Two weeks after about 15 members of the House of
Representatives scaled the fence of the National Assembly complex in
Abuja to gain access into their chambers after they were stopped by
police officers, Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, has criticised the
Nigerian media for continuously describing the move as ‘show of shame’.
Speaking at a press conference in Lagos on Tuesday, Soyinka said that the phrase ought to be reserved for Suleiman Abba, the Inspector General of Police, for allowing his men to ridicule the lawmakers.
“Legislators are not elected for their athletic prowess, and such endeavours should not be demanded of them,” said Soyinka.
He added: “There are even presidents and prime ministers who were elected despite physical handicaps. The brain is where it matters, the vision and commitment to service.” Continue after the cut....
Soyinka said that by scaling the National Assembly gate, the legislators were made to perform over and beyond the call of the Olympics.
“I don’t understand why some media have described their action as a show of shame – this is a very careless, easily misapplied designation. The act of scaling gates and walls to fulfill their duty to the people must be set down as their finest hour. They must be applauded, not derided.
“If shame belongs anywhere, it belongs to the Inspector General of Police and his slavish adherence to conspiratorial, illegal, and unconstitutional instructions – to undermine a democratic structure, and one – to make matters worse – convoked in response to an emergency of dire public concern.”
On the menace of the Boko Haram terrorist group and its danger to Nigeria’s corporate existence, Soyinka said: “The cliché ‘heating up the polity’ may grate the ear-drums with its banality but I think that we have a right to demand of a leader not to stoke up the furnace in which events have cast its citizens. Every day records a new violation of our humanity.
The atrocious targeting of the great mosque of Kano has rendered any lingering doubt of impending national imposition an invitation for collective suicide, preferably through piecemeal dismemberment.
“The theories of cause and effect can wait, or continue – it does not matter – the omniscient in such matters continue to pontificate, some of them blithely forgetting that they indeed contributed to policies that landed us in this brutal cleft.”
Soyinka also said that President Jonathan’s recent visit to the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, underlined his total alienation from the reality that has engulfed the nation.
“Yes, political campaigns are part and parcel of the bloodline of the democratic process. We know that they never stop,” he said.
“However, that a national leader should go campaigning on the platform of ethnic support at a time when priorities dictate a united national engagement for survival, is a grotesque undertaking that was tragically rebuked in the massacre of worshippers and desecration of the Kano mosques.
Long before Nyanya, long before Chibok, long before the mildest of the now innumerable violations of our basic right to existing as free citizens, the march of a nation towards implosion has dominated the landscape, but an obsession with the pettiness of power has obscured remedial vision and thus, the creative options constantly open to any prescient leadership.”
It would be recalled that the Nobel laureate had announced at a press conference in Abeokuta last week that he had been diagnosed of cancer in December 2013, adding that the “nuisance” had been disrupting his normal existence.
Speaking at a press conference in Lagos on Tuesday, Soyinka said that the phrase ought to be reserved for Suleiman Abba, the Inspector General of Police, for allowing his men to ridicule the lawmakers.
“Legislators are not elected for their athletic prowess, and such endeavours should not be demanded of them,” said Soyinka.
He added: “There are even presidents and prime ministers who were elected despite physical handicaps. The brain is where it matters, the vision and commitment to service.” Continue after the cut....
Soyinka said that by scaling the National Assembly gate, the legislators were made to perform over and beyond the call of the Olympics.
“I don’t understand why some media have described their action as a show of shame – this is a very careless, easily misapplied designation. The act of scaling gates and walls to fulfill their duty to the people must be set down as their finest hour. They must be applauded, not derided.
“If shame belongs anywhere, it belongs to the Inspector General of Police and his slavish adherence to conspiratorial, illegal, and unconstitutional instructions – to undermine a democratic structure, and one – to make matters worse – convoked in response to an emergency of dire public concern.”
On the menace of the Boko Haram terrorist group and its danger to Nigeria’s corporate existence, Soyinka said: “The cliché ‘heating up the polity’ may grate the ear-drums with its banality but I think that we have a right to demand of a leader not to stoke up the furnace in which events have cast its citizens. Every day records a new violation of our humanity.
The atrocious targeting of the great mosque of Kano has rendered any lingering doubt of impending national imposition an invitation for collective suicide, preferably through piecemeal dismemberment.
“The theories of cause and effect can wait, or continue – it does not matter – the omniscient in such matters continue to pontificate, some of them blithely forgetting that they indeed contributed to policies that landed us in this brutal cleft.”
Soyinka also said that President Jonathan’s recent visit to the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, underlined his total alienation from the reality that has engulfed the nation.
“Yes, political campaigns are part and parcel of the bloodline of the democratic process. We know that they never stop,” he said.
“However, that a national leader should go campaigning on the platform of ethnic support at a time when priorities dictate a united national engagement for survival, is a grotesque undertaking that was tragically rebuked in the massacre of worshippers and desecration of the Kano mosques.
Long before Nyanya, long before Chibok, long before the mildest of the now innumerable violations of our basic right to existing as free citizens, the march of a nation towards implosion has dominated the landscape, but an obsession with the pettiness of power has obscured remedial vision and thus, the creative options constantly open to any prescient leadership.”
It would be recalled that the Nobel laureate had announced at a press conference in Abeokuta last week that he had been diagnosed of cancer in December 2013, adding that the “nuisance” had been disrupting his normal existence.
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