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Tag: Wole Soyinka

  • Comrade and his women

    Comrade and his women


    [dropcap]W[/dropcap]e arrived Abeokuta in the first ink of dusk, at about 5:00pm. We were visiting the city’s most iconic figure, the white-haired, white-bearded, tall, grand fellow of many battles and accolades.

    Before we made the turn to the bush, a sign was unmistakable. Louis Odion, the writer in resting, who sat beside me in the car, read the sign. Roared Louis in a guttural register: “Any trespasser will be shot and eaten.”

    The imprimatur of the poet. All around were trees. We drove on, and a sense of rural splendour fell over me. The serenity of trees. Birds. Leaves in lush colour. Earth Edenic. Modernity alienated. A shadow cast not by twilight but by the peculiar colouring of a forest. It was as though I was on my way to my mother’s home village in Delta State.

    In a few moments, we saw what looked like a clearing. Looking farther, a big house, unpainted but tasteful, with a grandeur one would describe as quaint. Nothing ornate. Not the windows, not the stairwell. It was a house sitting in arboreal paradise.

    The vehicles parked, and in a few moments, the guest of honour, the sprightly Governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomhole  and his elegant wife, Lara, materialised from a vehicle. We moved in and waiting was chief host, playwright, poet, writer extraordinaire Wole Soyinka. It was billed as a lunch but the vagaries of technology associated with his flight arrangement turned it into a dinner. Former governors, Babatunde Raji Fashola and Rotimi Amaechi, had visited earlier in the day.

    As we sat, I delved into wordplay and described the setting as “Adamic.” The Edo Governor appreciated it and turned to his wife and they exchanged a joke about the Garden of Eden, and the wife quipped that if the Governor was the Adam, then she would be the Eve. At that moment I started to contemplate Adams, just as W.S. served wine and later asked us to the dinner table with his wife Folake.

    I thought here was Adams, and the story of the man in the past few months revolved around women. The first was his wedding. He, a Nigerian, above 60, and the bride young and from Cape Verde. The news generated quite an attention.

    Those who attacked, especially young men, were probably envious it was not them. Those women who condemned the bride, mostly girls, were also envious she was not them. I wonder what W.S. thought about the couple during the bonhomie of conversation over wine and food.

    He, too, wedded Folake, but to less flurry of envious rage, maybe because we did not have Internet or Facebook then. But essentially he was a prophet of his own nuptials with his play, The Lion and the Jewel. I told myself, we had two lions and two jewels at the table.

    Nothing about this irony propped up in the conversation, and so I reined in my mischief. I took my time to watch, speak with and listen to a man I had admired all my life. That was enough peace for me eating his jolof rice, fried plantain and fish with the lubricating grace of red wine.

    But what I also thought of were Oshiomhole’s other women. The one was former so-called coordinating minister of the economy, Okonjo-Iweala and, of course, the big-eyed oil minister Diezani Alison-Madueke. When the Edo Governor started lashing out at the other women, attention swiftly turned from his beauty parlour to the beasts of the economy.

    Adams had noted how the so-called World Bank, Harvard and all the phony accolades of western brilliance of the finance minister gave us nothing but poverty. Ngozi was a failure. She was a disaster. When the Edo governor reeled out her financial iniquities, I felt especially vindicated.

    Very early I was not moved by her resume. She was not trained for the Nigerian economy, just like her bow-tie colleague now roosting like hens in another African agricultural employment. She was trained about the dependency of African economies.

    I know because I attended quite a few of them and I inoculated myself against their paradigms. She did not and that explains why she met a buoyant purse and left a leaky one.

    Then he visited the United States with President Muhammadu Buhari, and when he returned he unleashed a bombshell. One minister stole as much as six billion dollars from our purse.

    How much is that in naira? In my own calculation, it is at least N1.2 trillion. That money will pay all the salaries owed the state workers, build quite a respectable cancer centre in the country. He would not say who the minister is out of decency. But we cannot but know that the finger pointed at the oil minister. She was the only one who could have had that kind of access.

    The American officials cannot say such a grave thing without evidence. Diezani was the worst of the Jonathan era. She was a disgrace of a minister just as Jonathan was a scandal of a president.

    We raked in the most money in that era, we are broke today because of them. Adams had to come out with the facts because he, too, was outraged. It was Adams the activist, the fulminating labour leader that squared off against Iweala and Madueke.

    Was it not in the same era we had other women, like Mama Peace, and Stella Oduah. Mama peace, the first lady, with whom many Nigerians lost patience, spoke as though the nation was a Mammy Market and all Nigerians were subaltern, backwater denizens without culture.

    The evening eventually came to an end after close to four hours of exchange of jokes, ideas, etc. I could not but also note the sheer number of carved masterpieces in W.S. home. I called back his recollections of his search for an African artifact to as far away as Brazil. He wonderfully delineated the adventure in his memoirs, You Must Set Forth At Dawn.

    We left into the bush again, and then back into the urban jungle. But it was a gradual descent into modernity. We saw buildings here and there  interspersed with bushes until it was bricks and tars and cars.

  • NNPC should be replaced – El-Rufai

    NNPC should be replaced – El-Rufai

    • Full text of Malam Nasir El-Rufai, Governor of Kaduna State at the 2015 Wole Soyinka Centre Annual Media Lecture, delivered on 13 July 2015.

     

    There is every danger that addressing a topic like this might yield another exercise in vain lamentation when what our country needs to do is take and give effect to rational decisions about the oil sector. For instance, the discourse around the resource curse has had a deep resonance for many Nigerians because it vividly sums up the paradox between the huge earnings from oil and the reality of poverty and underdevelopment for most Nigerians.

    Thus we have jobless growth, a fact that statistics touting high GDP growth rates tend to obscure but which is painfully real for many people. And we continue to suffer the consequences of our affliction with the Dutch disease. The easy money from oil has led to the neglect of other endowments, most especially agriculture.

    Yet talk we must when a problem persists in the embarrassing dimensions that Nigeria’s oil debacle represents, in the hope that we can deepen understanding about the precise nature of the problem, and build national consensus about the possible solutions.

    Even the crafters of the topic of this lecture imply that something is rotten in the governance and outcomes of Nigeria’s oil industry. Yet they helpfully infuse an air of optimism by not describing it as oil misfortune.

    Thus I approach this assignment not as an fortune-teller, but as a Nigerian who has had the duty and the interest to pay more attention to this issue than most of my compatriots. During the Obasanjo years, I had the responsibility to constitute Oil and Gas Implementation Committee that led to the drafting of the original Petroleum Industry Bill as an instrument for reforming the oil sector.

    Eight years after the exit of that government, the PIB has not become law, mainly through the wilful neglect of the successor governments that prioritized their personalized stranglehold on the sector’s revenues above its reform and efficient performance for national benefit.

    We now have another chance to anchor our oil sector reform agenda on the current and projected realities in that sector. And we must do that in the knowledge that the world is not waiting for us, that while we dallied new suppliers have come in to the global oil business and buyers have more choice.

    Some of our traditional customers have become self-sufficient, while others have developed alternatives thus reducing their reliance on our ‘light, sweet crude oil’.

    Is there an oil fortune?

    In fiscal terms, the answer is a massive yes. That the revenues have de-clined, or not been used to build human capital or enduring physical infra-structure is another matter. Nigeria’s oil reserves relative to our population is puny by comparison to the Gulf states. But you only need to imagine what national budgets would look like without the oil receipts to appreciate the fact that some oil is better than no oil.

    And we are not talking peanuts here. Despite a 60% fall in oil price between June 2014 and the end of that year, Nigeria still earned USD 77 billion from oil exports in 2014. The Punch newspaper of 2 April 2015, quoting figures from the United States Department of Energy, placed oil export earnings for the year 2011 at USD 99 billion. Indeed in the five Jonathanian years, Nigeria earned nearly USD 500 billion from crude oil and gas sales.

    The 2014 earnings of $77 billion is rather small compared to the $246 billion that Saudi Arabia made, but it cannot be sniffed at. So there are oil fortunes and there are oil fortunes. What we need to interrogate is how responsibly we have managed that fortune, how diligently we have tried to expand and sustain it and whether having that national fortune has impacted significantly on the fortune of the average Nigerian.

    About 40% of Nigerians are estimated to be very poor. That is about 70 million living people living below the poverty line in a country that has earned at least 1trillion in current dollars from oil in 50 years. For our vast masses, oil is no fortune.

    It is more of a mirage, but a more insidious kind, because the fortune is visible in the lifestyles of a few thousands of the privileged elite but is stubbornly inaccessible to tens of millions of ordinary people. Our rich enjoy the lifestyles of the richest in the world, while our poor are truly the wretched of the earth. This inequality is most unfortunate.

    That wide gulf in living standards is clearly problematic. It is, in my view, a major responsibility of a democratic government to strive to move more people away from the attrition that extreme poverty inflicts. This is not attained by wishful thinking, or by merely affirming the intent. It is about managing our resources in a way that sustainably builds our people, diligently collecting revenues and applying them in a determinedly cost-effective and result-oriented manner.

    The best fortune a country can have is its people. But like many gems, they have to be polished and nurtured for their talents to glow. Spending efficiency and effectiveness is best reflected in outcomes such as more educated and healthy people, living longer lives productively and happily.

    That, for me, is the major reason we must seek to enhance and responsibly manage Nigeria’s oil fortune. It must become the people’s fortune.

    Sketching the Oil Industry

    Let us examine some statistics to give us a picture of the oil industry in Nigeria. In 2014, Nigeria was producing on the average about 2.2 million barrels of crude oil per day, while importing most of its daily consumption of 43.5 million litres of refined petroleum products.

    That reliance on imports of refined products has seen unsustainable expenses on questionable subsidy payments, exemplified by USD 8.99 billion in the 18 months between January 2012 and June 2013.

    About N971 billion was budgeted for subsidy payments in 2014 alone (more than twice that was eventually paid). You all recall how trillions of Naira were paid out as oil subsidy in 2011, when only N254 billion was appropriated

    No one has been successfully prosecuted for this scam. Huge deficits in gas supply have ensured that the country’s thermal plants cannot produce power at optimal levels. In the eight years leading up to 2014, joint venture production declined by 50.4%. Some 100,000 barrels per day, about five percent of total production, is estimated to be lost to organized theft.

    And we all dread the ease and rapidity with which supply shortages lead to endless queues, widespread panic and mortal consequences for the many victims of tanker accidents.

    The long and short of the situation of our oil industry is best exemplified by the parallel government called the NNPC. In 2012, it sold N2.77 trillion of ‘domestic’ crude oil but paid only N1.66 trillion to the Federation Account.

    In 2013, it earned N2.66 trillion but paid N1.56 trillion to FAAC, in 2014 N2.64 trillion but remitted N1.44 trillion, while between January and May 2015, it earned N733.36 billion and remitted only N473.2 billion!

    That means that the NNPC only remitted about 58% of the monies earned between 2012 and the first half of 2015. A company with the audacity to retain 42% of a country’s money has become a veritable parallel republic!

    The NNPC feels entitled to consume more resources than the 36 states, the FCT and the Federal Government combined! The example just given is only with respect to domestic crude oil sales. Similar leakages exist in NPDC, NAPIMS procurement and subsidiary budgets.

    How could a country so dependent on oil revenues have been so lax about the proper governance, efficiency and security of its oil industry?

    How can a mono-product economy be so relaxed that it takes up to 24 months or more to make decisions on vital oil industry projects? Why is it that in this most crucial of sectors it has been possible for briefcase companies to walk away with big assets, billion naira subsidy payments and ‘local content’ contracts?

    Can an oil industry with virtually no serious barriers to entry yield fortunes beyond a narrow circle? For so great are the miracles that oil has performed in the lives of a few, there is not much left for the many.

    Having strayed into lamentation in describing the Nigerian oil industry, let me quickly return to trying to draw lessons and to suggest ways by which we may successfully navigate a different track. We can agree that what passes for the oil industry is a mismanaged, costly, corrupt and grossly inefficient operation. These negatives are not the way to grow or retain fortune.

    So what should we consider doing?

    Let us first learn the appropriate lessons. We are neither immune from the laws of economics nor from the consequences of sheer folly.

    Now that more countries are producing and selling oil and gas, we can safely assume that barring a new phase of explosive global economic growth, oil will remain relatively cheap at the $50-$60 per barrel range, for the foreseeable future. What do we intend to do with these diminished earnings?

    If we persist in indulging our appetite to consume rather than save, import rather than produce domestically, or neglect to prioritize capital investments, we will simply sink deeper into poverty. We must resolve to spend wiser, and do more with less.

    Our general national orientation has been impacted for worse due to our attitude to the oil cash cow. Let us firmly resolve that growing our people’s potentials will be a primary goal, and that in the pursuit of that aim, we shall commit to an efficiently and transparently managed oil industry.

    We can demonstrate this new purpose by slaying three huge dragons:

    1) A fixation with public ownership and control of every major oil asset

    2) the corruption and distortion that oil subsidy is inflicting on our economy, and

    3) the NNPC in its current form is in our collective national interest.

    End the fixation with public ownership: You will recall the outcry when the Obasanjo government sold two of our refineries shortly before it left office in 2007. The successor-government reversed the sale.

    Eight years and millions of dollars in turn-around maintenance later, the refineries are at best a minor component of our supply sources for refined products while remaining a suction pump of our resources.

    One of the men whose purchase of the refineries was aborted is now building his own, and it can be expected to be more modern, far more efficient and more productive than the public facility we turned into an object of baseless veneration. Let us be realistic enough to choose the most pragmatic options when we confront national problems.

    We should incentivize competent investors to acquire majority shares and management control in all our refineries and sell to them crude oil at market prices, and remit the proceeds directly into the Federation Account!

    Tackle the corruption and distortion in subsidy regime: I daresay that the oil subsidy regime has neither grown our people nor guaranteed stability of refined product supplies. What subsidy has achieved is create a huge hole in the budget and a new array of overnight billionaires.

    The downstream oil business in Nigeria has morphed into one optimised for the pursuit of subsidy payments. We see thinly-disguised periodic hostage-taking as the subsidy barons seek to pry open government coffers. It is time to tackle the corruption in the subsidy regime.

    We can discuss how the resulting subsidy savings will be spent to improve lives, while guaranteeing stability of supply to the domestic market.

    We have a president with both the integrity to responsibly manage the savings and the experience of managing special interventions based on subsidy savings.

    Let us say bye to foreign exchange drains, opaque crude swaps, offshore processing agreements and other devices that have derailed and distorted the subsidy regime, to our national detriment.

    Reverse missed opportunities: I have already highlighted the fact that our country has neither saved nor wisely invested oil proceeds from the five oil booms that my sister Oby Ezekwesili identified.

    I may only add that the oil industry itself is a victim of this lack of proper investment. We have been as unable to utilize what it yields us as we are remiss about expanding what it can yield us, by prudent and focused re-investment.

    Nigeria’s oil reserves are not growing at a fast enough pace. The gas potential is still largely that, an untapped potential amidst pressing needs. Since Bonny LNG we have not been able to complete and commission any other – Brass and Olokola LNG projects remain on the drawing board. The implementation of the national gas masterplan has stalled since 2009.

    And so there is simply not enough natural gas collected and dried to feed our power turbines, industries and households. There has to be a commitment to sustained investments to stimulate a proper gas sector.

    The multiplier effects of this will be immense, from contributions to improving the country’s power capacity, fuel homes and industries, create jobs and improve export earnings. We must be ambitious about what we can achieve here.

    We similarly need to encourage more local refining, and not just to assure stability in the supply of refined products for the domestic market but to cut costs and save jobs.

    We also have untapped potentials in petrochemicals, which can help fast-track domestic industrial activity and improve export earnings.

    In short, we must take steps to reposition our oil and gas sector as one that is properly integrated into the national economy, helping to create jobs, raise skills level, drive industrialization and earn more from exports.

    The rents therefrom can then be applied towards investments in human capital, physical infrastructure and economic diversification.

    How do we attain this wish list?

    We need a mix of fresh strategic thinking and a firm commitment to reform. We need to define exactly what we want the oil industry to be and to achieve, and then define the structure that can best deliver it. An efficient and productive oil sector, able to create jobs, spur industrialization and earn more revenues requires that we tackle the monster that the NNPC has become.

    This country can no longer afford to maintain an NNPC that arrogantly, unlawfully and unconstitutionally spends an unhealthy proportion of national oil earnings on itself.

    We should replace the NNPC with brand new organizations that are fit for purpose: – among others – a commercialized and corporatized national oil company and new industry regulators.

    This new national oil company should be capitalized once and for all, and then freed to fend for itself like other national oil companies do, seeking its financing independently from the financial markets and paying due taxes and royalties.

    The corruption and nonchalance that have hobbled the NNPC are symptoms that its best days are over. We should give it a deserved funeral so that a new institution, active and nimble, can promptly replace it.

    NNPC’s subsidiaries and associated companies can be reviewed, restructured and privatized or commercialized as appropriate consistent with national interest and objectives.

    The government should review the Joint Venture strategy, with the governing principle being to shift the financing and operational risks to the markets and operators respectively.

    Government should avoid owing the oil companies, and should more proactively review the terms and implementation of the Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) and concentrate on collecting the royalties and taxes due to it.

    No one is better qualified to do this than the person that birthed the NNPC through the merger of the NNOC and the Ministry of Petroleum in 1977 – President Buhari himself.

    No one can appreciate the gap between the vision of NNPC’s founding fathers, the beautiful baby of 1977 and the 38 year-old monster it has become better than President Buhari.

    The NNPC of today must make Chief Sunday Awoniyi of blessed memory squirm in his grave. Something fundamentally decisive must be done to tame this monster.

    We must have the political will to make all oil industry transactions transparent. There should be clear rules and processes for licensing, concessioning, procurement and contracting. Opaque systems tend to be corrupt, and it is time to shine the light.

    The president has already taken the commendable step of directing that all revenues be remitted either to the Federation Account or the consolidated revenue fund as required by sections 80 and 162 of the Constitution.

    President Buhari is therefore clear that oil industry revenues will no longer be treated as some slush fund of the federal government.

    It is the national consensus that we arrive at regarding the oil sector that we can finally codify in a new petroleum act, which should be a simply worded, concise piece of legislation that spells out the general governing principles for the industry. Specific matters can then be based on subsidiary legislation, regulations and agreements. Complex and densely worded laws conduce to opacity and should therefore be avoided.

    I am by no means underestimating the titanic struggles that might be necessary to change the Nigerian oil industry. The vested interests will be all out to thwart change and uphold the status quo. The media and civil society organizations (CSOs) have the major role of pushing for transparent disclosures and adherence to due process.

    No other institutions have the power of CSOs and media to advocate, educate and enlighten the public to support and demand the most pragmatic, rational and effective measures that can make Nigeria’s oil fortune become the people’s fortune. The media in particular must lead from the front in this effort.

    To be in a position to accurately educate, the media must itself be knowl-edgeable about the issues. Apart from the obvious advantages of having specialists leading the reporting of certain industries, the media performs an immense service when it affords the public the resources to partake in informed debate.

    And the media must enhance its capacity for follow-up, to focus on an issue long enough to report its resolution. It must use the Freedom of Information Act maximally to ensure that wrong-doing and impropriety are not protected by official secrecy. If we successfully remake the oil industry, we would have significantly remade our country.

    And our poverty stricken majority will be the better for it. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the burden of responsibility placed on us as leaders in our various spheres of influence.

    Thank you for listening. God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

  • It’s no season of anomie

    It’s no season of anomie

    With the theme freedom and the word, renowned literary eggheads gathered in Lagos recently to discuss Wole Soyinka at 80 and Freedom and Nation Building. It was part of activities for this year’s edition of the Lagos Book and Art Festival as put together by the Committee for Relevent Art. Edozie Udeze reports

    The essence of every coloquium is to highlight a theme and bring it into life in the consciousness of the public. This was what the erudile professors and literary eggheads who gathered last weekend at the Freedom Square, Lagos, were able to do to some select works of Professor Wole Soyinka. It was the occasion of the 16th edition of the Lagos Book and Art Festival (LABAF) organised by the Committee for Relevent Art (CORA)

    Even though the overall theme of the festival was Freedom and the word, the discussion around Soyinka’s works was anchored on Freedom and Nation Building, using The Man Died, Ake, Ibadan, Isara, You Must Set Forth at Dawn, Penkelemesi and so on, to get the ball rolling. Handled by Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi, the idea was to see how Soyinka has been able to use his works to set the necessary agenda for the society. In a society where many things have gone wrong, where the leadership of the country is often foolhardy, where the people themselves, even the so-called champions of the cause of the common man keep silence in time of oppression and massive corruption, what then is the role of the writer in all these? How has Soyinka used his works to tackle these issues and reached out to the people as an activist?

    Professor Biodun Jeyifo who gave the keynote address noted that the likes of Soyinka are rare in the literary firmament of the world. He drew attention to the era of King Richard II in England who was so wicked and avaricious that William Shakespeare did not spare him in some of his poems and plays. So also is Soyinka whom he said has come for his own generation and the generation to come with abundance of visionary and revoluntionary works to set the tone for possible changes.

    “To relate what Soyinka is to Nigeria is to make poignant reference to what Shakespeare did in the era of King Richard II. In a land of abundance, a place where wealth is available to make the people happy, there is plenty of poverty, sadness ad agony. In England, Richard II was besotted with expensive lifestyle like most of the Nigerian leaders of today. The leaders are obviously insensitive to the suffereings of the people. This is what we face today in Nigeria. The common understanding here today is that leadership does not care about the people, about how to use the necessary elements of governance to distribute the wealth of the land equitably.”

    In his works, Soyinka follows in the same sequence in his style of writing, attacking issues, lampooning leaders for their inability to make the country better. “So we have so many Richard II in Nigeria and this is why Soyinka has refused to relent. The two WS lived in worlds filled with inequalities and bad leadership. Now we have in addition bad leadership, total looting of what belongs to the people. This was what Shakespeare tackled in his best quintessential artistic ideas and expressions. Therefore the works of Soyinka are deeply embedded in their intents on politics. He deals with the nation and its dispossessions”.

    In Dance of the Forests, Jeyifo noted, Soyinka drew attention to the early signs of fault starts and mistakes in the nationhood. The play which was premiered in 1960 to usher in the independence of Nigeria from the shackles of the British overlords. The play is full of injustices of all kinds. “Here, truly, Soyinka talks about the dispossessed. The work is more explicit as it clamours for change, a proper stage for change.The state of the dispossessed is always clear in all his works.”

    With reference to The Man Died, Season of Anomie and more, his radical activism came fully to the fore. In his memoirs he did not even spare the enemies of the people. Using both social, political and religious undertones, Soyinka pointed out the ills. In Trials of Brother Jero and others he foresaw the revoluntionary approach of men of God towards hoodwinking the people. However, in all these, Soyinka puts himself into his works. He uses himself to projest his stories and present the ideas before him. “This was why he deliberately broke away from the conservative forces to become a revolutionary, an activist just to face and deal with bad leaders in a society peopled by reactionary forces. When Soyinka became involved in the June 12, 1993 protests to right the wrong against M.K.O Abiola, he did so as a revolutionary, someone touched by the problems of the society. All these are what he brings to bear in all his works. Today, there is no African writer as powerful as he is in the way he implores his revoluntionary ideas to better the welfare of the people. This is why he is seen as a rampaging social crusader, who uses metaphors to externalise his ideas. He sees this as a monstrous society, with deep moral and social decadence where political forces are at work.”

    When King Henry IV became the leader of England, things became better, the English people smiled and the economy became more bouyant. Jeyifo infers that this is what Soinka wishes to happen in Nigeria. “When you compare the two leaders in England and then come home to see the irony of leadership in Nigeria, you then see why as a writer, Soyinka wants this era of eldorado to come now. He continues to search for good leaders and seek ways to actualise this in all his works. As a popular writer, the dispossessed must have a say, they should be given back what belongs to them”.

    In his own contribution, Professor Ropo Sekoni concurred with Jeyifo that Soyinka creates himself as one of the characters in most of his works. “He may not really make other protagonists in his works, but then to situate himself in them for proper effect. In his Pekelemesi years in Ibadan, Soyinka uses a character to project highly positive ideas. Even though he did not join any political party, he uses the involvement of those in them to champion his ideas for total change. Therefore in Ake, Isara, Ibadan and You Must Set Forth at Dawn, you see a revoluntionary anarchist, but with redemptive reformism”.

    Sekoni particularly made reference to the role Soyinka ascribed to women in Ake where he projects them as truly diplomatic and good leaders. He did this so well and ethusiastically, even in his story on Ogboni where he discovers that the place of women as leaders cannot be overlooked. In all, he agrees that as a writer, Soyinka is an activist with unbridled revoluntionary mind, a mind ever determined to ask for change for the good of all.

    For Profesor Mabel of the University of Abuja, Soyinka could only display his innocence as a boy child in Ake. There, he was untainted by the society and gradually he began to be involved in the affairs of the people with his works. According to her, “In Isara, he is now in the world of the grown-ups, asking for justice. You see him concerned for justice. He does not run away from fights. A vivid recount of women’s role in politics comes out clear here. The role of women in Egbaland in the choice of who leads them becomes Soyinka’s total portrayal of women.

    If the women could unseat the Egba monarch, if they could speak with one voice in such an organised manner, Soyinka is saying that women have a lot to offer to the society. “At that point, he was a young man fully prepared to ask for change in his community. This is why he was more interested in teacher-education through his own father who was equally a teacher. And so in traversing all genres of literature, you see Soyinka involved in social, political and moral issues of the people. The Pekelemesi years shows and epitomises the strength of character in him. To him, freedom becomes a symbol, Nigeria becomes an unfinished business.”

    Describing him as a moving dramatist , Mabel said, “Soyinka believes strongly that the human mind and psyche has to be free. This is why his works try to make life meaningful for the people. He is more guided by the sentiments of his time, of the people around him both now and forever,” she said.

    In his comments, Kunle Ajibade observed that Soyinka has chosen to live for humanity, for the common people, for a better society. “He is a moving tank of ideas; ideas that do not in any way go obsolete but remain relevant for all time to come. Soyinka’s life is for people to realise who they are and what must be done to have a concerted change in the society.”

    In his opening remarks, Ogunbiyi commended CORA for the outing and noted that this is the time to draw attention to serious literary issues to make the society change. “Whether it is the Port Harcourt Book fair or LABAF, we need to keep books alive in the society and in the lives of the people themselves. Biodun Jeyifo has written series of articles on the complexity of Soyinka’s works. We are today to listen to him and to learn more on the redical aspects of Soyinka, not only as a writer but as someone who brings himself into what he writes.”

    Ogunbiyi who is also a literatti reminded the gathering that Soyinka uses his deep Yoruba cultural values to shape his works, projecting the people for total effect. “Yes, indeed is a deep political activist who situates his works within the context of the people, the society, the leadership and sustains the interest of readers to follow him all through. This is why his works are of stupendous quality which often gives his literary productions some level of complexity”.

    The discussion was part of series of activitists to give vent to the freedom of the word, in honour of Wole Soyinka at 80. It was to truly see how the man as a writer has fared in his numerous works to effectively touch humanity. It showed that Soyinka even at 80 years of age has not slowed down, has not relented in his quest for an ideal society for all peoples of the world.

  • Mythic imagination and national rebirth

    Mythic imagination and national rebirth

    We have previously celebrated in this series Nigerian literary heroes such as the late Chinua Achebe, the Nobel prize winner, Wole Soyinka and other cultural vanguards, whose literary interventions constitute significant touchstones of the collective efforts at decolonisation, as well as the confrontation of our nation’s post-independence struggles. I wrote earlier that Nigeria’s political predicament was matched by several attempts at a literary depiction of our collective situation. The imperative of progress from colonial to postcolonial status was the occasion for the formation of those literary heroes and heroines whose creative energies kept the national project in constant literary ferment. While a number of options are available to these writers, their utilization of mythic resources particularly makes the effort at a literary engagement of socio-political crises very pungent. Myth occurs in the history of all human traditions and communities and it is a basic constituent of human culture. Using myth as the basis of a rethinking of collective political existence becomes a unique literary ingenuity. It is from this perspective that it can be said that Daniel Olorunfemi Fagunwa, Hubert Adedeji Ogunde and Amos Tutuola represent a unique group of mythmakers who deploy significant aspects of oral tradition not just as a flowery tribute to literary distinctiveness, but as a culminated contribution to the Nigerian literary space with both a didactic and functional signature.

    D. O. Fagunwa and Amos Tutuola are known for novels that chronicle tales of marvels and magic, while Hubert Ogunde cuts across the Nigerian cultural landscape as an actor, playwright, theatre manager and musician. In particular, encounters with the writings of Fagunwa give the impression of a writer deeply steeped in the folkloric tradition of Yoruba storytelling. Besides being a major precursor to many Nigerian writers, Fagunwa made a choice of an indigenous language as the medium for his creative outputs. This fact requires some elaboration. First, at a time the British hegemony had imposed English as the colonial language of administration in the country, it took a lot of courage for Fagunwa to insist that his works remain in Yoruba. Secondly, Fagunwa’s linguistic choice is also evocative of a cultural pride that is often missing in the modern narratives of many African countries currently being overwhelmed by the ravaging forces of globalization. Consequently, his Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmale (1938; The Forest of a Thousand Daemons), became the first full-length novel published in the Yoruba language. His second novel, Igbo Olodumare (‘The Forest of God’) was published in 1949. He also wrote Ireke Onibudo (1949; ‘The Sugarcane of the Guardian’), Irinkerindo Ninu Igbo Elegbeje (1954; ‘Wanderings in the Forest of Elegbeje’), and Adiitu Olodumare (1961; ‘The Secret of the Almighty’); a number of short stories; and two travel books. One marked distinction of Fagunwa’s works is the vividness of language usage and a picaresque which resonate with profound moral insights. Again, this last point needs a brief explanation. In an age in which government is massively recruiting different options to combat moral anarchy, a plethora of moral gems can be found in Fagunwa. It may not be far from the truth to say that Achebe’s famous ‘writer-as-teacher’ dictum was partly inspired by how his predecessor wrote to teach morals and to bring his audience to a level of moral awareness. Fagunwa’s imagery, humour, wordplay and rhetoric, which all reveal an extensive knowledge of classical Yoruba, is not just an embellishment of literary devices. They serve thematic concerns.

