User:Kayode Soyinka

Olukayode Adedeji Soyinka, known at home and internationally simply as Kayode Soyinka, was born in Ibadan on Sunday, December 15, 1957. His parents were Pa John Akinleye Soyinka of Oba’losako Compound, Owu, Abeokuta and Mrs Jochebed Olufunmilayo Soyinka (née Akinyele) of the Royal Amororo Compound, also in Owu, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria. The family had its ancestral roots in Owu-Adepiti village, near Egbeda, in the Obafemi Owode Local Government area of the state – from the paternal side. While from the maternal side, the family came from Ifo – Oke-Nla and Ekundayo, villages in the Ifo Local Government area of the state. Kayode Soyinka’s maternal great grandfather, Pa Israel Dare, who died in August 1939, was the first Baale (Village head) of Oke-Nla, Ifo, an Egba village. His last born and only son of six children, Pa H. O. Dare, was a more recent Baale of Oke-Nla, Ifo, until he died in the late 1980s. In their homestead in Totoro, Abeokuta, Kayode is from Abeokuta North Local Government. Kayode's paternal grandfather was until his death on June 17, 1960, the Ogboye of Owu-Abeokuta during the reign of Oba Gbadela Ajibola, the Olowu of Owu Kingdom. He was also the head of the Customary Court in Egbeda during his lifetime. Kayode's late mother, Mrs Jochebed Olufunmilayo Soyinka (née Akinyele), was the younger sister of Venerable Gaddiel Olusegun Adewale Akinyele, who was the first Anglican Archdeacon of Abeokuta Archdeaconry (12 December 1976 to 28 April 1984), first Anglican Archdeacon of Abeokuta West Archdeaconry in Egba-Egbado Diocese (28 April 1984 to 14 September 1985), and Vicar of St. Paul's Church, Igbore, Abeokuta, from 1 December 1976 to 14 September 1985. Kayode's mother and Venerable Akinyele were both born and brought up in Isara-Remo, also in Ogun State. Their father, Kayode's maternal grandfather, Pa Reverend Oshunmakinde Akinyele, was a colonial catechist who was one of the Wesleyan preachers who worked with the famous Methodist missionary Reverend Mellor in the old Sagamu (Remo) Province. It was while there, as pastor of the Methodist Church, Isara, that Kayode's mother was born on February 22, 1925. Pa Reverend Oshunmakinde Akinyele also taught at the famous Wesley College, Ibadan, where one of his students was the young Obafemi Awolowo who later became a famous politician and premier of the old western region of Nigeria and leader of the opposition at the national parliament after independence in 1960.

Education and Work Experience:

