The author beat over 600 applicants to win the 2021/2022 Nine Dots Prize, $100,000, and a juicy book deal through her “Soro Soke” book.
European author Trish Lorenz has claimed naming rights for “Soro-Soke”, a term that gained popularity during the 2020 #EndSARS protests against decades of police brutality in Nigeria.
Documenting the struggles of young Africans in her new book titled Soro-Soke, Ms Lorenzo claimed the outspokenness and brazenness Nigerian youths displayed in the nationwide #EndSARS protests, prompted her to name them the “Soro-Soke generation”.
Soro-Soke is Yoruba parlance for ‘speak up’.
“This cohort exhibits a confident outspokenness and a tendency for creative disruption, leading me to name them the “Soro-soke” generation (Soro Soke means ‘speak out’ in the Yoruba language),” reads a page in Ms Lorenz’s book.
The claim to naming rights has provoked the furore of Nigerians who believe the youths coined the name themselves and the European author who has no knowledge of the Yoruba language, could not have named a struggle she did not experience.
Checks by Peoples Gazette showed “Soro-Soke” had long been in use even before the #EndSARS protest in October 2020.
For instance, @__Shola had tweeted “Soro soke werey” in reply to Manchester United after they drew a match with Old Southampton in July 2020.
An African website, DNB traced the origin of Soro-Soke to October 2020 when an angry youth screamed “Soro-Soke werey” at Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who was addressing protesters in an inaudible voice. The Gazette cannot independently verify the claim.
In an effort to douse tension during the early days of the protests, the Lagos governor while addressing protesters spoke in a low voice that caused an angry youth to scream “Soro soke werey” which means “Speak up, mad man”. The words were then echoed by other protesters who jeered at the governor and it was adopted as the slogan for the #EndSARS movement.
Nigerian youths adopted Soro-Soke as a figurative term to tell government leaders to stop maintaining neutrality in the protests and choose a side. They were either in support or against the #EndSARS protesters.
Ms Lorenz applauded the audacity of Nigerian youths in her Soro-Soke book, describing them as the young disruptors of an African megacity. However, many citizens are angry she claimed naming rights to the local parlance.
Beating over 600 applicants from all over the world, Ms Lorenz won the 2021/2022 Nine Dots Prize, receiving a whopping $100,000 and a juicy book deal with Cambridge University Press through the “Soro Soke” book.
The book was a response to the question “What does it mean to be young in an ageing world?” posed by the organisers of Nine Dots Prize.
Miss Lorenz has locked her Twitter reply section after Nigerians besieged her handle to air their grievances.
“Dear TRISH LORENZ, You named the soro soke right? Yet you never Twitted about the soro soke movement coined by the youth of Nigeria and about the Endsars movement…..yet you have the audacity to claim originality of that word
@GayleZoie tweeted that “Soro soke” was coined for a struggle, a struggle that cost lives, a struggle which is the collective reality of Nigerian youths. What were you thinking? When will y’all stop profiting from African struggles?”
“Absolute no!!!!! Soro soke was already a thing on the streets for the youths. People did not die, get shot, some lost hands and limbs, some are still in exile and cannot return home for her to say she named it soro soke. Did she ever tweet about ENDSARS??” @Donslique1 wrote.
For @TobiOlorun, “This nunce(sic) is making profit over people’s reality, and someone person under this thread are supporting her. Why didn’t she make a book about BLM??? She have the audacity to say she named us ‘Soro Soke’”
Another user, @ikeikedum, wrote: “Nigerians, instead of getting angry in Twitter, just head to Amazon and other bookselling apps and rate her stolen Soro soke book 1/5…Lawyers, sue her in International Courts and drain her resources…Make sure she gets nothing from the book.”
PEOPLES GAZETTE
