Showing posts with label Wole soyinka. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wole soyinka. Show all posts

Monday, September 15, 2014

Boko Haram Sponsor: Hide your face in shame, Wole Soyinka Under Attack




Hide your face in shame; you should know CBN rules – Asu

Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka yesterday came under attack for alleging that President Goodluck Jonathan knows the financier of Boko Haram in the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.

A prominent human rights crusader and Niger Delta leader, Chief Asu Beks, who took up Prof Soyinka on the matter, asked him to hide his face in shame as he declared that more Nigerians are getting disappointed in the way the university teacher comments on critical national issues.
In an interview with Nigerian Pilot yesterday, the public affairs commentator said Nigeria does not need the ranting that emanate from sections of the country, especially as they affect President Jonathan.
Continue...

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Prof. Wole Soyinka writes on the #bringbackjonathan2015 post, says he knows Australian hostage negotiator



In an item he titled 'The Wages of Impunity', Nobel Laureate Prof Soyinka condemned the recent #bringbackjonathan2015 campaign slogan and GEJ's recent visit to Chad with Ali Modu Sheriff, who has been accused to be a Boko Haram sponsor. In the piece posted on Sahara Reporters, Prof Soyinka wrote he knows Australian hostage negotitaor Stephen Davis, saying which they both worked together under late President Umaru Musa Yar Adua's regime throughout the struggle for the return of peace in the Niger Delta region. 
 
He also wrote he has his own theories regarding how General Ihejirika may have come under Stephen Davis'searchlight. Find his article after  the jump...

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Happy Birthday To Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka Who Clocks 80years Today.





Eightieth birthday is a special occasion and ideal opportunity to tell Wole Soyinka the first African to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, how much he means to us.


When people think of Wole Soyinka, it’s probably as the author of the powerful autobiographical work, The Man Died (1971), a collection of notes from prison.  But more than that, W.S. as fondly known in literary circles, is identified around the world as the recusant specialist who refused to submit to madmen that run and ruin Nigeria since independence in 1960. The rest of the story need not delay us.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Ekiti: Preventing APC governors from campaign was ‘act of war’ – Soyinka




Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, has condemned the stopping of some governors of the All Progressives Congress, APC, from attending a campaign rally in Ekiti State describing it as an act of war.
At a press conference in Lagos, Saturday, Mr. Soyinka urged the affected governors to seek redress in court, noting that it was a violation of their human rights.
Some APC governors who were attending Governor Kayode Fayemi’s final electioneering campaign in Ado-Ekiti, last Thursday, were prevented from getting to their destination by army soldiers.
The APC leadership accused the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP-led federal government of orchestrating the plot.

“I think it is important that we don’t lose sight of preparations before an election simply because we want the event to be over and done with.  “When Vice President Sambo said in Ekiti that this election was going to be war, I actually rebuked some of the opposition who said that the Vice President had come to announce the outbreak of a war. I said come on; this is what is known as a figure of speech. Even his predecessor within the party used a similar expression, ‘do or die,’ I took the same position, that we must allow what is known as poetic licence in which people use metaphors that should not be taken literarily. So I have never really bothered about the expressions like fight to finish, do or die, it’s war to the end,” Mr. Soyinka said.

“The prevention of some governors and their supporters from going for their own campaign was nothing short of an act of war. So maybe I should learn to be less metaphoric in my approach to language and learn to take politicians’ word a bit more serious,” he added.  Mr. Soyinka said that practices such as waving of party flags and sweeping the stage after your opponent had finished a rally are part of the language of democracy.

“But to prevent governors from attending a campaign for the success of their own party is for me not just unconstitutional, it’s criminal, and such people should be charged to court. It’s not different from rigging during the election, from women suddenly becoming pregnant with ballot papers, with stealing and even daylight robbery of ballot boxes. What is the difference? Electioneering is part and parcel of the democratic process,” Mr. Soyinka said.

The Nobel laureate also condemned the Nigerian military for allowing the army to be used as “election thugs.”  “Let me ask you a question: Suppose Governors Amaechi, Oshiomhole, Nyako, and the other APC governors are being in a motorcade that had been waylaid by thugs with guns, machetes, cudgels, or even acid.

Supposing it was hired thugs who had stopped the electoral candidates from proceeding to the polling booth, will this be considered constitutionally acceptable?
“So when the army begin to act like thugs on account of election, I see no difference between the waylaying of those governors by paid thugs on a lonely road if they were going by road, I see no difference between that and the military waylaying governors, preventing their helicopters from landing. I see no difference whatsoever between that kind of conduct and just ordinary paid thugs. So I’m asking the military, when did you take on the job of electioneering thugs?”
‘Punish the culprits’

Mr. Soyinka called for an immediate end to the violation of citizens’ rights by law enforcement agents, adding that those involved in the Ekiti incident be punished to serve as deterrent to others.
“This is the kind of conduct which this police commissioner Mbu considered a proper conduct for a law officer in Rivers State. When we spoke, in this very hall that day, people were saying what business does Wole Soyinka, Falana have in Rivers state?

“What we were saying is that if we allow this kind of conduct to be accepted once, there will be escalation. It happened, and in a more dangerous dimension in the same Rivers State,” Mr. Soyinka continued.
“We have a responsibility in any part of Nigeria when the right of a citizen is violated. It doesn’t matter whether the person is a motor mechanic, market woman, or a governor, a legislator, we have a responsibility to cry out, and to tell Nigerians that if you don’t speak now it’s going to come to your door, and it’s going to be far worse with fatal consequences.


