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Akwa Ibom State
—  State  —
Nickname(s): Land of Promise
Location of Akwa Ibom in Nigeria
Coordinates: 05°00′N 07°50′E / 5°N 7.833°E / 5; 7.833Coordinates: 05°00′N 07°50′E / 5°N 7.833°E / 5; 7.833
Country	Nigeria
Date created	23 September 1987
Capital	Uyo
Government
• Governor (List)	Godswill Akpabio[1] (PDP)
• Senators
• Representatives
Area
• Total	7,081 km2 (2,734 sq mi)
Area rank	30 of 36
Population (1991 census)
• Total	2,359,736
• Estimate (2005)	4,805,451
• Rank	9 of 36
• Density	330/km2 (860/sq mi)
GDP (PPP)
• Year	2007
• Total	$11.18 billion[2]
• Per capita	$2,779[2]
Time zone	WAT (UTC+01)
ISO 3166 code	NG-AK
Website	aksgonline.com

Akwa Ibom is a state in Nigeria named after the Qua Iboe river. It is located in the coastal South-Southern part of the country, lying between latitudes 4°321 and 5°331 North, and longitudes 7°251 and 8°251 East. The State is bordered on the east by Cross River State, on the west by Rivers State and Abia State, and on the South by the Atlantic Ocean and the southern-most tip of Cross River State.

Akwa Ibom is one of Nigeria’s 36 states with a population of over 5 million people and more than 10 million people in diaspora. It was created in 1987 from the former Cross River State and is currently the highest oil and gas producing state in the country. The state’s capital is Uyo with over 500,000 inhabitants . Akwa Ibom has an airport (Akwa Ibom International Airport) and two major sea ports on the Atlantic Ocean with a proposed construction of a world class seaport Ibaka Seaport at Oron. Along with English, the main spoken languages are Ibibio, Annang, Eket, and Oron languages.

Major cities[link]

Uyo is the capital city of Akwa Ibom State. Eket, Ikot Ekpene, Oron, Abak, Ikot Abasi, and Etinan are a few of many prominent cities.

Administrative areas[link]

Akwa Ibom is divided into 31 Local Government Areas:

History[link]

The people of Akwa Ibom state arrived in what is now Nigeria between 1200-1500 BC.^{[citation needed]}

The region of the State was created out of Cross River State on September 23, 1987.

Demography[link]

The people are predominantly of the Christian faith. The main ethnic groups of the state are:

• Ibibio
• Annang
• Oron

The Ibibio, Annang, who speak a dialect of the Ibibio Language, and Oron are the largest ethnic groups. The Oro [Oron] is an ethnic group similar to the Efik, which is predominant in neighbouring Cross River State, and found in five of the state's Local Government Areas. Located at the Atlantic Ocean contiguous to Oron are a group of Ibibio of Eket origins. The Igbo language is also spoken in Akwa Ibom in the northern and western land borders.

The Ibibio language belongs to the Benue–Congo language family, which forms part of the Niger–Congo group of languages.

Despite the homogeneity, no central government existed among the people of what is now Akwa Ibom State prior to the British invasion in 1904. Instead, the Annang, Oron, Efik, and Ibibio were all autonomous groups.

Although several Scottish missionaries arrived in Calabar in 1848, the British did not firmly establish control until 1904. In that year, the Enyong Division was created encompassing the area of the current state of Akwa Ibom, with the headquarters at Ikot Ekpene, an Annang city emerged described by the noted Africanist^{[disambiguation needed ]} Kaanan Nair, as the cultural and political capital of Annang and Ibibio. The creation of Enyong Division, for the first time allowed the numerous ethnic groups to come together. This further provided a venue for the creation of the Ibibio Welfare Union, later renamed Ibibio State Union. The social organization was first organized as a local development and improvement forum for educated persons and groups who were shut out from the colonial administration in 1929. Nonetheless, some historians have wrongly pointed to the union to buttress their argument about the homogeneity of groups in the area.^{[citation needed]}

When Akwa Ibom state was created in 1987, Uyo was chosen as the state capital to spread development to all regions of the state.

Education[link]

The current region of Akwa Ibom State in old Calabar Kingdom were the first to encounter Western education in Nigeria with the establishment of Hope Waddell Training Institute, Calabar in 1895, Methodist Boys High School, Oron in 1905 and other top flight schools such as the Holy Family College at Abak. Currently various institutions for higher education have sprung up and spread across the state.

