There were reports across social media that Professor Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka, known as Wole Soyinka, is dead.
Crime & Court news gathered that in the early hours of today that an account supposedly belonging to Abdulrazak Gurnar, winner of the 2021 Nobel prize for literature, said Soyinka is dead.
The post read: “I got a call from Nigeria. Wole Soyinka died suddenly a few minutes ago. A terrible news.
The first red flag was the use of a countable noun article for “news” — “a… news”.
Grammatically, “news” is uncountable and a Nobel laureate would know that.
The post garnered over 150 retweets and 250 likes in a short while.
But when the family was contacted, Ilemakin, his son, laughed it off.
“The rumour has been going round since last week. Soyinka is alive when last I checked,” he said.
The account which made the post was created in August 2021 and already has 14,000 followers.
In announcing Gurnah’s Nobel prize win on Friday, BBC had tagged the fake account, but Lola Shoneyin, Nigerian author, quoted the tweet, pointing out that Gurnah is not Twitter user.
“During my short exchange with Prof Abdulrazak Gurnah a few minutes ago, he stated, I am not a Twitter user. Please take note,” the post reads.
About Wole Soyinka
Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language.
He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first sub-Saharan African to be honoured in that category. Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta.