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Tag: soyinka

  • COVID-19: Soyinka challenges Buhari over lockdown of Lagos, Ogun States

    Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka on Monday described the total lockdown of Lagos and Ogun States by President Muhammadu Buhari over coronavirus as illegal and unconstitutional.

    Soyinka, in a statement said the president did not have the power to unilaterally lockdown a state, as there was no war or emergency.

    The Nobel laureate, in the statement titled: Between COVID and Constitutional Encroachment,” said constitutional lawyers and our elected representatives should kindly step into “this and educate us, mere lay minds. The worst development I can conceive us is to have a situation where rational measures for the containment of the Corona pandemic are rejected on account of their questionable genesis.

    “This is a time for Unity of Purpose, not nitpicking dissensions. So, before this becomes a habit, a question: does President Buhari have the powers to close down state borders? We want clear answers. We are not in a war emergency.

    “Appropriately focussed on measures for the saving lives, and committed to making sacrifices for the preservation of our communities, we should nonetheless remain alert to any encroachment on constitutionally demarcated powers. We need to exercise collective vigilance, and not compromise the future by submitting to interventions that are not backed by law and constitution.”

    According to Soyinka, a president who had been conspicuously AWOL, the Rip van Winkle of Nigerian history, was now alleged to have woken up after a prolonged siesta, and begun to issue orders.

    He asked: “Who actually instigates these orders anyway? From where do they really emerge? What happens when the orders conflict with state measures, the product of a systematic containment strategy – `including even trial-and-error and hiccups – undertaken without let or leave of the Centre. So far, the anti-COVID-19 measures have proceeded along the rails of decentralised thinking, multilateral collaboration and technical exchanges between states.

    “The Centre is obviously part of the entire process, and one expects this to be the norm, even without the epidemic’s frontal assault on the Presidency itself. Indeed, the Centre is expected to drive the overall effort, but in collaboration, with extraordinary budgeting and refurbishing of facilities.

    “The universal imperative and urgency of this affliction should not become an opportunistic launch pad for a sneak RE-CENTRALISATION, no matter how seemingly insignificant its appearance. I urge governors and legislators to be especially watchful. No epidemic is ever cured with constitutional piracy. It only lays down new political viruses for the future.”

  • Soyinka disowns report linking him with Uzodinma, Ihedioha electoral tussle

    Soyinka disowns report linking him with Uzodinma, Ihedioha electoral tussle

    Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka on Tuesday disowned a report claiming that he has been engaged to serve on a monitoring team regarding a forthcoming Supreme Court Review of the case between Governor Hope Uzodinma and Emeka Ihedioha in Imo State.

    Soyinka, in a statement said a link to a report by the Daily Post on the Uzodimma vs Ihedioha electoral tussle had just been sent to him.

    “That report claims that I have been engaged to serve on a monitoring team regarding a forthcoming Supreme Court Review of that case. I know nothing of this development and I am not involved in any aspect of the tussle.

    “I know nothing of this Third Force Democracy whatever. I have no intention of participating in any judicial monitoring activity and demand to be kept out of any such false attributions.

    “Hopefully, some day in the distant future, it will be possible for the nation to regain the respect of the world in its democratic claims. That time, alas, is not immediately apparent,” he said.

  • Soyinka, Shehu Sani present in court for Sowore’s trial

    Soyinka, Shehu Sani present in court for Sowore’s trial

    Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate, and Shehu Sani are at a federal high court in Abuja to see the trial of Omoyele Sowore, convener of RevolutionNow Movement.

     

    Soyinka arrived about 8:50am, five minutes before Sowore arrived at the court.

    Sowore and Olawale Bakare, his co-accused, are standing trial on seven counts of treasonable felony, fraud, cyber-stalking and of insulting the president.

    TheNewsGuru recalls that he was arrested by the Department of State Services (DSS) on August 3 ahead of a nationwide protest.

    He was released after 124 days in custody, but forcibly rearrested at a federal high court in Abuja — less than 24 hours after his release.

    He was later released on December 24, 2019.

     

  • Soyinka replies Balarabe Musa over anti-amotekun comments

    Soyinka replies Balarabe Musa over anti-amotekun comments

    Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka on Tuesday tackled former Kaduna State Governor Balarabe Musa over his remarks on the establishment of the Western Nigeria Security Network (WNSN), code-named Operation Amotekun.

    The literary giant said the former governor erred in his conclusion that the security outfit would lead to the declaration of Oduduwa Republic by the Yoruba.

    In a statement he personally signed, Soyinka said the former Kaduna State governor was leaving in the fear of the harmless since the promoters of the outfit have consistently described it as their contribution to secure the society.

    He said the elder statesman was wrong in his judgment and urged Nigeria to avoid such blunder.

    The statement reads: “Balarabe is sadly, but I hope not tragically wrong. I invoke the tragic dimension here because the making of tragedy, especially for nations, often begins when fears are mistaken, or promoted as facts, and governments either by themselves, or together with interest groups, are enticed by fears into embarking on precipitate, irrational, and irreversible acts. Such acts turn out tin the end to be based on nothing but fears, sometimes generated by guilt over past injustices, such as inequitable dealing.

    “That is the basis of tragedy, towards which nations are propelled by a partial or wrongful reading of socio-political realities and – history. I would like to see this nation avoid such a blunder. So, I am certain, would Balarabe Musa.

    “Raising the spectre of secession is a facile approach to the dangerous, self-evident lapses in governance which Balarabe himself acknowledges in his response to the Amotekun principle made flesh.

    “The midwives of Amotekun have repeatedly acknowledged that theirs is only a contribution towards a crisis of escalating proportions.

    “Other states should be encouraged to emulate, not misread such initiatives, then demonise them by false attributions. That is the certain recipe for tragedy.”

  • Soyinka to FG: Legality or not, Amotekun has come to stay!

    Soyinka to FG: Legality or not, Amotekun has come to stay!

    Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka has declared that the establishment of Operation Amotekun by Southwest governors ‘has come to stay irrespective of its legality’.

    Soyinka said the supplementary security outfit launched in Ibadan last week, came up as a result of series of meetings by the leaders of the region to curb insecurity issues that the existing security bodies have not been able to put an end to.

    The Nobel Laureate prize winner made this known at the ongoing press conference at his Kongi’s Harvest Art Gallery, Freedom Park, Lagos, opposing the Justice Minister and Attorney-general of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, who declared the security outfit illegal.

    “Amotekun is a result of meetings to curb menace in the region,” he said.

  • 1966 Coup: Why Nigeria can’t afford to lose another 2.5 million people to war – Soyinka

    1966 Coup: Why Nigeria can’t afford to lose another 2.5 million people to war – Soyinka

    Prof. Wole Soyinka, Nigeria’s only Nobel Laureate has warned that the nation cannot afford to lose another 2.5 million people to war as it did 50 years ago to the Nigerian Civil War.

    He spoke when he delivered a lecture, titled: “Never Again.” to commemorate the 50th year of the Nigerian Civil War in Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.

    According to him, “Any time that leadership, on whichever side, is about to repeat yet again the ultimate folly of sacrificing two and a half million lives on the altar of Absolutes, any absolute, we should borrow that credo, paint them on prayer scrolls, flood the skies in their millions with kites and balloons on which those words are inscribed: ‘African Lives Matter!”

    He added that “For example, ask ourselves questions such as: What price ‘territorial integrity’ where any slab of real estate, plus the humanity that work it, can be signed away as a deal between two leaders – as did happen between Nigeria and the Cameroon. You seek an answer to the claims of territorial integrity? Ask the fluctuating refugees on Bakassi Islands just what is the meaning, for them, of ‘territorial integrity’?

    “Again, I feel obliged to emphasize that this has nothing to do with whether or not one side was in the wrong or right, nothing to do with accusations of a lack of vision, of pandering to, or resisting the wiles and calculations of erstwhile colonial rulers, or indeed, taking sides in a Cold War that turned Africans into surrogate players and the continent into prostrate testing ground for new weaponry.

    “No, we merely place before ourselves an exercise in hindsight – with no intention however of denying credit to those who did exercise foresight – we propose that the loss of two million and a half people, the maiming and traumatization of innumerable others and devastation on a hitherto unimaginable scale, by a nation turned against itself even as it teetered on the edge of modernity, provokes sober reflection. That’s all. Sober reflection.

    “A re-thinking that is unafraid, especially as such scenarios, considered in some cases even worse, more brutish, have since followed. Need one recall Rwanda’s own entry into that contest in morbid pathology, one that surpasses the Biafran carnage when comparatively assessed in duration and population parameters? All remain active reminders to haunt Africa’s collective conscience – the existence of which, I know, is an optimistic presumption – and appears to elude the ministrations of politicians and/or ideologues, or indeed theologians.”

    He said there was need to borrow a leaf from brothers and sisters in the Diaspora, saying that he had no qualms in reminding this, or any other Nigerian audience that, such was the ingrained slave mentality of the contemporary progeny of those who sold those exiles into slavery in the first place, that some in this nation actually considered it a duty, even honour, to take up cudgels on behalf of the denigrators of their own kind, of their own race.

    “Thus, they proceed to insult those who respond in their own personal manner to such racists, however powerfully positioned and no matter where on this globe – but let that pass for now. My intention is to jog your memories regarding that spate of serial elimination of our kind – the African-Americans – by white police in the United States at that very time, an epidemic that merely actualized the racist rantings of the current incumbent of the White House as he powered his way to the coveted seat in the last United States elections. The African-Americans, tired of being arbitrary sacrificial lambs,the victims of hate rhetoric, went on nation-wide protest marches, carrying placards that read: Black Lives Matter.

