#BBB NEWS| Wole Soyinka Completes Scholar Residency At New York University

Renowned Nigerian playwright and Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka finished a Scholar-in-Residence at New York University in the United States this week. NYU’s Institute of African American Affairs hosted Mr. Soyinka as for a series of discussions between October 3rd and October 7th on Negritudism and Afropolitianism. (pictured above) Wole Soyinka, Scholar-in-Residence at NYU

Awam Amkpa, Professor of Drama and Africana Studies at NYU, and a former student of Mr. Soyinka in Nigeria, introduced and guided the scholar throughout the week and moderated some sessions.

Mr. Soyinka’s main lecture, “Negritude By Any Other Name”, emphasized the role African intellectuals and their voices in the need to address continental challenges like terrorism, migration, religious absolutism and their consequences. He also addressed how artists can be a conduit to solve these issues.

The following day, Tuesday October 4th, saw Mr. Soyinka participate in an imagined dialogue between his work and the late Senegalese intellectual Leopold Seder Senghor on the application of Negritude ideas. The conversation, through a film directed by Manthia Diawara, was followed up on a Q&A session between Mr. Soyinka, Mr. Diawara, and eminent historian of Africa at NYU Frederick Cooper.

#BBB NEWS| To Everything, Its Place By Wole Soyinka

The issue, I understand, is the flaunting of religious markers in public educational institutions. Let me begin by confessing that I envy the French to whom those choices have only been recently thrust to the fore – they have always been with us in Nigeria. I also envy those to whom the issues are straightforward, and permit of dogmatic positions.

In normal circumstances, perhaps I would agree that it should be a non-issue. It is tempting to simplify the debate by evoking the nature of club membership - a public school has certain rules, and if you wish to be a member, or make use of its facilities, then you must conform to those rules or seek alternatives elsewhere.

However, the world we inhabit has changed vastly and dramatically over the past few decades, and club rules – like race or sex differentiated membership rules - are no longer sacrosanct. In addition, the genie is out of the bottle and the beasts of intolerance, suspicion and polarization stalk the streets. Dialogue is mostly relegated to the status of a poor relation of terror and intimidation, barely tolerated, often mocked. Conscious of the fact that the present dialogue is being conducted within such an atmosphere, it may be helpful if I began with a reference to my personal response when a directly contrary policy was announced in my own country, Nigeria,  and not just recently. It happened about twenty years ago, long before the introduction of the Sharia – the Islamic law – in a number of states within the country.

#BBB NEWS| The Weapon Of Mass Obstruction By Wole Soyinka

It is time to call a spade a spade or, in this instance, name the Nigerian media camera a weapon of mass obstruction. What used to be mere occasional infraction, soon corrected, is fast becoming a Bill of Rights – for a minuscule sector of the professional community. We are galloping towards an order of social fascism of which - it must also be stressed - that same society is the prime facilitator of its doom.

There are times when tolerance becomes acceptance, then tacit and even overt encouragement. Otherwise, why does it take so long to make the media photographer understand that he or she has no fundamental viewing right that overrides those of the lowest member of any gathering, anywhere and under any circumstance. Let us not beat around the bush – mobsters have taken over community, armed with nothing more lethal than the camera and a monstrous will to capture and monopolize space that belongs to the totality.

The media camera has become a pest, an aggressive voyeur. Its wielders imagine that they own the world and its contents, that they have a divinely endowed right over the rights of all others, be they paying audience, invited guests, families, participating others, and indeed – most insolent of all – even the event initiators and rightful proprietors.

#BBB NEWS| Between Olumo And Aso – Reminiscences from OGUN At 40 By Wole Soyinka

“Why?” demanded my  argumentative friend, “ is it always you people? “ Why do you make so much trouble? Always Ogun, Ogun, Ogun! – are you the only state in the nation?” And he proceeded to reel off a number of names of notorious “trouble-makers”, dead and living, pin-pointing their birthplaces in Ogun State.” It was a teasing, rhetorical question, no answer expected. If one had been required, I would have volunteered, as a birthday present to Ogun:  Ise ab’ojumu. Sometimes Iwa ab’ojumu.

