Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has decried the dismissal of Nigerian writer and filmmaker, Onyeka Nwelue, as an Academic Visitor at the University of Oxford and Visiting Scholar at the University of Cambridge.

Nwelue was recently stripped of his academic visitor status at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge over his alleged claim to be a professor at both varieties.

Responding to the report by Cherwell about his sack by both universities with the headline “Fake Professor dismissed from Oxford apologises for misogyny at the fraudulent book launch,” the 35-year-old Nigerian writer said he was misunderstood, adding that he had always been a ‘professor’ before he came to Oxford and Cambridge.

“I never in this world, told anyone that I was a professor at Oxford and Cambridge. I was a ‘Professor’ before I came to Oxford.On my social media bio, where I wrote: “Professor + Academic Visitor at the University of Oxford and Cambridge,” he said.

Reacting to the development, Soyinka called for restraint in the response to Nwelue’s travails, adding that if Nwelue was shocked, he felt both shocked and appalled.

Soyinka in a statement titled ‘Beyond Nwelue: An enabling environment’ stated that he feels compelled to intervene without further delay in this affair, having come across the following in Onyeka Nwelue’s efforts to “set the record straight” over his entanglement with the British university establishment.

“Nwelue revealed in his response, The first message I received, when the article was published, was from my Canadian publisher…. telling me, they will remove my book, The Strangers of Braamfontein from their list. It shocked me, honestly….

“The South African publisher, who was supposed to publish The Strangers of Braamfontein since 2021, will no longer publish it. They have not communicated with me, but they have informed those who pre-ordered the book.

“If Nwelue was shocked, I felt both shocked and appalled. This is over-reaction in the sententious mode, a dangerous, extra-curricular response. The charges against this author do not involve plagiarism or other literary offence, norany crime against humanity.

"Would his film documentaries – including his prize-winning latest be up next for the Censorship Index? Do we proceed to burn copies of that sociological expose and raunchy read – The Strangers of Braamfontein – already in our possession?”he added.

Speaking further, the Nobel Laureate noted that at the risk of this being interpreted as an attempt to lure attention away from, or diffuse culpability into a loose perspective, “it is essential – and this is addressed largely to his society (and mine) – to emphasize that, beyond Nwelue, that very society is indicted and summoned to some intense soul-searching, involving remedial action.”

According to him, “public figures are often the creations of that promiscuous facility known as Internet or Social Media, and unfortunately, some such figures of marketable interest fail to exercise caution, refuse to apply the brake on the media runaway vehicle on which they are launched.

“It is rather ironic, but while Nwelue permitted himself to “go for the ride”, so to speak, he appeared to have been more concerned for others –certainly for this “Prof”!

“He recalled how not so long ago, he drew the attention of a young colleague to the fact that he was being falsely addressed as “Sir”, and needed to put a stop to it. “For a while, he shrugged it off as inconsequential, but eventually took action.

“Yet the media persisted in investing him with this spurious knighthood. Discreetly, I pressured Mediaville to spare us the impending day of national embarrassment. It took some doing, but it stopped.

“That potential capture of the titular craze owes me. Going by the recent expulsion of Prince Harry and his princess from their accustomed lodgings after their rupture with the monarchy, that artiste friend would have received an even shorter shrift from the elite Order of Knights Distempered.

“More airing is required on the media trade in personality conscription – be it for negative or positive packaging. That goes also for exposed individuals who get sucked in – through unawareness, nonchalance, or gradations of collaborative conduct.

“Among Nwelue’s intimate associates, unfortunately, are some dubious hangers-on who exploit his own susceptibility and frail health to nurse their hunger for notoriety. The ultimate responsibility ishowever his, and he has emerged upfront to accept this in a letter of apology.

“Now it is the turn of the enabling environment to also take stock and clean up its act. ‘Casting the first stone’ is easy enough; ensuring that the baby is not thrown out with the bathwater is the harder and far more productive responsibility. The literary world can do with more babies from the bassinet of The Strangers of Braamfontein!”(New Telegraph)

•Prof Wole Soyinka