Some Educational Institutes in the state include:

• University of Uyo
• Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron
• Akwa Ibom State University
• Obong University, Obong Ntak Inyang
• Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic
• Uyo City Polytechnic
• Apex Polytechnic
• Herritage Polytechnic, Eket
• School of Nursing; Uyo, Eket, Oron, Ikot Ekpene, Etinan
• Akwa Ibom State College of Education, Afaha Nsit
• School Of Basic Studies
• College of Arts & Sciences, Nnung Ukim

Politics[link]

Politics in Akwa Ibom state is dominated by the three main ethnic groups, the Ibibio, Annang and Oron. Of these three, the Ibibio remain the majority and have held sway in the state since its creation.

References[link]

External links[link]

• aksgonline.com: Official website of the Akwa Ibom State Government
• Satellite Map of Akwa Ibom State on Google Maps World Gazetteer
• akwaibomnewsonline.com: Akwa Ibom State News from Various News Sources
• ibomvillagesquare.com: Akwa Ibom Village Square Portal

v t e States of Nigeria Abia Abuja Federal Capital Territory Adamawa Akwa Ibom Anambra Bauchi Bayelsa Benue Borno Cross River Delta Ebonyi Edo Ekiti Enugu Gombe Imo Jigawa Kaduna Kano Katsina Kebbi Kogi Kwara Lagos Nasarawa Niger Ogun Ondo Osun Oyo Plateau Rivers Sokoto Taraba Yobe Zamfara

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (March 2012)

Wole Soyinka
Born	Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka (1934-07-13) 13 July 1934 (age 77) Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria
Occupation	Author, poet, playwright
Nationality	Nigerian
Genres	Drama, poetry
Subjects	Comparative literature
Notable award(s)	Nobel Prize in Literature 1986
Influences Yoruba mythology

Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka (born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian writer, notable especially as a playwright and poet; he was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first African in Africa and the diaspora to be so honoured.

Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta. After study in Nigeria and the UK, he worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London. He went on to write plays that were produced in both countries, in theatres and on radio. He took an active role in Nigeria's political history and its struggle for independence from Great Britain. In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections. In 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for two years.^[1]

Soyinka has strongly criticized many Nigerian military dictators, as well as other political tyrannies, including the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. Much of his writing has been concerned with "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it".^{[citation needed]} During the regime of General Sani Abacha (1993–1998), Soyinka escaped from Nigeria via the "Nadeco Route" on motorcycle. Living abroad, mainly in the United States, he was a professor first at Cornell University and then at Emory University in Atlanta, where in 1996 he was appointed Robert W. Woodruff Professor of the Arts. Abacha proclaimed a death sentence against him "in absentia". With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, Soyinka returned to his nation. He has also taught at Oxford, Harvard and Yale.

From 1975 to 1999, he was a Professor of Comparative Literature at the Obafemi Awolowo University, then called the University of Ife. With civilian rule restored in 1999, he was made professor emeritus.^[1] Soyinka has been a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In the fall of 2007 he was appointed Professor in Residence at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California, US.^[1]

Life and work[link]

Early life and education[link]

From a Remo family of Isara-Remo, Soyinka was born the second of six children, in the city of Abẹokuta, Ogun State in Nigeria, at that time a British dominion. His father, Samuel Ayodele Soyinka (whom he called S.A. or "Essay"), was an Anglican minister and the headmaster of St. Peters School in Abẹokuta. Soyinka's mother, Grace Eniola Soyinka (whom he dubbed the "Wild Christian"), owned a shop in the nearby market. She was a political activist within the women's movement in the local community. She was also Anglican. As much of the community followed indigenous Yorùbá religious tradition, Soyinka grew up in an atmosphere of religious syncretism, with influences from both cultures. His father's position enabled him to get electricity and radio at home.

