The news that came from Johannesburg, South Africa on July 19, in this year of our Lord, was heartrending: Kole Omotoso is dead! The lionized writer, Kole Omotoso, was my teacher at the then University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, for four years of my study there in the Dramatic Arts Department with Professor Wole Soyinka as Head of Department.
My first encounter with Kole Omotoso as a lecturer resulted to my handing over a manuscript of mine to him when he asked us, his students, if any of us had “written something, maybe a play or novel.” That manuscript of mine was accepted by Macmillan, publishers of the popular Pacesetters Series, but I kept having some arguments with the publishing house until the Nigerian economy collapsed and the novel could no longer be published. But that is another story…
Professor Bankole Ajibabi Omotoso was born in Akure in present-day Ondo State on April 21, 1943 and was educated at Oyemekan Grammar School, Akure and the prestigious King’s College, Lagos, before taking his university degree at the University of Ibadan in 1969.
He was awarded a scholarship to study for a doctorate in Arabic Literature at the University of Edinburgh and the American University in Cairo, Egypt.
He married Marguerita Rice, a native of Barbados, before returning to Nigeria to teach in the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Ibadan.
With the establishment of the Department of Dramatic Arts at the University of Ife under the headship of Soyinka, Kole Omotoso transferred his services to Ile-Ife where we met.
He was a striking presence on campus with his Volkswagen Beetle car and the Marxist predilection of his bearing. He was a prominent member of a Marxist group of intellectuals known as the Positive Review Collective that included the fiery Biodun Jeyifo, Yemi Ogunbiyi, Femi Osofisan, John Ohiorhenuan, Odia Ofeimun etc.
The intellection on the Ife campus those days was robustly radical, and the exchanges between the lecturers and the students could be high octane. There was, for instance, one hot session in class when our teacher, Kole Omotoso, and our classmate, Owei Lakemfa, disagreed on the interpretation of a book by the Marxist theoretician, Raymond Williams, which led to the abrupt end of the class!
It’s a mark of Kole Omotoso’s class that he never visited any harsh retribution upon any contrarian student for any excesses whatsoever. Wole Soyinka summed up the class struggle of those days thusly: “They are my students. They don’t listen.”
Kole Omotoso was elected as the first secretary-general of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) and later became president after the founder Chinua Achebe.
His first novel, The Edifice, was published by the esteemed Heinemann African Writers Series (AWS) in 1971. It deals with the sad disintegration of the marriage between the Nigerian overseas student, Dele, and the English girl, Daisy, when he takes her home to Nigeria. The marriage ends and he marries another white woman. The second novel of Kole Omotoso, The Combat, published in 1972 also by Heinemann’s AWS, is a sad parable on the Nigeria-Biafra war depicting two brothers embroiled in a senseless fight.
He published a collection of short stories entitled Miracles in 1973 and initiated the experimentation in detective fiction in Nigeria through his 1974 publication of Fella’s Choice. His other books are Sacrifice, The Scales, To Borrow a Wandering Leaf, Memories of Our Recent Boom etc.
He also published two plays, namely The Curse: A One-Act Play in Four Scenes; and Shadows in the Horizon: A Play about the Combustibility of Private Property.
Kole Omotoso equally distinguished himself by authoring critical books, notably The Form of the African Novel: A Critical Essay; The Theatrical into Theatre: A Study of the Drama and Theatre of the English-Speaking Caribbean; Season of Migration to the South: Africa’s Crises Reconsidered; Achebe or Soyinka? A Study in Contrasts; and Woza Africa.
The most controversial book of Kole Omotoso is without question Just Before Dawn, a faction on the history of Nigeria published in 1988 by Spectrum Books, Ibadan under the charge of Chief Joop Berkhout. A former Nigerian Head of State threatened to sue him and his publishers. Hell was let loose in some security quarters. The most interesting development about the book’s publication for me was the war it unleashed between two of Nigeria’s most distinguished historians. Prof J.F. Ade-Ajayi of the then History Department of the University of Ibadan stated that he felt more history in Kole Omotoso’s Just Before Dawn when compared with the 13-volume history of Nigeria commissioned by the General Olusegun Obasanjo government and edited by Prof Tekena Tamuno. It’s understandable that Prof Tamuno was not amused at all that his colleague, Prof Ade-Ajayi, had a greater feel of history in the admixture of fact and fiction called faction than in a proper book of History with a capital “H”.
Back in 2018, Kole Omotoso reflected on 30 years of Just Before Dawn thus: “Why faction? This has been one of the many questions about the book. In continuous discussions about the idea of the book with the late Dele Giwa I came to the conclusion that the overall effect would be worth achieving through a style far from the so-called objective historical narrative. Dele Giwa made the case for prose style that affected the reader internally. This should not be a history book. It should be a historic book. I had hoped that he would live to approve of it. What about a sequel? I did attempt a sequel entitled DAYBREAK! The dark clouds had gone and all Nigerians woke up to go to work: the weaver went to his or her weaving machine. The clerk bathes and takes his biro pen and paper and on to the office. The doctor takes his bag and bedside manners and off to the hospital she goes. And so on. But I have no idea where that manuscript is. It is obvious that a sequel in the same manner of detailed narrative of wrong decisions and wrong options although aplenty would be boring to write. It would also be difficult to read. Once, in this case, is enough. How things changed for the better would have been the natural sequel to the book. And since nothing has changed for the better there is no sequel to write. Or is there?”
Kole Omotoso eventually left Nigeria following the ruckus elicited by Just Before Dawn. He briefly got himself in theatrical undertakings at Talawa Theatre Company in London. He wrote articles and reviews for West Africa magazine as demanded by the London-based magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Kaye Whiteman who was his friend.
He served as a visiting professor at the University of Stirling and was also a visiting professor at National University of Lesotho.
Kole Omotoso was professor of English at the University of Western Cape, South Africa from 1991 to 2000. He served as a professor in the Drama Department of Stellenbosch University from 2001 to 2003. He did a stint with Elizade University upon his return to Nigeria.
He was an advisor to the Big Brother Africa television show which put him in some conflict with his guru Prof Wole Soyinka. He was the patron of the Etisalat Prize for Literature from 2013 to 2016. A prominent public intellectual, he wrote the weekly column “Trouble Travels” for The Guardian on Sunday.
Kole Omotoso shook up South Africa when he started appearing all over the media as the face of the leading telecommunications giant Vodacom. He got splashed all over the television and on billboards as the “Yebo Gogo Man”.
It’s remarkable that when Kole Omotoso met Nelson Mandela, the legend described the Nigerian as “the most photographed man in South Africa.” It takes more than magic to rival the great Mandela for popularity! Incidentally, Kole Omotoso acted the role of Govan Mbeki, Mandela’s fellow prisoner on Robben Island, in the television film Mandela and de Klerk.
Even with all the fame and fortune, Kole Omotoso still retained his personable mien anytime one ran into him in the Lagos home of his bosom friend, the poet Odia Ofeimun, author of The Poet Lied. Having known him from his Great Ife Marxist days as a “ragged-trousered philanthropist” – apologies to the title of the proletarian novel of Robert Tressel – I cannot but celebrate my teacher’s revelation that if a play was being staged in London and he felt like going to watch it, he would just hop into a plane in South Africa, land in London, watch the play, and fly back to South Africa!
A noteworthy fact about Kole Omotoso is that he lived to the old age of 80 after being a sickly child who was nicknamed “Mosquito” by his naughty schoolmates. In fact, some of us in the department at Great Ife called him “Agama Lizard” – behind his back!
He was the father of three children from his first marriage – Akin the influential filmmaker, Pelayo the engineer, and Yewande the novelist and architect who designed his father’s house in the Akure bush.
Kole Omotoso later got married to Bukky after the death of Marguerita, and the marriage is blessed with the children Taiwo and Olamiposi. The renowned author is also survived by his grandchildren Alula, Itai, Paida, Kehinde and Taiye.
Novelist, playwright, scholar, critic, public intellectual, raconteur, actor, loner, teacher, multidimensional author, Kole Omotoso deserves celebration because the writer never dies.