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Authors: Wole Soyinka
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progression from the Continental Brigade that we had conjured up by the fireplace at Porchester Terrace. I sent in a letter declining my call-up. I was summoned to the recruitment office and reminded that I had taken an oath of loyalty to the queen and that my enrollment in the Officer Training Corps meant, in effect, that I had enlisted. The refusal of an order, I was quietly informed, could earn me a court-martial.
It was quite true about the oath of loyalty. There was an anteroom in which we all, new volunteers, were assembled, and from which we were summoned one by one. One officer sat behind the desk while beside him stood another, a card in his hand. That card contained the oath. The words were unambiguous . . . to be ready to serve and protect Her Majesty at all times . . . or something to that effect. I was unprepared and, frankly, shocked. I was a citizen of an upcoming nation called Nigeriaânot yet fully independent, admittedly, but my passport declared me a citizen of Nigeria, which, in turn, was defined as a British protectorate. Nigeria was a hotbed of nationalism. Herbert Macauley, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Mbonu Ojike, Bode Thomas, Obafemi Awolowo, Nwafor Orizu of âBoycott the Boycottablesâ fameâmeaning boycott all foreign productsâ these were men whose joint endeavor was the separation of Nigeria from the control of that same Majesty the Queen. How, then, was I supposed to swear an oath of loyalty to her and her dominion?
But I never thought of backing out at that point. I had come this far, I had decided on the training, and in any case, the juggernaut was rolling and I was strapped within it. To the two officers conducting the proceedings, this was purely routine. There were several more of us to put through the same ritual, and I guessed that neither was really listening to the responses we recruits were uttering. So I put on my thickest Yoruba accent, ensuring that nothing intelligible emerged from my throat. The administrator of the royal oath naturally assumed that this African could not really cope with the Queenâs Englishâthat is, if he was listening at all. As if it mattered in the slightest! My signature in the register was an affirmation of the oath I had takenâlegal and binding! Still, I clung to the crumb of consolation that the oath had not truly passed over my tongue, which, as soon as I left the induction room, I proceeded to rinse, with others, in the bar with a glass of celebratory sherryâcost threepence, subsidized mess price.
Now came payment time, premature and politically unthinkable! I packed up my supply kit, tucked it into the farthest corner of the neglected attic of my lodging in Ash Groveâwhere, for all I know, it may still be gathering dust todayâand vanished. One thing I was sure of: there was bound to be further correspondence before I was press-ganged and sent to camp, formally arrested and court-martialed, and/or deported. I sent off a letter saying that a mistake had been made. I am a citizen of Nigeria, I explained, not of Great Britain. There was silence from wherever the menace had emerged. Later on, I discovered that the deployment office may have had a legal question on its hands. If I had been a native of Lagos, it would have been a different matter. Lagos was a colony, and its citizens carried a kind of quasiâBritish citizen passport which made them colonial subjects of Britain. I, on the other hand, being from the interior, belonged to the second-class citizenship of the extended British Empire. As such I was a âprotectedâ being, not a colonial subject. It was the only time I felt grateful to be classified as a second-class citizen.
The war soon ended, mercifully, and Her Majestyâs army lost all interest in me. I would not smell any form of training until some months later, when the Soviet Union, taking advantage of the Westâs misadventure in Suez, invaded Hungary, and a volunteer student training
It was quite true about the oath of loyalty. There was an anteroom in which we all, new volunteers, were assembled, and from which we were summoned one by one. One officer sat behind the desk while beside him stood another, a card in his hand. That card contained the oath. The words were unambiguous . . . to be ready to serve and protect Her Majesty at all times . . . or something to that effect. I was unprepared and, frankly, shocked. I was a citizen of an upcoming nation called Nigeriaânot yet fully independent, admittedly, but my passport declared me a citizen of Nigeria, which, in turn, was defined as a British protectorate. Nigeria was a hotbed of nationalism. Herbert Macauley, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Mbonu Ojike, Bode Thomas, Obafemi Awolowo, Nwafor Orizu of âBoycott the Boycottablesâ fameâmeaning boycott all foreign productsâ these were men whose joint endeavor was the separation of Nigeria from the control of that same Majesty the Queen. How, then, was I supposed to swear an oath of loyalty to her and her dominion?
But I never thought of backing out at that point. I had come this far, I had decided on the training, and in any case, the juggernaut was rolling and I was strapped within it. To the two officers conducting the proceedings, this was purely routine. There were several more of us to put through the same ritual, and I guessed that neither was really listening to the responses we recruits were uttering. So I put on my thickest Yoruba accent, ensuring that nothing intelligible emerged from my throat. The administrator of the royal oath naturally assumed that this African could not really cope with the Queenâs Englishâthat is, if he was listening at all. As if it mattered in the slightest! My signature in the register was an affirmation of the oath I had takenâlegal and binding! Still, I clung to the crumb of consolation that the oath had not truly passed over my tongue, which, as soon as I left the induction room, I proceeded to rinse, with others, in the bar with a glass of celebratory sherryâcost threepence, subsidized mess price.
Now came payment time, premature and politically unthinkable! I packed up my supply kit, tucked it into the farthest corner of the neglected attic of my lodging in Ash Groveâwhere, for all I know, it may still be gathering dust todayâand vanished. One thing I was sure of: there was bound to be further correspondence before I was press-ganged and sent to camp, formally arrested and court-martialed, and/or deported. I sent off a letter saying that a mistake had been made. I am a citizen of Nigeria, I explained, not of Great Britain. There was silence from wherever the menace had emerged. Later on, I discovered that the deployment office may have had a legal question on its hands. If I had been a native of Lagos, it would have been a different matter. Lagos was a colony, and its citizens carried a kind of quasiâBritish citizen passport which made them colonial subjects of Britain. I, on the other hand, being from the interior, belonged to the second-class citizenship of the extended British Empire. As such I was a âprotectedâ being, not a colonial subject. It was the only time I felt grateful to be classified as a second-class citizen.
The war soon ended, mercifully, and Her Majestyâs army lost all interest in me. I would not smell any form of training until some months later, when the Soviet Union, taking advantage of the Westâs misadventure in Suez, invaded Hungary, and a volunteer student training
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