Professor Wole Soyinka On The Video Mocking A Presidential Candidate

[Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM]

"In addition, let me make the following cultural affirmation. I have listened to the lyrics of the chant intently and I am frankly appalled. I find it distasteful. I belong to a culture where we do not mock physical afflictions or disabilities. Very much the contrary. The Yoruba religion indeed designate a deity, Obatala, as the divine protector of the afflicted, no matter the nature of such affliction. This sensibility is engrained in us from childhood and remains with us all our lives. It operates on the principle of mortal frailty to which all humanity remains vulnerable.

One of my favourite authors, about whom, by coincidence, I had cause to write quite recently, was CLR James, author of The Black Jacobins, Beyond A Boundary etc. I called him my ideological uncle. He suffered from Parkinson’s Disease, but remained alert, lucid and combative for decades after the onset of the disease.

We interacted politically at the Tanzanian pan-African Congress, the Dakar Festival of Negro Arts, and a number of other cultural and political fora. We met frequently in his lifetime, dined together in restaurants, despite his challenge. It would be unthinkable, and a desecration of his memory to be part of any activity that mocked his affliction.”-Wole Soyinka(on Punchng.com reacting to a video clip, purportedly by members of "Pirates Confraternity" mocking a Presidential candidate).

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Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, IIM Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Founder/Publisher of, www.publicinformationprojects.org)

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Wow.

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

ive just watched the video.

im paradoxically delighted by it.

how did Pyrates muster that level of consensus against Tinubu?

paradoxical delight because i see with Soyinka about mocking a person through a health problem they are suffering from.

at the same time, though all humans fall ill,  Tinubu's horse trading kind of politics is bothersome.

the same man declaring he was central to ethroning the current disaster of Buhari and insisting he must get payback for that.

i identify with Tinubu in crying out against moves, orchestrated in relation to the Presidency by the APC chairman, to sideline him in the race for the APC Presidential ticket, leading to his ''emiloklan cry'' ''its my turn'', followed by determined lobbying, leading to powerful contenders stepping down for him, though his protege, the Vice President, did not step down and was defeated by Tinubu.

the ''emilokan'' slogan has now become, for some, a cry of self empowerment and self affirmation, and for others, a cry of negative entitlement and desperation. 

there is a massive billboard visible from the third mainland bridge as one enters victoria island from lagos mainland on which those words, with tinubu's picture in a heroic image,are emblazoned.

tinubu is clearly a remarkable, and perhaps a great politician. 

he is legendary for his role in the NADECO anti-Abacha dictatorship struggle, as the ''last man standing'', the only governor who kept his place as the SW was swept by the opposition party, as a governor who sustained his state through developing and judiciuosly using novel revenue generating techniques when the state was being starved of fed govt revenue by the OBJ govt, if i have these accounts correct and a central architect of the refurbishment and eventual Presidential victory of Buhari, something that could not have happended without the APC's massive, clever and relentless campaign machinery, aided by the wounds inflicted on the GEJ regime by  Boko Haram terrorism and the disenchanment of Nigerians.

the problem with Tinubu, however, as a policeman who supports him against Peter Obi stated, is that Tinubu pursues his ambitions without measuring the consequences.

he was central to Buhari's refurbishment and victory, even though he had earlier publicly decried Buhari's deep negativities, even as Buhari was clearly a Boko Haram sympathiser going by Buhari's own public utterances.

he has now chosen another Boko Haram implicated figure, Kassim Shettima, as his running mate.

if Tinubu wins the Presidency, he will be the first SW civilian- excluding ex general OBJ- to have got so far in Nigerian history through the electoral process-excluding Shonekan's interim govt, an achievement even the great Obafemi Awolowo could not reach.

but what is Tinubu's vision and what are the chances he can deliver a better nigeria?

thanks

toyin

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[Dr. Oohay]

In HIGH-stake politics, no INNOCENT protagonists or antagonists.

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