    “Adopting that simple exhortation enables us to include the millions of victims of failed or indifferent leadership on this continent who are more concerned with power and its accruements, who see the nation, not as expressions of a people’s will, need, belonging, and industry, but as ponds in which they, the bullfrogs of our time, can exercise power for its own sake. It is they who militate against ‘nation’, not – I shall end on this selective note – not the products of migration from purely nominal nation enclaves who perish daily along the Sahara desert routes, who drown in droves in the Mediterranean.

    “They are the ones who confronted the question with, alas, a fatalist determinism. They asked themselves the question: When is a Nation? And the answer of those desperate migrants is clearly read as: not when we left where we called home! As long as our humanity opts for unmarked graves in the Sahara desert, or in the guts of the fishes of the Mediterranean, their answer remains to haunt us all. Yes, indeed, let us internalize that Africa-American declaration as statement of a living faith, an expression of our humanity that may compel leadership to pause at critical moments of decision, thereby earn ourselves some space where we can re-think those bequeathed absolutes that we so proudly spout, gospels of sacrosanctity, pre-packaged imperatives or questionable, often poisoned“truths”that incite us to advance so conceitedly towards the dehumanization, and decimation of our kind,” he stated.

  • Amotekun a special New Year gift – Soyinka

    Amotekun a special New Year gift – Soyinka

    Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka has described the formation of the Western Nigeria Security Network, with the code name of ‘Amotekun’ as a pleasant New Year Gift.

    He declared support for the supplementary security outfit launched in Ibadan last week, saying its emergence signified that the yearnings of Nigerians prevailed.

    Soyinka spoke in Lagos today at an event held at the Muson Centre in Lagos.

    The event tagged ‘Never Again’, was organised to discuss the way forward, 50 years after the Nigerian civil war.In attendance at the event were some eminent Nigerians such as Professor Anya Anya, Professor Banji Akintoye, Professor Pat Utomi, Major General Obi Umahi (rtd), and the Senate Minority Leader, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, among others.

    Each of the six states in the South West donated 20 patrol vans each and also motorbikes to start the security outfit, with headquarters in Gbongan, Osun State.

    Details soon..

  • Sowore’s rearrest: Tame your wild dogs now!, Soyinka tells ‘President-General’ Buhari

    Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka has blasted President Muhammadu Buhari over the re-arrest of the Convener, #RevolutionNow Protest, Omoyele Sowore and Olawale Bakare at the Federal High Court, Abuja on Friday by the Department of State Services, DSS.

    Soyinka said it had become imperative and urgent to send message to “President-General Buhari: Rein in your wild dogs of disobedience. And for a start, get a trainer to teach them some basic court manners!”

    Soyinka, in a statement on Friday likened the scene leading to the arrest of Sowore and Bakare in the court premises to that of an African Wild Dog.

    According to Soyinka, he was amazed by the level of disobedience to court’s order by the present government of Buhari.

    “A few years ago, I watched the video of a pack of the famed African wild dogs hunt, eventually bring down, and proceed to devour a quarry. It was an impala, antelope family. The pack isolated the most vulnerable looking member of the herd – it was pregnant – pursued it, until it fled to a waterhole which, for such animals, is the nearest thing to a sanctuary.

    “A few minutes ago, almost as it was happening, I watched the video of a pack of the DSS, bring down, and fight over their unarmed, totally defenceless quarry within the sanctuary of a court of law. I found little or no difference between the two scenarios, except that the former, the wild dogs, exhibited more civilized table manners than the DSS in court manners,” he said.

    The Nobel Laureate said only yesterday, in his commentary on the ongoing Sowore saga, he pointed out the near perfect similarity between plain crude thuggery and the current rage of court disobedience, saying that little did he suspected that “the state children of disobedience would aspire to the level of the African wild dogs on a pack hunt.

    “I apologize for underestimating the DSS capacity for the unthinkable. I reiterate the nation’s concern, indeed alarm, about the escalating degradation of the judiciary through multiple means, of which disobedience of court orders is fast becoming the norm.

    “May I remind this government that disobedience calls to disobedience, and that disobedience of the orders of the constitutional repository of the moral authority of arbitration – the judiciary – can only lead eventually to a people’s disregard of the authority of other arms of civil society, a state of desperation that is known, recognized and accepted as – civil disobedience.

    “It is so obvious – state disobedience leads eventually to civil disobedience, piecemeal or through a collective withdrawal of recognition of other structures of authority. That way leads to chaos but – who set it in motion? As is often the case, the state, unquestionably. Such a state bears full responsibility for the ensuing social condition known as anomie.”