His mother was one of the most prominent members of the influential Ransome-Kuti family: she was the daughter of Rev. Canon JJ Ransome-Kuti, and sister to Olusegun Azariah Ransome-Kuti and Oludotun Ransome-Kuti. Among Soyinka's cousins were the musician Fela Kuti, the human rights activist Beko Ransome-Kuti, politician Olikoye Ransome-Kuti and activist Yemisi Ransome-Kuti.^[2]

In 1940, after attending St. Peters Primary School in Abeokuta, Soyinka went to Abẹokuta Grammar School, where he won several prizes for literary composition. In 1946 he was accepted by Government College in Ibadan, at that time one of Nigeria’s elite secondary schools.

After finishing his course at Government College in 1952, he began studies at University College in Ibadan (1952–1954), affiliated with the University of London. He studied English literature, Greek, and Western history. In the year 1953-1954, his second and last at University College, Ibadan, Soyinka began work on "Keffi's Birthday Threat," a short radio play for Nigerian Broadcasting Service. It was broadcast in July 1954. Whilst at university, Soyinka and six others founded the Pyrates Confraternity, an anti-corruption and justice-seeking student organization, the first confraternity in Nigeria. Soyinka gives a detailed account of his early life in his memoir Aké: The Years of Childhood.

Later in 1954, Soyinka relocated to England, where he continued his studies in English literature, under the supervision of his mentor Wilson Knight at the University of Leeds (1954–1957). He met numerous young, gifted British writers. Before defending his B.A., Soyinka began publishing and worked as an editor for the satirical magazine The Eagle. He wrote a column on academic life, often criticizing his university peers.

Early career[link]

After graduating, he remained in Leeds with the intention of earning an M.A.. Soyinka intended to write new work to combine European theatrical traditions with those of his Yorùbá cultural heritage. His first major play, The Swamp Dwellers (1958) was followed a year later, by The Lion and the Jewel, a comedy that attracted interest from several members of London's Royal Court Theatre. Encouraged, Soyinka moved to London, where he worked as a play reader for the Royal Court Theatre. During the same period, both of his plays were performed in Ibadan. They dealt with the uneasy relationship between progress and tradition in Nigeria.^[3]

In 1957 his play The Invention was the first of his works to be produced at the Royal Court Theatre. At that time his only published works were poems such as "The Immigrant" and "My Next Door Neighbour", which were published in the Nigerian magazine Black Orpheus.^[4] This was founded in 1957 by the German scholar Ulli Beier, who had been teaching at the University of Ibadan since 1950.^[5]

Soyinka received a Rockefeller Research Fellowship from University College in Ibadan, his alma mater, for research on African theatre, and he returned to Nigeria. He produced his new satire The Trials of Brother Jero. His work, A Dance of The Forest (1960), a biting criticism of Nigeria's political elites, won a contest that year as the official play for Nigerian Independence Day. On 1 October 1960, it premiered in Lagos as Nigeria celebrated its sovereignty. Also in 1960, Soyinka established the "Nineteen-Sixty Masks", an amateur acting ensemble to which he devoted considerable time over the next few years.

Soyinka published works satirizing the 'Emergency' in the Western Region of Nigeria, as his Yorùbá homeland was increasingly occupied and controlled by the federal government. The political tensions arising from recent post-colonial independence eventually led to a military coup and civil war (1967-1970).

With the Rockefeller grant, Soyinka bought a Land Rover. He began travelling throughout the country as a researcher with the Department of English Language of the University College in Ibadan. In an essay of the time, he criticized Leopold Senghor's Négritude movement as a nostalgic and indiscriminate glorification of the black African past that ignores the potential benefits of modernization. "A tiger does not shout its tigritude," he declared, "it acts."^{[citation needed]}

In December 1962, his essay "Towards a True Theater" was published. He began teaching with the Department of English Language at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ifẹ. Soyinka discussed current affairs with "négrophiles," and on several occasions openly condemned government censorship. At the end of 1963, his first feature-length movie, Culture in Transition, was released. In April 1964 The Interpreters, "a complex but also vividly documentary novel",^[6] was published in London.

That December, together with scientists and men of theatre, Soyinka founded the Drama Association of Nigeria. In 1964 he also resigned his university post, as a protest against imposed pro-government behaviour by authorities. A few months later, he was arrested for the first time, accused of underlying tapes during reproduction of recorded speech of the winner of Nigerian elections.^{[clarification needed]} He was released after a few months of confinement, as a result of protests by the international community of writers. This same year he wrote two more dramatic pieces, Before the Blackout and the comedy Kongi’s Harvest. He also wrote The Detainee, a radio play for the BBC in London. At the end of the year, he was promoted to headmaster and senior lecturer in the Department of English Language at Lagos University.