After completing his elementary school education in Ibadan, at both Christ the King (CKC) Primary School at Odo-Ona (1964-1966), and Ibadan City Council (ICC) Practising School at Apata (1967-1969), Kayode, second of six children (five boys and one girl) went to his father’s Alma mater – the prestigious Baptist Boys’ High School (BBHS), in Owu, Abeokuta, their ancestral home. That was in 1970. When Kayode finished at BBHS, he picked a clerical job with PZ Industries Limited in Ilupeju, Lagos. But the profession that was to earn him national and international fame and achievements quickly overwhelmed his teenage interest. In 1976, at a young age of just 18, Kayode signed on as a cub Reporter with Sketch Newspapers in Ibadan, thereby starting off what turned out to be a very rewarding romance with journalism. He served Sketch Newspapers meritoriously in Ibadan and Benin City. Impressed by his conduct and impressive output as a young reporter, the management of Sketch awarded him a scholarship to study at ‘Fleet Street’, as the College of Journalism, Fleet Street, London was well known. Soyinka studied here between 1978 and 1979, and did so well as a student journalist that his employers appointed him the London Correspondent of Sketch newspapers. At just 22, he was already London Correspondent for the then newly established Concord newspapers in 1980. That appointment marked a turning point in Kayode's life. As young as he was, he was saddled with the responsibility of starting the Concord newspapers’ London Bureau from the scratch. As head of the bureau and with other staff working under him, that was how Kayode was thrust into management so young and early in his life, in addition to his first duty as a foreign correspondent. He began to live in the United Kingdom, working very hard to achieve greatness all by himself. Despite his hyper-busy schedule as London Correspondent for Sketch, and later for Concord newspapers, General Editor, Africa Now and London Bureau Chief, Newswatch magazine, he did not lose sight of the essence of formal university knowledge. As a part-time student and paying his way through without scholarship or a wealthy sponsor to back him, he graduated with a B.A. in International Relations from the United States International University, San Diego, California (Bushey Campus, England) in 1987. He followed that with an M.A. in International Journalism from the best Graduate School of Journalism in the UK, the City University, London, in 1989. After graduating from City, Kayode was sponsored by the Commonwealth to the prestigious Cambridge University, England, as a Visiting Scholar at Wolfson College in 1990. He is a 21st Century Trust Fellow and an Honorary Harry Brittain Fellow of the Commonwealth Press Union (CPU), London. A Commonwealth enthusiast, Kayode is also a member of the Commonwealth think-tank, The Round Table, which serves as the editorial board of the Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs. He is a member of The Round Table Council and also its Board of Trustees. He is also a long-standing member of the Board of Trustees of the Commonwealth Journalists’ Association (CJA). He represented the CJA for several years also on the board of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI). Kayode was chairman for three years of the London Management Committee of the Commonwealth Journalists Association. Having settled in England, Kayode soon established himself as the U.K. correspondent of a couple of Nigerian dailies. His employment by Concord group of newspapers as the pioneer London Correspondent in 1980 kicked off a remarkable relationship with one of his greatest mentors, Chief M. K. O. Abiola. Kayode worked closely as a special assistant, confidant and trusted lieutenant of the billionaire publisher and international businessman for over four years, establishing and running the London office of the newspaper conglomerate. Chief Abiola entrusted him with the administration and the huge funds of the organisation in London running into hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling. Kayode signed cheques from Chief Abiola’s mammoth personal account as the sole signatory and the account owner did not have to countersign! An Abiola man to the core, when the June 12, 1993 presidential election result in Nigeria was annulled, Kayode took it upon himself to arrange for the appearance of Chief Abiola on the influential BBCtv "News Night" live programme on the eve of the annulment to express his outrage and condemnation of the annulment to the international community. That was the first major interview by Chief Abiola on a prominent international television network. Kayode later followed this up with a devastating article that further condemned the annulment in the London newspaper, The Sunday Independent of July 11, 1993. In the incisive piece, which covered the whole page of the leading British broadsheet newspaper, and which Bernard Levin, the influential political commentator and columnist of the London Sunday Times described in his column in the newspaper’s July 18, 1993 edition, as the “most passionate account” on the Nigerian political crisis he had read, Kayode denounced the election invalidation by the military dictator President Ibrahim Babangida as “a fraud and a grand deception.” At the height of Chief Abiola’s incarceration by the ruthless General Sani Abacha regime, Kayode initiated a very important meeting in 1995 between the internationally respected South African clergy, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and one of Chief Abiola’s wives, Dr (Mrs) Doyin Abiola. Mrs Abiola had personally requested Kayode's help to set up the meeting. Kayode used his personal connection with the respected Nobel Laureate to get him to agree to see Mrs Abiola. The meeting took place at the Bishop’s Court in Cape Town. The objective of appealing to the influential and world renowned clergyman not to relent in his international pressure on the Abacha regime to free Chief Abiola was achieved with Bishop Tutu’s visit to General Abacha as President Nelson Mandela’s emissary. The Abiola-Soyinka relationship had gotten even stronger on October 15, 1983 when, as fate would have it, Kayode got married to former Miss Titilope Oluwadamilola Odugbesan, the younger sister of Mrs Modupe Oshin, whose husband (the late Demola Oshin) is the senior brother of Chief Abiola’s most senior surviving wife, Chief (Mrs) Adebisi Abiola (née Oshin). Kayode's two children and Chief (Mrs) Abiola’s children are cousins. Till his death, Kayode remained a loyal follower of Chief Abiola.

Family Values:

Kayode married his lovely wife, Titilope Oluwadamilola (née Odugbesan) on October 15, 1983. They have two talented children, their daughter Oluwatumininu Adebimpe, born January 15, 1984, and son Oluwagbeminiyi Adekunle, born April 25, 1986. His wife Titilope’s father, was the revered centenarian Pa S. O. Odugbesan, from Ososa, who died in December 2007 aged 102. Pa Odugbesan was the first indigenous Nigerian secretary to the Board of Customs and Excise in the colonial days in Nigeria. An incorruptible, highly influential and widely respected grand old man, he encouraged young women to enrol in the Nigerian Customs. Pa Odugbesan was also the uncle of the great Hubert Ogunde, the doyen of Nigerian theatre. Kayode's mother-in-law, Mama Tanimowo Emily Odugbesan, who died in April 2010, aged 95, was born into the respected Sosanya family of Isara-Remo. Kayode's daughter Oluwatumininu is a graduate of Creative Music Technology and holds a Masters Degree in Music Business Management from both the Universities of Hull and Westminster in the UK respectively. The young woman indeed justified the investment and sacrifice of her parents by first launching herself into the music industry. She has worked as a Product Manager with the biggest music record label in the world, Universal Music in London. And now currently works with L'Oréal UK as a Senior Product Manager. Her brother, ’Gbeminiyi who did his secondary schooling at the great English establishment school for boys, Harrow, graduated from another prestigious British institution, the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland, with a degree in Sports and Leisure Management and a Masters Degree in International Business and the Emerging markets.