“It’s about time we abandon the language of orders from the top. We want specifics. Who gave orders like that? Is it the Chief of Army Staff? Is it a general somewhere? Is it the military police? Enough is enough. Amaechi has a name, Oshiomhole has a name, Nyako has a name, Fayemi has a name, why is it that those who prevent them exercising their citizen’s rights do not appear to have a name.
“The military is being paid from the public purse. The military has no business taking sides in a political election,” said Mr. Soyinka.

Mr. Soyinka demanded the National Assembly to institute a commission of enquiry to unravel what happened in Ekiti State.
“We want to know who gave orders, we want these people to be called to give evidence,” said Mr. Soyinka.

“I think that all these governors should sue for the violation of their human rights. Let us make an example once and for all. We cannot continue this spiral of misconduct which makes us a laughing stock all over the world.
“We will not be satisfied with a face saving commission of enquiry. If that is what happens, then we will set up citizens’ court. We did it during the fight against Abacha. We’ve done it for Bashir of the Sudan, which we got witnesses, victims, journalists to come and testify about the violation of human rights there. We asked for international help.


“If such a trial is broken up here, then we will hold it next door. We will hold it anywhere, all the worse for the Nigerian government. They created the shame if we are forced to hold such court outside, with United Nations help if necessary, with international bodies, we’ll place the government of this county on trial.

“This must be the very last time that such an incident happens, it bodes ill for future elections. It makes a sham of all we had fought for. It’s a wastage of our very existence. I still cannot believe that this thing happened.”  Mr. Soyinka reiterated his call to Nigerians to support the efforts of the military in their fight against the Boko Haram insurgency.

“But if the military conduct themselves in this way, then we have to consider them allies of Boko Haram. Because Boko Haram could have attacked to stop the governors going to campaign. Boko Haram does not believe in democracy. Boko Haram despises democracy.
“What happened in Ekiti was a violation of the constitution and those who are responsible should be exposed and where necessary punished,”
Mr. Soyinka added.
Source: Premium Times

Monday, May 12, 2014

Onyeka Onwenu reserves her comments on missing girls, calls out Wole Soyinka




Iconic singer Onyeka Onwenu, who is the current DG of National Centre for Women Development,  was a guest on Channels TV Sunrise programme this morning Monday May 12th where she spoke about the missing Chibok girls. She expressed her reservations about the case and also called out Professor Wole Soyinka for referring to the First Lady as 'that woman' in the interview he had with CNN's Christiane Amanpour. 
What am saying is that, is it at this time we have to vilify the person of the First Lady who did the right thing by inviting these people? A lot of that has gone on and I take offense at this even as a woman. When I hear someone like Wole Soyinka referring to her on CNN as that woman, something in me boils because there is a lack of respect for women. This has happened not just with this first lady but with every single first lady and perhaps its when they have passed away or when they've left office that we suddenly realize the contributions that they've made and these women work very hard and care and love this country so it really offends me to see her vilified and I was at those meetings and at no point did she say Oh I don't believe the girls were taken." Ms Onwenu said.

Monday, April 14, 2014

Prof. Wole Soyinka seeks non-partisan approach to B’Haram war



Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has said that Nigeria need to seek non partisan approach towards solving the problem posed by the Boko Haram sect to the country.
Soyinka said this in Osogbo on Monday at colloquium organised by the Centre forBlack Culture and International Understanding entitled 
“Fundamental Imperatives of Cohabitation Faith and Secularism.”
Soyinka, who is the Chairman of CBCIU said that the killings by the sect transcended  partisan politics saying every Nigerian irrespective of religious or political leaning must rise up against it.
He described the  incessant killings by the  sect as nothing but a war with the nation.
He said, 
“What is happening now goes beyond politics. I think there should be a non partisan approach  to it. Enough atrocities have been committed, programmed structured atrocities with a goal in view.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Reply to Sadiq Abacha'Open letter to Prof. - on behalf of Wole Soyinka by Ayo Sogunro




Sadiq Sani Abacha gets the first reply to his open letter to Prof. Wole Soyinka from writer/activist, Ayo Sogunro. Read below and tell us what you think...
I do not know you personally, but I admire your filial bravery - however misguided - in defending the honour of your father, the late General Sani Abacha. This in itself is not a problem; it is an obligation—in this cultural construct of ours - for children to rise to the defence of their parents, no matter what infamy or perfidy the said parent might have dabbled in. 

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Nigerians Led By Prof. Wole Soyinka Honor Mandela In Lagos.



Nigerians from all hikes of life pay excellent tributes to late South-African anti-apartheid symbol, Nelson Mandela. The event which took place at the Freedom Park in Lagos was hosted by Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka. Several authors, poets, activists and neighborhood and spiritual leaders sang tracks, poetry and engages in dance shows at the event.

Friday, December 13, 2013

Photo News: Nigerians Led By Wole Soyinka Honor Mandela In Lagos



 See more after the break.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Prof. Wole Solyinka Speaks on National Conference



"When you have a national conference, are you sending it back to the legislatures, whose very structure you are resolved to destroy? So, how can the legislators be the ones to decide the modalities, the validity and the results of the deliberations? It’s not rational. In principle, I am for a National Conference, but my time, our time, on it, should not be wasted if the results are going to be sent to the National Assembly. What I believe in, about the structure of governance in this country is that it’s one that eliminates, absolutely destroys the present forms of legislative governance. So, for me, they should be part...the legislators should be represented in the National Conference, but they cannot be the deciding voice. Otherwise, lets all go home and forget all about it." ~ Prof. Wole Soyinka.

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