Soyinka's political speeches at that time criticized the cult of personality and government corruption in African dictatorships. In April 1965 his play Kongi’s Harvest was produced in revival at the International Festival of Negro Art in Dakar, Senegal. His play The Road was awarded the Grand Prix. In June 1965, Soyinka produced his play The Lion and The Jewel for Hampstead Theatre Club in London.

Civil war and imprisonment[link]

After becoming chief of the Cathedral of Drama at the University of Ibadan, Soyinka became more politically active. Following the military coup of January 1966, he secretly and unofficially met with the military governor Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu in the Southeastern town of Enugu (August 1967), to try to avert civil war. As a result, he had to go into hiding.

He was imprisoned for 22 months ^[7] as civil war ensued between the federal government and the Biafrans. Though refused materials such as books, pens, and paper, he still wrote a significant body of poems and notes criticizing the Nigerian government.^[8]

Despite his imprisonment, in September 1967, his play The Lion and The Jewel was produced in Accra. In November The Trials of Brother Jero and The Strong Breed were produced in the Greenwich Mews Theatre in New York. He also published a collection of his poetry, Idanre and Other Poems. It was inspired by Soyinka’s visit to the sanctuary of the Yorùbá deity Ogun, whom he regards as his "companion" deity, kindred spirit, and protector.^[8]

In 1968, the Negro Ensemble Company in New York produced Kongi’s Harvest. While still imprisoned, Soyinka translated from Yoruba a fantastical novel by his compatriot D. O. Fagunwa, called The Forest of a Thousand Demons: A Hunter's Saga.

Release and literary production[link]

In October 1969, when the civil war came to an end, amnesty was proclaimed, and Soyinka and other political prisoners were freed. For the first few months after his release, Soyinka stayed at a friend’s farm in southern France, where he sought solitude. He wrote The Bacchae of Euripides (1969), a reworking of the Pentheus myth.^[9] He soon published in London a book of poetry, Poems from Prison. At the end of the year, he returned to his office as Headmaster of Cathedral of Drama in Ibadan, and cooperated in the founding of the literary periodical Black Orpheus (likely named after the 1959 film directed by Marcel Camus and set in the favela of Rio de Janeiro.)

In 1970 he produced the play Kongi’s Harvest, while simultaneously adapting it as a film by the same title. In June 1970, he finished another play, called Madman and Specialists. Together with the group of fifteen actors of Ibadan University Theatre Art Company, he went on a trip to the United States, to the Eugene O'Neill Memorial Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut, where his latest play premiered. It gave them all an experience with theatrical production in another English-speaking country.

In 1971, his poetry collection A Shuttle in the Crypt was published. Madmen and Specialists was produced in Ibadan that year. Soyinka traveled to Paris to take the lead role as Kinshasa, the murdered first Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo, in the production of his Murderous Angels. His powerful autobiographical work The Man Died (1971), a collection of notes from prison, was also published.

In April, concerned about the political situation in Nigeria, Soyinka resigned from his duties at the University in Ibadan, and began years of voluntary exile. In July in Paris, excerpts from his well-known play The Dance of The Forests were performed.

In 1972, he was awarded an Honoris Causa doctorate by the University of Leeds. Soon thereafter, his novel Season of Anomy (1972) and his Collected Plays (1972) were both published by Oxford University Press. In 1973 the National Theatre, London, commissioned and premiered the play The Bacchae of Euripides.^[9] In 1973 his plays Camwood on the Leaves and Jero's Metamorphosis were first published. From 1973 to 1975, Soyinka spent time on scientific studies.^{[clarification needed]} He underwent one year's probation at Churchill College, Cambridge University,^{[clarification needed]} and gave a series of lectures at a number of European universities.

In 1974 his Collected Plays, Volume II was issued by Oxford University Press. In 1975 Soyinka was promoted to the position of editor for Transition, a magazine based in the Ghanaian capital of Accra, where he moved for some time. Soyinka used his columns in Transition to criticize the "negrophiles" (for instance, his article "Neo-Tarzanism: The Poetics of Pseudo-Transition") and military regimes. He protested against the military junta of Idi Amin in Uganda. After the political turnover in Nigeria and the subversion of Gowon's military regime in 1975, he returned to his homeland and resumed his position at the Cathedral of Comparative Literature at the University of Ife.

