Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has spoken about his role in sustaining Radio Kudirat, the clandestine station that broadcast into Nigeria during General Sani Abacha’s military rule. In a new piece for The Economist’s Analysing Africa newsletter, Africa correspondent Ore Ogunbiyi recounts meeting Soyinka at his home in Abeokuta—the same house that soldiers once raided while searching for a radio transmitter they never found. Soyinka used his international connections to help fund the station and keep members of its team safe.
Radio Kudirat was established in exile after the annulment of Nigeria’s 1993 presidential election and the subsequent rise of Abacha’s dictatorship. Named after Kudirat Abiola, the wife of imprisoned businessman and presumed election winner MKO Abiola who was assassinated, the station operated for three years, broadcasting for an hour each evening in multiple languages. Its journalists, engineers and producers worked from London, using the station to challenge government propaganda, expose alleged military assassination plots and keep opposition voices alive while the regime placed a $5 million bounty on those behind it.
More than three decades after Radio Kudirat’s first broadcast, Ogunbiyi reflects on its legacy as Nigeria approaches another election cycle, noting that many of the democratic freedoms its activists fought for remain fragile. The piece also carries a personal connection for Ogunbiyi, whose father was once taught by Soyinka and whose birth date nearly earned her the name “Junta” from the writer. Follow the attached link to read the full piece in The Economist.
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