     

  • Disregard for the judiciary worst under Buhari-led govt – Soyinka

    Disregard for the judiciary worst under Buhari-led govt – Soyinka

    Playwright and social critic, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has expressed displeasure over the continued disobedience to court rulings by President Muhammadu Buhari led government.

    Soyinka cited the refusal of the Federal Government to release the detained Publisher SaharaReporters and ex-presidential candidate, Mr Omoyele Sowore, despite a court order.

    Sowore was arrested for calling for revolution to protest against bad governance via his #RevolutionNow# movement.

    This was contained in a statement titled, ‘Between thuggery and state disobedience,’ the Nobel laureate released on Wednesday.

    He said, “There are of course more effective ways of degrading a judiciary than merely brutalising a judge, and leaving his judicial robes in tatters. One of the most effective, increasingly optimised in Nigeria, is simply by not only ignoring, but treating its orders with disdain, encouraging its agencies to trot out cynical excuses for disobedience while laughing all the way to the citadel of power.

    “In that regard, there does appear to be an undeclared contest among succeeding governments, intensified since the return of the nation to civilian government in 1999 for placement in the Guinness Book of Records as the most notorious Scofflaw in the field of democratic pretensions.

    “Or could it be an anticipation of a proposal I made at the Athens Democracy Forum some months ago, calling for an annual award – such as an Order of Demerit – for such an achiever?”

    Soyinka said he had no hesitation in admitting that he had a personal, formative interest in the health of the Nigerian judiciary, deeper perhaps than the average Nigerian.

    Soyinka stated, “At a critical junction in the life of this writer, a judge resolved to give primacy to the call of conscience, affirm his professional integrity and defend the supremacy of law in defiance of state interference. He refused to bow to external pressure in adjudicating a case whose conclusion, had this accused been found guilty as charged, would have been life imprisonment.

    “That individual, the late Justice Kayode Eso, has narrated the event in his autobiography – The Mystery Gunman with his noted wit and judicial poise. The deputy premier of the then Western region of Nigeria had summoned the judge to his residence, lectured him on his duty to protect the interests of the government against the accused.

    “Justice Kayode listened politely, re-affirmed his commitment to the rule of law, and took his leave. It would be most surprising if my own brush with the law has not crossed my mind since the predicament of Omoyele Sowole, journalist and former presidential candidate began.”

    He also chronicled cases of court disobedience including a purported slapping of a judge in the Ekiti State by the then state governor and the refusal of the Federal Government to release council funds of Lagos State despite a court order without the judiciary acting against them.

    The playwright noted that the Nigerian judiciary was not thereby, nor today a model of perfection.

    He added, “Nonetheless, exemplars such as Justice Esho have succeeded in creating, in some of us, an exceptional respect for the Bench, instilled a conviction that the law, despite its lapses, demands respect, autonomy and obedience. Much of the judiciary across the continent remains constantly under siege – Nigeria is no exception. Needless to say, it often strikes me that the ‘learned brotherhood’ could do more to protect, and assert itself.

    “Apart from the obvious and numerous scandals of moral deficit that require constant internal purgation, there are instances where it does fail to protect itself even from putative and/or illegal power.”

    Asking if Sowore was Myetti Allah, Soyinka said for those agencies who actually thought to inhibit social revolution by fastening on the alarmist association of the word ‘revolution’, “half the citizens of this nation should be in permanent detention.

    “From pulpit to minaret, from clinic to fish market, from student club to motor park, the wish for drastic transformation of this nation is staple discourse. Perhaps we should begin with its application to that institution whose decisions affect both society and individuals with such finality, for good or ill – the judiciary.”

  • Charges against Sowore: Buhari-led govt now at unprecedented level of paranoia — Soyinka

    Charges against Sowore: Buhari-led govt now at unprecedented level of paranoia — Soyinka

    Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, says the Muhammadu Buhari administration has attained an “unprecedented level of paranoia” following the charges of treason filed against the publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore.

    In a statement on Saturday, Soyinka said the nation had failed to learn from past experiences.

    He said, “This is utterly depressing news. So, the Sowore affair has moved beyond harassment and taken on a sinister direction. Outside the country where I happened to be engaged at the moment, I can testify that the immediate reaction around me was to dismiss this as yet another grotesque product of fake news, of which Nigerians have become the greatest practitioners. I confess that I also joined in this school of thought – at the start.

    “Further checks have however confirmed that this government has indeed attained an unprecedented level of paranoia. I do not believe that the Justice department itself believes in these improbable charges, as formally publicised. So, once again, we inscribe in our annals another season of treasonable felony, History still guards some lessons we have yet to digest, much less from which to learn. Welcome to the Club, Mr. Omoyele Sowore.”

    The Federal Government had on Friday filed seven counts of treasonable felony and money laundering against Sowore.

    The charges were filed a day before the expiration of the detention order of the Federal High Court in Abuja permitting the Department of State Services to keep the activist for 45 days.