In 1976 he published his poetry collection Ogun Abibiman, as well as a collection of essays entitled Myth, Literature and the African World. In these, Soyinka explores the genesis of mysticism in African theatre and, using examples from both European and African literature, compares and contrasts the cultures. He delivered a series of guest lectures at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana in Legon. In October, the French version of The Dance of The Forests was performed in Dakar, while in Ife, his Death and The King’s Horseman premiered.

In 1977 Opera Wọnyọsi, his adaptation of Bertold Brecht's The Threepenny Opera, was staged in Ibadan. In 1979 he both directed and acted in Jon Blair and Norman Fenton's drama,The Biko Inquest, a work based on the life of Steve Biko, a South African student and human rights activist who was beaten to death by apartheid police forces. In 1981 Soyinka published his autobiographical work Ake: The Years of Childhood, which won a 1983 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.

Soyinka founded another theatrical group called the Guerrilla Unit. Its goal was to work with with local communities in analyzing their problems and to express some of their grievances in dramatic sketches. In 1983 his play, Requiem for a Futurologist, had its first performance at the University of Ife. In July, one of Soyinka's musical projects, the Unlimited Liability Company, issued a long-playing record entitled I Love My Country, in which several prominent Nigerian musicians played songs composed by Soyinka. In 1984, he directed the film Blues for a Prodigal; his new play A Play of Giants was produced the same year.

During the years from 1975-1984, Soyinka was also more politically active. At the University of Ife, his administrative duties included the security of public roads. He criticized the corruption in the government of the democratically elected President Shehu Shagari. When he was replaced by the general Muhammadu Buhari, Soyinka was often at odds with the military. In 1984, a Nigerian court banned his book The Man Died (1971). The following year, his play Requiem for a Futurologist (1985) was published in London.

Since 1986[link]

Soyinka was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986,^[10] becoming the first African laureate. He was described as one "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence". His Nobel acceptance speech "This Past Must Address Its Present," was devoted to South African freedom-fighter Nelson Mandela. Soyinka's speech was an outspoken criticism of apartheid and the politics of racial segregation imposed on the majority by the Nationalist South African government. In 1986, he received the Agip Prize for Literature.

In 1988, his collection of poems Mandela's Earth, and Other Poems was published, while in Nigeria another collection of essays entitled Art, Dialogue and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture appeared. In the same year, Soyinka accepted the position of Professor of African Studies and Theatre at Cornell University.^[11] In 1990, the second portion of his memoir Isara: A Voyage Around Essay appeared. In July 1991 the BBC African Service transmited his radio play A Scourge of Hyacinths, and the next year (1992) in Sienna (Italy), his play From Zia with Love had its premiere. Both works are very bitter political parodies, based on events that took place in Nigeria in the 1980s. In 1993 Soyinka was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Harvard University. The next year another part of his autobiography appeared: Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years (A Memoir: 1946-1965). The following year his play The Beatification of Area Boy was published. In October 1994 Soyinka was appointed UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for the Promotion of African culture, human rights, freedom of expression, media and communication.

In November 1994, Soyinka fled from Nigeria through the border with Benin and then to the United States. In 1996 his book The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis was first published. In 1997 Soyinka was charged with treason by the government of General Sani Abacha. In 1999 a new volume of poems entitled Outsiders was released. His play King Baabu, premiered in Lagos in 2001,^[12] a political satire on the theme of African dictatorship.^[12] In 2002 a collection of his poems, Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known, was published by Methuen. In April 2006, his memoir You Must Set Forth at Dawn was published by Random House. In 2006 he cancelled his keynote speech for the annual S.E.A. Write Awards Ceremony in Bangkok to protest the Thai military's successful coup against the government.^[13]

In April 2007 Soyinka called for the cancellation of the Nigerian presidential elections held two weeks earlier, beset by widespread fraud and violence. In the wake of the Christmas Day (2009) attempted bombing^[where?] he questioned the United Kingdom's social logic that allows every religion to openly proselytize their faith, asserting that it is being abused by religious fundamentalists thereby turning England into a cesspit for the breeding of extremism. He supported the freedom of worship but warned against the consequence of the illogic of allowing religions to preach apocalyptic violence.^[14]

Legacy and honours[link]

• In 2011, the African Heritage Research Library and Cultural Centre built a writers' enclave in his honour. It is located in Adeyipo Village, Lagelu Local Government Area, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. The enclave includes a Writer-in-Residence Programme that enables writers to stay for a period of two, three or six months, engaging in serious creative writing.

