Thomas Mofolo’s Chaka seems to have set a literary trail in Africa, and Shaka has been the subject of many plays and poems. Shaka, the Zulu king, “is seen primarily as a romantic figure in Francophone Africa, as a military figure in Southern Africa. ul Moreover, “the extensive Shaka literature in Africa illustrates the desire of African writers to seek in Africa’s past a source that will be relevant to contemporary realities “2 Shaka was a great military leader who restored dignity to his people, the sort of leadership needed in the liberation struggle in Southern Africa. Chaka is political, and “can be considered an extended praise song singing the deeds of this heroic Zulu leader; it can be regarded as an African epic celebrating the founding of an empire. u3 It is ironic that Wole Soyinka’ s Ogun Abibi.man appeared the same year, 1976, that Donald Burness published his book on Shaka in African literature, writing that “Although Shaka is alluded to, for instance , in Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forest~ the Zulu king appears very seldom in Nigerian literature. ”

Soyinka’s Ogun Abibiman relies on Mofolo’s Chaka and its military tradition together with the 0gun myth in the exhortation of black people fighting for freedom and human rights in Southern Africa. Ogun is a war-god, and the bringing together of Ogun and Shaka is necessary to fuse the best in Africa’s military experience. Though the two have records of wanton killings at one time in their military careers, they, nevertheless, are mythically and historically, perhaps, the greatest warlords in Africa.

Ogun Abibiman is an occasional poem, inspired by a particular happening: Samora Machel’ s placing Mozambique in a state of war against then minority-ruled Rhodesia, an act Soyinka describes in the preface as ·”the primary detonation of a people’s collective will,” the catalyst for the eventual liberation of Zimbabwe and a giant stride towards the bigger task of destroying the bastion of apartheid in South Africa . The ~ is highly political. Ogun Abibiman is a synthesis of Idanre and A Shuttle in the Crypt in that it combines the subjects of Ogun and violence in Idanre with the politics of victimization dealt with in A Shuttle in the Crypt . The poet has compassion for victims of minority rule and apartheid, hence he exhorts ·war and celebrates the newly acquired will. The inspiration, subject, tradition, and purpose of Ogun Abibim~n effect a positive voice of celebration. ~7ar among the Yoruba and Zulu people is a heroic act, more so, if to asser

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