    Amos Tutuola’s stories equally incorporated Yoruba myths and legends into loosely constructed prose epics that improvised on traditional themes. Unlike Fagunwa, Tutuola wrote largely in English and is also a major reference point in the canons of Nigerian Literature in English. One of Tutuola’s greatest charms was his language. He wrote in a way that made his language appear uncorrupted by western literary gimmicks. The words read quickly like some terse, simple narratives, but the impact sinks almost as original and poetic. The Nigerian professor, Morala Ogundipe-Leslie noted of Tutuola’s language: ‘He has simply and boldly (or perhaps innocently) carried across into his English prose the linguistic pattern and literary habits of his Yoruba language, using English words as counters. He is basically speaking Yoruba but using English words.’

    His works articulate a unique example of a hybridized interface between Nigeria’s pre-colonial oral folklore and literary modes of discourse. The Palm-wine Drinkard (1952) is obviously his most famous literary work, a classic quest tale that was the first Nigerian book to, in a sense, achieve critical acclaims and international fame. The story tells the mythological story of a man who follows a palm wine tapster into the land of the dead or ‘Deads’ Town.’  Here, the man encounters the familiar elements subsumed in the folktale narrative: the world of magic, ghosts, demons and supernatural beings. Some of his other works include: My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1954), Simbi and the Satyr of the Dark Jungle (1955), The Brave African Huntress (1958), etc. The relevance of Tutuola seems obvious considering his important contributions to the preservation of the structure of the oral tale in modern Nigerian Literature

    Hubert Ogunde, often described as ‘the father of Nigerian theatre’, was a theatre doyen who, like Fagunwa and Tutuola, deployed the mythic imagination in the mobilization of literary works for the goals of national rebirth. The Ogunde Concert Party, a company which he founded in 1945, was Nigeria’s first professional theatrical company. It travelled around Nigeria, West Africa and the rest of the world performing plays such as Garden of Eden, Strike and Hunger, Herbert Macaulay, Slavery, Police Brutality and Princess Jaja (which celebrated the richness of the country’s indigenous cultures while also shedding light on the ills plaguing its government and society). Ogunde’s theatre ensemble was a committed one; it constituted an ample chance to contribute to pressing social issues and dialogues in the public domain. He passionately spoke of his theatre production as the mirror dictum of what literature should be all about. He once said, ‘I must reflect the image of the society we live in.’ Hence, his social vision was exposed through the opportunity theatrical performances afforded him in interaction with the public. So, for him, theatre goes beyond the sheer pleasure of the lights and costumes; it was a tool for social engineering and popular interaction. It was a medium to register, first, displeasures at certain social-political and economic realities, and to articulate solutions to them. This was the highest point of his theatre experiences. His theatre represented the participatory framework of the African theatrical tradition which allows for spontaneous and instantaneous feedbacks from the audiences.

    Why are these legendary pioneers significant for our contemporary national project? There is only one reason: they saw in the context of folklores and mythological narratives a possibility of narrating the experiences of what we used to be and what we can recreate ourselves to be. In other words, a people can only locate themselves within the context of what they are and what they believe they can ever be. Their works point to the balance and fluidity of wholeness that can arise from a dexterous combination of varying worldviews and perspectives. Their creative energies provide us with latent possibilities that remain hidden when other national resources have become exhausted. In the magical realities they presented to us, we can hear the birds sing, the roars of the waves and the lush grasses that portend that we can still dream of what we want to be as Nigerians. By looking at the past, they present us alternative imageries of what we desire to be as Nigerians.

     

  • Soyinka diagnosed of cancer

    Soyinka diagnosed of cancer

    … Nobel Laureate opens up on health status

    Renowned playwright and Nobel Laureate, Prof. Oluwole Soyinka, on Tuesday opened up on his health status, saying he was diagnosed of cancer last December.

    But an expert and Founder of African Cancer Centre, Lagos, Prof. Olu Williams, quickly assured Soyinka that he would “not die of cancer.”

    Williams, who revealed that Soyinka had the disease because of his old age, said the playwright will only “die with the ailment.”

    Soyinka, who revealed his cancer status at a press conference at the June 12 Cultural Centre, Abeokuta, Ogun State, said he had decided to open up so as to create awareness about  cancer disease and to help people take measures to prevent it or seek prompt medical attention for cure.

    The Nobel Laureate said he survived the silent killer disease because of early detection, treatment and proper dieting, adding that it has also dawned on him that the family has a history of cancer ailment.

    He noted that his initial reaction when it dawned on that he has cancer was to see it as one of those challenges and nuisance that should be dealt with, adding that a time he considered it “an unwanted squatter in his body and had to get rid of it whether it is a slow growing one or malignant.”

    Although, “Kongi”, who  showed a crest to attest to his surviving the disease, did not reveal to reporters the nature of the cancer he was treated for, his son, Dr. Olaokun Soyinka, who is also the Commissioner for Health in Ogun State, later told The Nation his father was treated for “prostate cancer.”

     

  • In Soyinka’s name, the beat goes on

    In Soyinka’s name, the beat goes on

    With the theme ‘Freedom and the Word’, renowned literary eggheads gathered in Lagos last week to discuss Wole Soyinka at 80 and Freedom and Nation Building. It was part of activities for this year’s edition of the Lagos Book and Art Festival as put together by the Committee for Relevent Art. Edozie Udeze reports

    The essence of every coloquium is to highlight a theme and bring it into life in the consciousness of the public. This was what the erudile professors and literary eggheads who gathered last weekend at the Freedom Square, Lagos, were able to do to some select works of Professor Wole Soyinka. It was the occasion of the 16th edition of the Lagos Book and Art Festival (LABAF) organised by the Committee for Relevent Art (CORA)

    Even though the overall theme of the festival was Freedom and the word, the discussion around Soyinka’s works was anchored on Freedom and Nation Building, using The Man Died, Ake, Ibadan, Isara, You Must Set Forth at Dawn, Penkelemesi and so on, to get the ball rolling. Handled by Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi, the idea was to see how Soyinka has been able to use his works to set the necessary agenda for the society. In a society where many things have gone wrong, where the leadership of the country is often foolhardy, where the people themselves, even the so-called champions of the cause of the common man keep silence in time of oppression and massive corruption, what then is the role of the writer in all these? How has Soyinka used his works to tackle these issues and reached out to the people as an activist?

    Professor Biodun Jeyifo who gave the keynote address noted that the likes of Soyinka are rare in the literary firmament of the world. He drew attention to the era of King Richard II in England who was so wicked and avaricious that William Shakespeare did not spare him in some of his poems and plays. So also is Soyinka whom he said has come for his own generation and the generation to come with abundance of visionary and revoluntionary works to set the tone for possible changes.

    “To relate what Soyinka is to Nigeria is to make poignant reference to what Shakespeare did in the era of King Richard II. In a land of abundance, a place where wealth is available to make the people happy, there is plenty of poverty, sadness ad agony. In England, Richard II was besotted with expensive lifestyle like most of the Nigerian leaders of today. The leaders are obviously insensitive to the suffereings of the people. This is what we face today in Nigeria. The common understanding here today is that leadership does not care about the people, about how to use the necessary elements of governance to distribute the wealth of the land equitably.”

    In his works, Soyinka follows in the same sequence in his style of writing, attacking issues, lampooning leaders for their inability to make the country better. “So we have so many Richard II in Nigeria and this is why Soyinka has refused to relent. The two WS lived in worlds filled with inequalities and bad leadership. Now we have in addition bad leadership, total looting of what belongs to the people. This was what Shakespeare tackled in his best quintessential artistic ideas and expressions. Therefore the works of Soyinka are deeply embedded in their intents on politics. He deals with the nation and its dispossessions”.

    In Dance of the Forests, Jeyifo noted, Soyinka drew attention to the early signs of fault starts and mistakes in the nationhood. The play which was premiered in 1960 to usher in the independence of Nigeria from the shackles of the British overlords. The play is full of injustices of all kinds. “Here, truly, Soyinka talks about the dispossessed. The work is more explicit as it clamours for change, a proper stage for change.The state of the dispossessed is always clear in all his works.”

    With reference to The Man Died, Season of Anomie and more, his radical activism came fully to the fore. In his memoirs he did not even spare the enemies of the people. Using both social, political and religious undertones, Soyinka pointed out the ills. In Trials of Brother Jero and others he foresaw the revoluntionary approach of men of God towards hoodwinking the people. However, in all these, Soyinka puts himself into his works. He uses himself to projest his stories and present the ideas before him. “This was why he deliberately broke away from the conservative forces to become a revolutionary, an activist just to face and deal with bad leaders in a society peopled by reactionary forces. When Soyinka became involved in the June 12, 1993 protests to right the wrong against M.K.O Abiola, he did so as a revolutionary, someone touched by the problems of the society. All these are what he brings to bear in all his works. Today, there is no African writer as powerful as he is in the way he implores his revoluntionary ideas to better the welfare of the people. This is why he is seen as a rampaging social crusader, who uses metaphors to externalise his ideas. He sees this as a monstrous society, with deep moral and social decadence where political forces are at work.”

    When King Henry IV became the leader of England, things became better, the English people smiled and the economy became more bouyant. Jeyifo infers that this is what Soinka wishes to happen in Nigeria. “When you compare the two leaders in England and then come home to see the irony of leadership in Nigeria, you then see why as a writer, Soyinka wants this era of eldorado to come now. He continues to search for good leaders and seek ways to actualise this in all his works. As a popular writer, the dispossessed must have a say, they should be given back what belongs to them”.

    In his own contribution, Professor Ropo Sekoni concurred with Jeyifo that Soyinka creates himself as one of the characters in most of his works. “He may not really make other protagonists in his works, but then to situate himself in them for proper effect. In his Pekelemesi years in Ibadan, Soyinka uses a character to project highly positive ideas. Even though he did not join any political party, he uses the involvement of those in them to champion his ideas for total change. Therefore in Ake, Isara, Ibadan and You Must Set Forth at Dawn, you see a revoluntionary anarchist, but with redemptive reformism”.

    Sekoni particularly made reference to the role Soyinka ascribed to women in Ake where he projects them as truly diplomatic and good leaders. He did this so well and ethusiastically, even in his story on Ogboni where he discovers that the place of women as leaders cannot be overlooked. In all, he agrees that as a writer, Soyinka is an activist with unbridled revoluntionary mind, a mind ever determined to ask for change for the good of all.

    For Profesor Mabel of the University of Abuja, Soyinka could only display his innocence as a boy child in Ake. There, he was untainted by the society and gradually he began to be involved in the affairs of the people with his works. According to her, “In Isara, he is now in the world of the grown-ups, asking for justice. You see him concerned for justice. He does not run away from fights. A vivid recount of women’s role in politics comes out clear here. The role of women in Egbaland in the choice of who leads them becomes Soyinka’s total portrayal of women.

    If the women could unseat the Egba monarch, if they could speak with one voice in such an organised manner, Soyinka is saying that women have a lot to offer to the society. “At that point, he was a young man fully prepared to ask for change in his community. This is why he was more interested in teacher-education through his own father who was equally a teacher. And so in traversing all genres of literature, you see Soyinka involved in social, political and moral issues of the people. The Pekelemesi years shows and epitomises the strength of character in him. To him, freedom becomes a symbol, Nigeria becomes an unfinished business.”

    Describing him as a moving dramatist , Mabel said, “Soyinka believes strongly that the human mind and psyche has to be free. This is why his works try to make life meaningful for the people. He is more guided by the sentiments of his time, of the people around him both now and forever,” she said.

    In his comments, Kunle Ajibade observed that Soyinka has chosen to live for humanity, for the common people, for a better society. “He is a moving tank of ideas; ideas that do not in any way go obsolete but remain relevant for all time to come. Soyinka’s life is for people to realise who they are and what must be done to have a concerted change in the society.”

    In his opening remarks, Ogunbiyi commended CORA for the outing and noted that this is the time to draw attention to serious literary issues to make the society change. “Whether it is the Port Harcourt Book fair or LABAF, we need to keep books alive in the society and in the lives of the people themselves. Biodun Jeyifo has written series of articles on the complexity of Soyinka’s works. We are today to listen to him and to learn more on the redical aspects of Soyinka, not only as a writer but as someone who brings himself into what he writes.”

    Ogunbiyi who is also a literatti reminded the gathering that Soyinka uses his deep Yoruba cultural values to shape his works, projecting the people for total effect. “Yes, indeed is a deep political activist who situates his works within the context of the people, the society, the leadership and sustains the interest of readers to follow him all through. This is why his works are of stupendous quality which often gives his literary productions some level of complexity”.

    The discussion was part of series of activitists to give vent to the freedom of the word, in honour of Wole Soyinka at 80. It was to truly see how the man as a writer has fared in his numerous works to effectively touch humanity. It showed that Soyinka even at 80 years of age has not slowed down, has not relented in his quest for an ideal society for all peoples of the world.

  • Photo: Soyinka unveils Ekiti Governor’s lodge

    Photo: Soyinka unveils Ekiti Governor’s lodge

    Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi; Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka; wife of Governor, Erelu Bisi Fayemi; and Deputy Governor, Prof. Modupe Adelabu, during the unveiling of the Governor's Lodge, Ayoba Villa, as park of activities marking the 4th anniversary of the Fayemi Administration, in Ado-Ekiti... on Sunday.
    Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi; Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka; wife of Governor, Erelu Bisi Fayemi; and Deputy Governor, Prof. Modupe Adelabu, during the unveiling of the Governor’s Lodge, Ayoba Villa, as park of activities marking the 4th anniversary of the Fayemi Administration, in Ado-Ekiti… on Sunday.
  • Activists ask Emefiele to provide information on ‘money laundering’

    Activists ask Emefiele to provide information on ‘money laundering’

    The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has asked Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Mr. Godwin Emefiele to “provide information about the persons involved in alleged money laundering through the bank to fund the activities of the Boko Haram.

    It also asked him to provide “within 14 days of the receipt and/or publication of this letter, information on the nature and duration of any such transaction.”

    The organisation threatened “appropriate legal actions under the Freedom of Information Act to compel you to comply with our request.”

    In the letter dated September 15 and signed by the Executive Director, Adetokunbo Mumuni, SERAP said: “Given the involvement of the CBN in this matter and the fact that you are the governor of the bank, we believe you will use your position to provide information on what happened.

    “SERAP is concerned about the damaging allegation, especially given that the CBN as a regulatory body has a responsibility under the UN Convention against corruption and other national laws to prevent money laundering in banks and ensure that its systems are transparent and accountable to the people.”

    The body added: “It is necessary to provide clarity as to what happened through the CBN if the bank is to play a leadership role in the fight against corruption and money laundering and enjoy public trust and confidence essential for its effectiveness.

    “Providing the information will also help ensure accountability for those involved in international crimes and contribute to providing effective remedies for victims.”

    According to the organisation, “by virtue of Section 1 (1) of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2011, SERAP is entitled as of right to request for or gain access to information, including information on any transaction or money laundering that may have been carried out through the CBN, and the information is in the custody or possession of any public official, agency or institution.”

    SERAP noted: “By virtue of Section 4 (a) of the FOI Act, when a person requests for information from a public official, institution or agency, the official, institution or agency to whom the application is directed is under a binding legal obligation to provide the applicant with the information, except as otherwise provided by the Act, within seven days after the application is received. According to sections 2(3)(d)(V) & (4) of the FOI Act, there is a binding legal duty to ensure that the documents containing information relating to alleged money laundering through the CBN are disseminated and made available to the public through various means.”

    The body said: “The information being requested does not come within the purview of the types of information exempted from disclosure by the provisions of the FOI Act. The information requested for, besides being exempted from disclosure under the FOI Act, bothers on an issue of national interest, public peace and concern, interest of human rights, social justice, good governance, transparency and accountability.

    “The disclosure of the information requested will give SERAP and the public a true picture and a clear understanding of the extent of the involvement of the CBN in any money laundering to Boko Haram.”

    A Perth-based international adviser to Nigeria, Dr. Stephen Davis, who for four months was involved in negotiations on behalf of the Federal Government with commanders of Boko Haram for the release of over 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by the sect in April, has named a former top official of the CBN among those, who have provided funds and other logistics to Boko Haram to commit crimes under international law.

    Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has said information about a suspected financier of Boko Haram from the CBN was passed to President Goodluck Jonathan.

     

  • Why Davis claims on Boko Haram cannot be dismissed – Soyinka

    Why Davis claims on Boko Haram cannot be dismissed – Soyinka

     In this piece titled Wages of Impunity, Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka says he knows Stephen Davis as federal government negotiator and worked with him in negotiations with the Nigeria Delta militants under Late President Umaru Musa Yaar’adua’s  administration.
    The dancing obscenity of Shekau and his gang of psychopaths and child abductors, taunting the world, mocking the BRING BACK OUR GIRLS campaign on internet, finally met its match in Nigeria to inaugurate the week of September 11 – most appropriately. Shekau’s danse macabre was surpassed by the unfurling of a political campaign banner that defiled an entry point into Nigeria’s capital of Abuja. That banner read:  BRING BACK JONATHAN 2015.
    President Jonathan has since disowned all knowledge or complicity in the outrage but, the damage has been done, the rot in a nation’s collective soul bared to the world. The very possibility of such a desecration took the Nigerian nation several notches down in human regard. It confirmed the very worst of what external observers have concluded and despaired of  – a culture of civic callousness, a coarsening of sensibilities and, a general human disregard.
    It affirmed the acceptance, even domination of lurid practices where children are often victims of unconscionable abuses including ritual sacrifices, sexual enslavement, and worse.  Spurred by electoral desperation, a bunch of self-seeking morons and sycophants chose to plumb the abyss of self-degradation and drag the nation down to their level.  It took us to a hitherto unprecedented low in ethical degeneration.
    The bets were placed on whose turn would it be to take the next potshots at innocent youths in captivity whose society and governance have failed them and blighted their existence? Would the Chibok girls now provide standup comic material for the latest staple of Nigerian escapist diet?  Would we now move to a new export commodity in the entertainment industry named perhaps “Taunt the Victims”?
    As if to confirm all the such surmises, an ex-governor, Sheriff, notorious throughout the nation – including within security circles as affirmed in their formal dossiers – as prime suspect in the sponsorship league of the scourge named Boko Haram,  was presented to the world as a presidential traveling companion. And the speculation became: was the culture of impunity finally receiving endorsement as a governance yardstick?
    Again, Goodluck Jonathan swung into a plausible explanation: it was Mr. Sheriff who, as friend of the host President Idris Deby, had traveled ahead to Chad to receive Jonathan as part of President Deby’s welcome entourage.  What, however does this say of any president? How come it that a suspected affiliate of a deadly criminal gang, publicly under such ominous cloud, had the confidence to smuggle himself into the welcoming committee of another nation, and even appear in audience, to all appearance a co-host with the president of that nation?
    Where does the confidence arise in him that Jonathan would not snub him openly or, after the initial shock, pull his counterpart, his official host aside and say to him, “Listen, it’s him, or me.”? So impunity now transcends boundaries, no matter how heinous the alleged offence?
    The Nigerian president however appeared totally at ease. What the nation witnessed in the photo-op was an affirmation of a governance principle, the revelation of a decided frame of mind – with precedents galore. Goodluck Jonathan has brought back into limelight more political reprobates – thus attested in criminal courts of law and/or police investigations – than any other Head of State since the nation’s independence. It has become a reflex.
    Those who stuck up the obscene banner in Abuja had accurately read Jonathan right as a Bring-back president. They have deduced perhaps that he sees “bringing back” as a virtue, even an ideology, as the corner stone of governance, irrespective of what is being brought back. No one quarrels about bringing back whatever the nation once had and now sorely needs – for instance, electricity and other elusive items like security, the rule of law etc. etc. The list is interminable. The nature of what is being brought back is thus what raises the disquieting questions. It is time to ask the question: if Ebola were to be eradicated tomorrow, would this government attempt to bring it back?
    Well, while awaiting the Chibok girls, and in that very connection, there is at least an individual whom the nation needs to bring back, and urgently. His name is Stephen Davis, the erstwhile negotiator in the oft aborted efforts to actually bring back the girls.  Nigeria needs him back – no, not back to the physical nation space itself, but to a Nigerian induced forum, convoked anywhere that will guarantee his safety and can bring others to join him. I know Stephen Davis, I worked in the background with him during efforts to resolve the insurrection in the Delta region under President Umaru  Yar’Adua. I have not been involved in his recent labours for a number of reasons.
    The most basic is that my threshold for confronting evil across a table is not as high as his –  thanks, perhaps, to his priestly calling. From the very outset, in several lectures and other public statements, I have advocated one response and one response only to the earliest, still putative depredations of Boko Haram and have decried any proceeding that smacked of appeasement. There was a time to act – several times when firm, decisive action, was indicated. There are certain steps which, when taken, place an aggressor beyond the pale of humanity, when we must learn to accept that not all who walk on two legs belong to the community of humans – I view Boko Haram in that light.It is no comfort to watch events demonstrate again and again that one is proved to be right.
    Thus, it would be inaccurate to say that I have been detached from the Boko Haram affliction – very much the contrary. As I revealed in earlier statements, I have interacted with the late National Security Adviser, General Azazi, on occasion – among others.  I am therefore compelled to warn that anything that Stephen Davis claims to have uncovered cannot be dismissed out of hand.
    It cannot be wished away by foul-mouthed abuse and cheap attempts to impugn his integrity – that is an absolute waste of time and effort. Of the complicity of ex-Governor Sheriff in the parturition of Boko Haram, I have no doubt whatsoever, and I believe that the evidence is overwhelming. Femi Falana can safely assume that he has my full backing – and that of a number of civic organizations – if he is compelled to go ahead and invoke the legal recourses available to him to force Sheriff’s prosecution. The evidence in possession of Security Agencies – plus a number of diplomats in Nigeria – is overwhelming, and all that is left is to let the man face criminal persecution. It is certain he will also take many others down with him.
    Regarding General Ihejirika, I have my own theories regarding how he may have come under Stephen Davis’ searchlight in the first place, ending up on his list of the inculpated. All I shall propose at this stage is that an international panel be set up to examine all allegations, irrespective of status or office of any accused. The unleashing of a viperous cult like Boko Haram on peaceful citizens qualifies as a crime against humanity, and deserves that very dimension in its resolution. If a people must survive, the reign of impunity must end. Truth – in all available detail – is in the interest, not only of Nigeria, the sub-region and the continent, but of the international community whose aid we so belatedly moved to seek.
    From very early beginnings, we warned against the mouthing of empty pride to stem a tide that was assuredly moving to inundate the nation but were dismissed as alarmists. We warned that the nation had moved into a state of war, and that its people must be mobilized accordingly – the warnings were disregarded, even as slaughter surmounted slaughter, entire communities wiped out, and the battle began to strike into the very heart of governance, but all we obtained in return was moaning, whining and hand-wringing up and down the rungs of leadership and governance. But enough of recriminations – at least for now. Later, there must be full accounting.
    Finally, Stephen Davis also mentions a Boko Haram financier within the Nigerian Central Bank. Independently we are able to give backing to that claim, even to the extent of naming the individual. In the process of our enquiries, we solicited the help of a foreign embassy whose government, we learnt, was actually on the same trail, thanks to its independent investigation into some money laundering that involved the Central Bank. That name, we confidently learnt, has also been passed on to President Jonathan. When he is ready to abandon his accommodating policy towards the implicated, even the criminalized, an attitude that owes so much to re-election desperation, when he moves from a passive “letting the law to take its course” to galvanizing the law to take its course, we shall gladly supply that name.
    In the meantime however, as we twiddle our thumbs, wondering when and how this nightmare will end, and time rapidly runs out, I have only one admonition for the man to whom so much has been given, but who is now caught in the depressing spiral of diminishing returns: “Bring Back Our Honour.”
  • Encounters with Wole Soyinka

