Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka Returns

By FRANK AIGBOGUN

.c The Associated Press

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) -- Nobel Prize-winning author Wole Soyinka returned to
Nigeria on Wednesday, four years after one of the most outspoken critics of
the military government fled his homeland.

Hundreds of singing supporters greeted Soyinka, who said he was home on a
short visit.

``Welcome our king, we have been waiting for you,'' the crowd of about 500
people sang in Yoruba, one of Nigeria's main languages, as they pressed toward
him.

Soyinka appeared to try to speak to the crowd, but the noise and tumult made
that impossible and he was quickly escorted to a waiting car.

He met briefly with the family of Moshood Abiola, the millionaire-turned-
opposition leader who died in custody in July.

With reporters and photographers jammed into the Abiola living room with him,
Soyinka told family members that they ``are a source of inspiration to
Nigerians.''

``Looking at faces of people, one gets the feeling there's a lot of work to be
done,'' he said afterward.

Fearing arrest by the regime of the late dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, Soyinka
fled Nigeria four years ago -- apparently by slipping across the border into
neighboring Benin after his passport had been seized. Later, he helped set up
the National Liberation Council of Nigeria, which lobbied to bring an end to
the Abacha regime.

The writer's outspoken criticism of the junta from inside Nigeria and later
from abroad has made him an important opposition symbol to many Nigerians.
Although he remains best known among intellectuals and political class, his
return was warmly welcomed by ordinary Nigerians.

``Now he has come,'' said Etuk Ekpeyong, a Lagos gardener. ``He is welcome
home.''

Soyinka recently met in New York with Nigeria's new military ruler, Gen.
Abdulsalami Abubakar, who urged him to return home.

The new junta recently dropped treason charges against Soyinka -- charges
filed during Abacha's rule that were believed to have been trumped up in an
attempt to silence Soyinka, a vocal critic of the Nigerian junta.

At Abubakar's urging, several exiles have returned to Nigeria in recent
months. The general, who took office after Abacha died in June, pledges to
return Nigeria to democracy and has freed many political prisoners.

Soyinka, who teaches at Emory University in Atlanta, won the Nobel Prize for
literature in 1986, the first African to win the award. He fled Nigeria in
1994 after learning that military authorities were going to arrest him for
criticizing the government.

Nigeria has been ruled by military governments for all but 10 years since
gaining independence from Britain in 1960.

AP-NY-10-14-98 1909EDT


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