A pursuit (or character) of what is right. Just conduct. The people of Osun articulate something close -  Omoluwabi.  Both, and a number of allied formulations, hover around that basic foundation of all humane pursuits – Justice.  Perhaps we are simply more vocal, more persistent about it.

The precedent body of this mixed birthday offering is contained in a lecture that I first delivered nearly a decade ago, in Abeokuta.  I shall resort to that lecture once or twice for purposes of invoking a comparative ‘state of the state’ – then and now - but only in the context of governance characterization that enables us to grasp the essence of ab’ojumu, not to make any invidious assessments.

#BBB NEWS| EFCC’s Magu Meets Soyinka, Says Funds Looted From Nigeria In The Last Five Years Enough To Service 3 Annual Budgets [PHOTOS]

Ibrahim Magu, the Chairman of The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) met with yesterday with Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka and disclosed that funds looted by Nigerian public officials were enough to finance three years of the country’s budget.

Mr. Magu made the revelation during an informal meeting in Ikeja, Lagos State with Mr. Soyinka, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize for literature.

Mr. Magu used the occasion of the meeting to discuss his plans for a renewed clampdown on corrupt officials in Nigeria.Earlier at the meeting, Mr. Soyinka bantered with the EFCC chairman, at one point wishing him “good luck, but not that other one.” Mr. Magu was accompanied by some of his aides.

#BBB NEWS| Amaechi Denies Spending N82m On Dinner Party For Soyinka, Asks Wike To Go To Court

Former Rivers state governor Rotimi Amaechi has denied claims by the Rivers state government that he spent N82 million to host Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka to a dinner in the state when he was in office.

The state Commissioner for information had in a statement released on Tuesday alleged that the former governor spent the said amount to organize an 80th birthday dinner party ‎for Soyinka.

In a statement released by his media aide David Iyofor, Amaechi denied the allegation, asking the state governor Nyesom Wike to go to court if he found anything incriminating against him.

He said this recent allegation was an attempt by the state governor to distract the Rivers state indigene from focusing on his election fraud.

#BBB NEWS| ‘Saddened But Indifferent,’ Wole Soyinka Answers Rivers State Government

Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka has reiterated his warning that when confronted, corruption does fight back.

In a brief statement issued this evening, headed ‘Those Who Flounder In The Sewage of Corruption,”, he acknowledged the unflattering comments of the Rivers State government about the 80th birthday dinner to which he was hosted by the former governor and now Minister of Aviation, Honorable Rotimi Amechi. 

Speaking to press correspondents on Tuesday, the Rivers Commissioner for Information and Communication, Dr. Austin Tam-George, accused Mr. Amaechi’s government of spending N82 million on the event. 

“A government that did not pay salaries, closed the courts, but the administration had the courage to expend N82million to fund a dinner for Prof Wole Soyinka,” he had said. “These are facts on ground. The Amaechi administration expended the money under the heading of borrowed funds.”

#BBB NEWS| Nigeria Wouldn’t Have Survived If Ex-President Jonathan Had Won 2015 Presidential Election – Soyinka

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, says he does not regret supporting President Muhammadu Buhari during the electioneering, adding that Nigeria would not have survived four more years of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s rule.

Soyinka added that the revelation of stolen loot such as the arms purchase fraud justified his position that Nigeria was being run aground by the last administration.

The Nobel laureate said this during a programme titled, ‘Channels Book Club’ on Channels Television on Tuesday.

The playwright confessed that he used to have a bad impression of Buhari who he once described as a “devil for whom in my calculation, no spoon existed long enough to justify the risk even of an impromptu snack.”

However, Soyinka said many of his trusted companions were able to convince him during the electioneering that Buhari had changed and that the highhandedness that characterised his military rule in the 1980s could not be repeated during a democratic rule.

#BBB NEWS| Wole Soyinka: A Sojourner Among Liars By Reuben Abati

Professor Wole Soyinka was quoted saying his latest book is the “nastiest” that he has written so far. InterInventions: Between Defective Memory and the Public Lie- A Personal Odyssey in The Republic of Liars (Ibadan: Bookcraft, 2015, 136pp) is quite close to being just that.