    Encounters with Wole Soyinka

    The first series of encounters were over 20 years ago. Fast forward to this year, a series of remarkable encounters.

    Port Harcourt became UNESCO  World Book Capital by on April 23. It was announced with lots of literary festivities.

    Yes, Nigeria made history loud and clear in a very positive manner. Being at Port Harcourt World Book Capital celebration to me was not just a breath of fresh air, it was a gush of fresh air. Port Harcourt was nominated World Book Capital, 2014 on account of its excellent record in the areas of books, reading and writing, thereby improving Nigerian culture.

    Other applicants for the coveted nomination include Oxford (UK), Lyon (France), Moscow (Russian Federation) , Yaounde (Cameroun) just to name a few.

    The ceremony was well packaged by the Federal Government, the government of Rivers State led by Governor Rotimi Amaechi and Mrs Koko Kalango, founder of Rainbow Book Club.

    I was privileged to be at the ceremony and very proud to be a Nigerian. Prof Wole Soyinka was the keynote speaker on this memorable occasion.

    Always politically and mentally alert, on climbing the rostrum to give his address- he dealt immediately with two burning issues – lambasting the government on slamming 50 per cent duty on books – which got the government to respond in a positive manner almost immediately. He also demanded that the government should not spare any efforts in bringing back the girls then recently abducted by the Boko Haram group. The response from the audience was thunderous.

    The fifth edition of the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature was held at the Civic Centre in Lagos in July. The prize was established by the Lumina Foundation in 2005 to promote the best in African Literature not just in Nigeria.

    The prize money is now a whopping $20,000 and has been won across the continent. Wole  Soyinka ensures that he is available to hand over the prize every year. This year’s award coincided with his 80th birthday and the foundation spared no effort to make it a memorable one.

    The Civil Centre was alive with dignitaries and music was nice and varied, including the famous Steve Rhodes Orchestra. The address by the Guest Speaker, the fiery Prof Akin Oyebode took the audience down the memory lane when he had dabbled into acting!

    Then we saw the Lion baring his fangs.  Only the previous day, soldiers ran amok on Ikorodu Road on the excuse that one of their own was killed by a bus driver. Wole Soyinka took the opportunity to remind the government that this is not a military era and that the soldiers should be cautioned over their excesses. The coveted prize was won by a Nigerian, yes, Ibadan based writer – Akin Bello who was justifiably very elated.

    A couple of days ago, I got an invitation (summons!) by BankoleOlayebi, MD Bookcraft in Ibadan, a professional colleague and also a good friend for the launch of the special edition of four books; Ake, Isara, Ibadan and the Man Died by Wole Soyinka as part of celebrating his 80th birthday.

    I knew I had to be there to give support to one of our own and also get glimpses of WS at close quarters again. For me, having lived in Ibadan for close to three decades and going to and coming from Ibadan was no big deal in those days. Now, to travel to Ibadan by road has almost become a nightmare! However, I had to obey the summons.

    Keenly conscious of the fact that Ibadan is the city of culture and excellence where the concept of “African” time is not tolerated, therefore I took the longer route to Ibadan via Epe, Ijebu-Ode and Idi-Ayunre. I must say my efforts were rewarded as the programme billed to start by 4pm was almost in full swing by 4.30pm.

    The attendance was very, very impressive: there were professors and professors. There were emeritus Prof Ayo Banjo, Prof Akinkugbe ( a classmate to WS), Prof JideAjayi, Prof BimpeAboyade (my teacher  & mentor); Prof TolaAtinmo, to name a few. Also, heavy representation from “town” included KunleAjibade of The News magazine (his special edition on WS is very much a collector’s delight);Mr Mosuro of Mosuro Books and naturalised Ife chief, Chief JoopBerkhout of Safari Books.

    The evening was chaired by Chief (Mrs) Folake Solanke, Nigeria’s first female Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), classy, elegant and still fearless. The host, WS came in well before 5pm with his beautiful trendy wife, Folake (her shoes were a sight to behold!). Our Nobel Laureate get eyes o.

    A close look at the programme with readings, from all the books, drama sketch and music by imitable Jimi Solanke assured us all of a memorable evening.

    The first reading from WS’s book Isara was read by no less a person than emeritus Prof of English, Ayo Banjo. This was a question of a round peg in a round hole. The rendition was awesome. The next reading was by the playwright and author, Lola Soneyin, WS’s daughter –in-law from my favourite book, Ake. The section of the teacher who plucked a rose from HM’s garden and was asked to “lemo” is always hilarious.

    The evening had gathered momentum, when we were interrupted not once but twice to usher in Governor Ajimobi. Having come so late, his aides could have ensured that he got in as quietly as possible. No, an announcement was made to halt the proceedings and a few people got up to usher in the governor. Then WS stood up as if to meet the governor, whilst the radicals, Egbon Felix Adenaike and Brand – new Emeritus Prof Femi Osofisan, I sat next to, muttered very loudly “ewo”.

    We were calmed down by no less a person than Lola Soneyin that WS only went to the loo!!! Real anti-climax. The governor read his allotted portion from the book Ibadan quite well.The rest of the evening was totally enjoyable and pleasant with interactive sessions with WS.

     

    • Mrs Fetuga, the Chief Executive, Florence &Lambard (Nig.) Ltd, lives in Lagos.