• 1973: Honorary Ph. D., University of Leeds
• 1973-74: Overseas Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge
• 1983: Elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature ^[15]
• 1983: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, United States.
• 1986: Nobel Prize for Literature
• 1986 Agip Prize for Literature
• 1986 Commander of the Federal Republic, CFR.
• 1990: Benson Medal from Royal Society of Literature
• 1993: Honorary doctorate, Harvard University
• 2005: Honorary doctorate degree, Princeton University.^[16]
• 2005: Conferred with the chieftaincy title of Akinlatun of Egbaland by the Alake, Oba of his Egba clan of Yorubaland. He was made a tribal aristocrat with the right to use the Yoruba title Oloye.^[17]
• 2009: Academy of Achievement Golden Plate Award

Works[link]

Plays[link]

• The Swamp Dwellers
• The Lion and the Jewel
• The Trials of Brother Jero
• A Dance of the Forests
• The Strong Breed
• Before the Blackout
• Kongi's Harvest
• The Road
• The Bacchae of Euripides
• Madmen and Specialists
• Camwood on the Leaves
• Jero's Metamorphosis
• Death and the King's Horseman
• Opera Wonyosi
• Requiem for a Futurologist
• A Play of Giants
• A Scourge of Hyacinths (radio play)
• The Beatification of Area Boy
• King Baabu
• Etiki Revu Wetin
• Sixty Six (short piece)^[18]

Novels[link]

• The Interpreters
• Season of Anomie

Memoirs[link]

• The Man Died: Prison Notes (1971)
• Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981)
• Isara: A Voyage around Essay (1990)
• Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years: a memoir 1946-65 (1994)
• You Must Set Forth at Dawn (2006)

Poetry collections[link]

• A Big Airplane Crashed Into The Earth (original title Poems from Prison)
• Idanre and other poems
• Mandela's Earth and other poems
• Ogun Abibiman
• Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known
• Abiku
• The Ballad of the Landlord
• After the Deluge
• Prisonnettes
• Telephone Conversation

Essays[link]

• Neo-Tarzanism: The Poetics of Pseudo-Transition
• Art, Dialogue, and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture
• Myth, Literature and the African World
• From Drama and the African World View
• The Burden of Memory - The Muse of Forgiveness
• The Credo of Being and Nothingness
• A Climate of Fear

Movies[link]

• Kongi's Harvest
• Culture in Transition
• Blues for a Prodigal

See also[link]

Poetry portal

• List of African writers
• Black Nobel Prize laureates
• Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa

References[link]

23. Ogunyemi, Yemi D (2009), The Literary/Political Philosophy of Wole Soyinka, ISBN 1-60836-463-1, Publish America, Maryland, USA. 24. African Heritage Research Library and Cultural Center, Ibadan, Nigeria. Web site www.africanheritageresearch.net

Further reading[link]

• "Soyinka, Wole (Vol. 179): Introduction," Contemporary Literary Criticism, Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol. 179. Gale Cengage, 2004. eNotes.com. 2006. 23 Jan, 2009
• Bankole Olayebi, WS: A Life In Full, Bookcraft, 2004, biography of Soyinka with more than 600 photographs dating from 1934
• Yemi D. Ogunyemi, The Literary/Political Philosophy of Wole Soyinka (2001/2009).

