, Isese still exerts its hold on the human spirit. Visit Brazil, go to Columbia, explore Cuba, and be humbled by the tenacity of this spirituality among the descendants of black humanity.’’

He urged the monarch to rein in those he described as agents of division, of triumphalist intolerance, such as the Majlisu Shabab Ulamahu Society and call the priestess to his side, make peace with her and make restitution whichever way he could for what he termed the grievous insult to our race.

Soyinka stated, “We know the history of Ilorin and the trajectory of your dynasty – but these are not the issues. The issue is peaceful cohabitation, respect for other worldviews, their celebrations, their values and humanity. The issue is the acceptance of the multiple facets of human enlightenment.’’

Soyinka, a former lecturer at OAU, spoke at a lecture titled, ‘The Politics of Black Intellection and Creativity, at the University of Pennsylvania, the United States’, which was the first of the newly-inaugurated Distinguished Lecture series in African Studies.

Reacting to a question by Professor Wale Adebanwi, Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies, Department of Africana Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Soyinka said he’s “shocked” over the incessant kidnappings, ritual killings and violence that have become the order of the day in Nigeria.

Asked to express his reaction to the agitations that the next Vice-Chancellor of the Obafemi Awolowo University must be an indigene of its host city, Soyinka faulted the protesters.

He said, “An Ife person wrote me and say, look at these people disgracing us. I told him to go there and disgrace them. You are an Ife person. You should be in the front line.

“The Ife people should say those people don’t belong to us, we don’t know where they came from. And they should be dealt with ruthlessly. Why should there be an Ife VC anywhere? I just don’t understand what they put in the water these days. It is crazy.”

Babalola, who announced a donation of N50m for the confab, which he said was billed to hold soon at ABUAD hall and ABUAD Inn, said eminent Nigerians, including former Presidents and leading traditional rulers, would be attended to the confab to proffer solutions to the country’s problems.

He said, “The situation in Nigeria today is gruesome and all hands must be on the deck to save it from total collapse. I am proposing ABUAD as the venue of the summit because it is safe, has a Federal Ministry of Aviation-certified helipad, well equipped 400-bed multi-system hospital, among others.

Among personalities that Babalola said would be invited included the Sultan of Sokoto; Alhaji Saad Abubakar; Alaafin of Oyo; Oba Lamidi Adeyemi; Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi; Ewi of Ado Ekiti, Oba Rufus Adejugbe and Obi Of Onitsha, Igwe Alfred Achebe; Bishop David Oyedepo; Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah; Pastor Enoch Adeboye; Gen. Theophilus Danjuma; Bola Ahmed Tinubu; Prof. Wole Soyinka; and Chief Ayo Adebanjo.