A Man of History & Parcel Bomb Survivor:

While writing for the Concord from the U.K., Kayode had the fortune of meeting and starting a memorable relationship with Dele Giwa, who at that time was the Editor of the Sunday Concord. This relationship continued and waxed even stronger when Giwa and some of his colleagues, Ray Ekpu, Yakubu Mohammed, and Dan Agbese, established Nigeria’s foremost news magazine, Newswatch, and appointed Kayode, who was then working under the legendary Nigerian journalist and publisher Peter Enahoro as General Editor of Africa Now, the London Bureau Chief. Theirs was a relationship of boss, brother, family and friend rolled into one. The story of Dele Giwa’s gruesome death by a parcel bomb on that fateful October 19, 1986 morning and Kayode's miraculous survival from the blast and witness to that death is well known to Nigerians and press freedom campaigners around the world. As a result of that disaster and his miraculous escape from death, Kayode is today a man of history in Nigeria and internationally.

Self-actualisation:

From Newswatch, Kayode moved on to pursue his own dream. This culminated in the birth of his own news magazine, Africa Today, in May 1995. Today, he takes great pride in being the Founder, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of one of Africa’s high quality and most influential international news magazines. Part of that joy is the fact that Kayode has been able to make the magazine a great success and an integral part of life in Africa and The Diaspora. As a mark of the publication’s success, two other sector-specific publications were introduced in 2009 – Africa Oil and Gas Today, and Africa Telecoms Today. In 1994, Kayode published a celebrated book, Diplomatic Baggage: Mossad and Nigeria – The Dikko Story. The work revealed hidden facts about the dramatic but failed attempt by the Nigerian military regime in 1984 to kidnap and export out of the UK the former Minister of Transport, Alhaji Umaru Dikko. The book is widely used in universities around the world by students of diplomacy, international relations and politics.

Youth Leader: Destined to lead

As a pupil of Christ the King Primary School, Odo-Ona, and Ibadan City Council Practising School, Apata, in his formative years in Ibadan, Kayode played leadership roles. He was leader of the Wolf Cub – the junior Boys’ Scout - in the whole of the old Western State and the photograph of Kayode leading the state’s troops in welcoming to camp in Ibadan the military governor of the old Western State of Nigeria, General (then Brigadier) Adeyinka Adebayo, remains memorable till today. As a student at Baptist Boys’ High School, Abeokuta, Kayode was renowned for his good singing voice and he played the school’s organ from his first day at the famous boys’ school, where he was also a champion debater and represented the school in recitation as a leading member of the Literary and Debating Society. He won numerous laurels for BBHS. Kayode is a member of the Board of Trustees of the BBHS Alumni Foundation. Besides, as an international journalist and publisher of repute, Kayode has walked through several corridors of power and mixed with leaders within and outside Nigeria. The roll call is impressive: He has twice met with the British Monarch Queen Elizabeth 11 and The Duke of Edinburgh, at Buckingham Palace and Windsor, by special invitation. He also met and interviewed distinguished statesmen such as the late South African President Nelson Mandela, Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the assassinated South African freedom fighter Chris Hani; the late former British Prime Minister James Callaghan; former British Foreign Secretary and deputy Prime Minister, Sir Geoffrey, later Lord, Howe; former British Foreign Secretary, Dr David, later Lord, Owen; former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo; former Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga; former American United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young; Sir Shridath Ramphal and Chief Emeka Anyaoku, both former Secretaries-General of the Commonwealth, and many more. Early February 2002 when former British Prime Minister Tony Blair embarked on his first tour of West Africa, Kayode featured in the official entourage. The high profile visit covered four countries – Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Senegal. Kayode's inclusion on Prime Minister Blair’s delegation was in recognition of his achievements as an international media figure.

Foray into Politics:

Kayode made attempts on three occasions to be elected governor of Ogun State, Nigeria. First was in 2003 on the platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). He lost the ticket to the incumbent governor Chief Olusegun Osoba who was once his boss at the Sketch newspapers in Ibadan. The second attempt was in 2007 when he once again lost the ticket in controversial circumstances under the platform of the Action Congress (AC). The third unsuccessful attempt was in 2011, again, he was denied the ticket under the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). Kayode Soyinka is a leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ogun State.