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Wole Soyinka

• "Biography: Wole Soyinka", Nobel Prize profile, 1986
• "Wole Soyinka" Profile, Presidential Lectures, Stanford University
• "Ousting monsters" : Profile, The Fuardian, 2 November 2002
• Uchenna Izundu: "Inspiring Nigeria's political dawns", BBC, September 2007.
• Amy Goodman: "Legendary Nigerian Writer Wole Soyinka: Darfur Crisis 'A Blot on the Conscience of the World'", Democracy Now
• Amy Goodman "Legendary Nigerian Writer Wole Soyinka on Oil in the Niger Delta, the Effect of Iraq on Africa and His New Memoir", Democracy Now!, April 18/19 2006.
• "Running to Stand Still", Mother Jones, July/August 2006.
• Paul Brians, "Study guide for The Lion and the Jewel, The Trials of Brother Jero, and Madmen and Specialists", Washington State University
• "The Climate of Fear", Soyinka's Reith Lectures, BBC, 2004.

Godswill Obot Akpabio (born 19 December 1962) was elected governor of Akwa Ibom State in Nigeria in April 2007, taking office on 29 May 2007. He is a member of the People's Democratic Party (PDP).^[1] He ran successfully for reelection on 26 April 2011.^[2]

Background[link]

Godswill Obot Akpabio was born at Ukana, Ikot Ntuen, Akwa Ibom State on 19 of December, 1962. He attended the Federal Government College, Port Harcourt, then read Law at the University of Calabar. He completed his legal education at the Nigerian Law School before being called to the Bar. He became a teacher at the Afaha Secondary School, Essien Udim in 1982. He then joined Paul Usoro & Co, Lagos, a law firm, as Associate Partner. In 1995 he was Director, Corporate Affairs/Legal Services of EMIS Telecoms. In 2002 he was appointed Commissioner for Petroleum and Natural Resources, followed by positions in the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs and then the Ministry of Lands and Housing in 2006.^[1]

Governor of Akwa Ibom State[link]

In April 2007, Godswill Akpabio successfully ran for governor of Akwa Ibom State on the People's Democratic Party (PDP) platform. He took office on 29 May 2007.^[1]

In 2010 he appeared on CNN, saying that witchcraft is not a problem in his state.^[3] He ran successfully for reelection on 26 April 2011. Akpabio gained 975,585 votes, while the runner-up John Akpanudoedehe of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) scored 163,449 votes.^[2]

References[link]

	Nigeria portal
	Biography portal

v t e Nigerian state governors 2007–2011 term Abia Theodore Orji Adamawa Murtala Nyako Akwa Ibom Godswill Akpabio Anambra Peter Obi Bauchi Isa Yuguda Bayelsa Timipre Sylva Benue Gabriel Suswam Borno Ali Modu Sheriff Cross River Liyel Imoke Delta Emmanuel Uduaghan Ebonyi Martin Elechi Edo Oserheimen Osunbor (annulled) Adams Aliyu Oshiomle Ekiti Olusegun Oni (annulled) Kayode Fayemi Enugu Sullivan Chime Gombe Mohammed Danjuma Goje Imo Ikedi Ohakim Jigawa Sule Lamido Kaduna Namadi Sambo (appointed VP) Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa Kano Ibrahim Shekarau Katsina Ibrahim Shema Kebbi Usman Saidu Nasamu Dakingari Kogi Ibrahim Idris Kwara Bukola Saraki Lagos Babatunde Fashola Nasarawa Aliyu Doma Niger Mu'azu Babangida Aliyu Ogun Gbenga Daniel Ondo Olusegun Agagu (annulled) Olusegun Mimiko Osun Olagunsoye Oyinlola (annulled) Rauf Aregbesola Oyo Christopher Alao-Akala Plateau Jonah David Jang Rivers Rotimi Amaechi Sokoto Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko Taraba Danbaba Suntai Yobe Mamman Bello Ali (died) Ibrahim Geidam Zamfara Mahmud Shinkafi See also Nigerian state governors 2003-2007 term, Nigerian state governors 2011–2015 term

v t e Nigerian state governors 2011–2015 term Abia Theodore Orji Adamawa Murtala Nyako Akwa Ibom Godswill Akpabio Anambra Peter Obi Bauchi Isa Yuguda Bayelsa Timipre Sylva (sacked) Nestor Binabo (Acting) Henry Dickson Benue Gabriel Suswam Borno Kashim Shettima Cross River Liyel Imoke Delta Emmanuel Uduaghan Ebonyi Martin Elechi Edo Adams Oshiomhole Ekiti Kayode Fayemi Enugu Sullivan Chime Gombe Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo Imo Rochas Okorocha Jigawa Sule Lamido Kaduna Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa Kano Rabiu Kwankwaso Katsina Ibrahim Shema Kebbi Usman Saidu Nasamu Dakingari (annulled and elected again) Aminu Musa Habib Jega (Acting) Kogi Ibrahim Idris Kwara Abdulfatah Ahmed Lagos Babatunde Fashola Nasarawa Umaru Tanko Al-Makura Niger Mu'azu Babangida Aliyu Ogun Ibikunle Amosun Ondo Olusegun Mimiko Osun Rauf Aregbesola Oyo Isiaka Abiola Ajimobi Plateau Jonah Jang Rivers Chibuike Amaechi Sokoto Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko Taraba Danbaba Suntai Yobe Ibrahim Geidam Zamfara Abdul'aziz Abubakar Yari See also Nigerian state governors 2007-2011 term

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Donald Andrew McClurkin, Jr. (born November 9, 1959) is an American gospel music singer and minister. He has won three Grammy awards, ten Stellar awards, two BET awards, two Soul Train awards, one Dove award and one NAACP Image award for his work.

Early life[link]

McClurkin was born Copiague, New York and raised in Amityville. When he was eight years old, his two-year-old brother was hit and killed by a speeding driver. After the loss, McClurkin found comfort in church and through an aunt who sang background vocals with gospel music musician Andraé Crouch. He began to play piano and sing with his church youth choir. He formed the McClurkin Singers by the time he was a teenager, and later formed another group, the New York Restoration Choir.^[1][2]

Ministry[link]

He was hired as an associate minister at Marvin Winans' Perfecting Church in 1989.^[3] The Winans are a well-established family of singers who dominated the contemporary gospel charts in the 80's and 90's,while experiencing cross-over appeal, and continue to be voices of influence in 2012. McClurkin served as an assistant to Pastor Marvin L. Winans for over a decade, while living in Detroit,MI.

In 1991, a sharp pain and swelling, followed by internal bleeding, led, he says, to a diagnosis of leukemia. The doctor suggested immediate treatment, but McClurkin, who was then 31, decided to take his own advice. "I tell people to believe that God will save you," he says, "[and] I had to turn around and practice the very thing that I preached."^[4]

He was ordained and sent out by Winans in 2001 to establish Perfecting Faith Church in Freeport, Long Island, where he is now Senior Pastor.^[5][6]

Music[link]

A friendship with a Warner Alliance executive resulted in his signing to the label for his 1996 self-titled LP, with producers Mark Kibble of Take 6, Cedric and Victor Caldwell plus Andraé Crouch. The disc, which featured the perennially popular "Stand," went gold shortly after being publicly lauded by Oprah Winfrey.^[7] At the 48th Annual Grammy Awards, he won in the category Traditional Soul Gospel Album, for "Psalms, Hymns & Spiritual Songs".^[8] McClurkin is best known for his hit songs “Stand” and “We Fall Down” which were played in heavy rotation on both Gospel and Urban radio. His three solo albums have topped the Billboard charts.^[9]

Dovetailing off the success of his near double-platinum selling album,"Live in London and More" McClurkin released "Psalms,Hymns and Spiritual Songs" in 2005 and “We All Are One: Live In Detroit” in 2009 which also topped Billboard charts across various musical genres. McClurkin's love for people and desire to share gospel music,globally, is why he includes a language medley:Japanese, Russian, Spanish, and Dutch in most live performances.

Radio and television[link]

Tom Versen and Tony Sisti of T&T Creative www.tandtcreative.com signed Grammy winner Donnie McClurkin to a radio syndication deal with advertising giant Dial-Global and syndicator Gary Bernstein. T&T Creative provided a mobile recording studio in Pastor Donnie's church that he can also take on the road. He is quoted as saying "As much as I love music and singing, I really love doing radio and the direct feedback I get from my listeners all over the country. I never thought I would be having this much fun doing radio and I could touch and impact so many people."[19]

In 2009 he also broadcast his own television show titled “Perfecting Your Faith” on cable television.^[10] His television appearances include Good Morning America, CBS Saturday’s Early Show, and the View. He has also been featured in movies like “The Gospel”, “The Fighting Temptations” and television shows “Girlfriends” and “The Parkers.”

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Live albums[link]

Compilation albums[link]