But who knows if an even nastier book may follow as Soyinka embarks on the task of exposing lies in our Republic as he has promised that InterInventions, a follow up to Interventions series (I-IV) will be dedicated solely to the dismantling of lies in the public space: malicious and non-malicious lies, lies told, lies magnified, lies fraudulent, murderous lies, accidental lies, uttered from depraved minds whose sole intention is to create burdens for their victims, malign, impugn and lower the other so they can be raised or their stomachs can be nourished at other’s expense.

This is nevertheless, a publication in which Professor Soyinka settles strictly personal scores, but this is no pamphleteering that he modestly alludes to, but a fine, extended essay in the distinguished tradition of that form. He is polemical, punchy and critical - without mercy or measure! There is no deceit, no pulling of punches, not much of deliberate concealment; it is Soyinka wielding a Bazooka in one hand, and a gilt-edged knife in the other, shooting down the hypocrisy and pretensions of representative figures in a Republic of Liars, where defective memory, an affliction worse than amnesia, but much closer to dementia, and psychosis, is standard fare. He deploys language dramatically and draws blood even if his mood remains charismatic and entertaining as he laughs at human folly, and the verminous antics of his named and shamed traducers.

#BBB NEWS| My New Book Will Draw Blood, Soyinka Vows [PHOTOS]

The book, he said, would be his “vengeance” against “unprovoked assault of public lies” directed against him.

The popular playwright and essayist spoke at the formal inauguration of The Wole Soyinka Foundation, a retreat haven for writers.

He described InterInventions as “the nastiest book” he has ever written.

The 130 – page work – InterInventions, Between Defective Memory and Public Lie, A Personal Odyssey in The Republic of Liars, was presented to the public at the June 12 Cultural Centre Kuto, Abeokuta by the Edo State governor, Adams Oshiohmole.

Soyinka said the book is “so truthful that it hurts” and recommended it to people who “feel vengeful” towards purveyors of public lies because of its expected therapeutic value.

#BBB NEWS| Olagunsoye Oyinlola Vs Osun: Unfinished Business In The CBCIU By Wole Soyinka

The resumption of hearing on the Oyinlola versus Osun case of wrongful dismissal strikes me as a compelling juncture at which to express my frustration and embarrassment at the persistence of sectors of the media in designating the situation as some kind of hustle for position between two individuals. This is painful reductionism.

In any case, I am left with no choice but to openly demand of the governor of Osun State the immediate and formal acceptance of my resignation letter from CBCIU chairmanship. In that resignation letter of July 14, 2015, my position was spelt out in part, as follows:

"I undertook this assignment on principle - quite apart from my sentimental attachment to the political constituency of my late friend, Bola Ige, assassinated by those very forces against which CBCIU must remain resolutely embattled. More relevant however is that I have always found it despicable conduct when an elected individual diverts the resources of the people over whom he presides to carving out for himself a sinecure. Self-service should not be read in the vocabulary of anyone fortunate enough to be called to serve his or her people."

#BBB NEWS| Prince Oyinlola In The Republic Of Liars By Wole Soyinka

How does one begin to slash through this thickening tissue of lies? Prince Oyinlola must be put to the strictest proof to substantiate several outrageous claims in his recent press statement.

Failing to do so within one week from today will result in his taking his well- earned place in company of the current inmates of THE REPUBLIC OF LIARS – next in my series of INTERVENTIONS, a public service series published by Bookcraft, due out in the next month. For now, I categorically deny the following:

A.  DENIALS:

1. That I, Wole Soyinka, at any time, opposed the creation of the CBCIU in Osun State in act or spirit. This is an allegation of mind-blowing impudence, since the very opposite constitutes the truth.

2. That I ever sought, by word or deed, or encouraged, supported, or even discussed the creation of CBCIU on any spot on this continent outside Osun State, Nigeria.

#BBB NEWS| Interview: My Take On Corruption – Wole Soyinka

Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, has said former President Goodluck Jonathan was caged by some powerful forces while in power and therefore was not aware of some of things going on around him.

In a damning assessment of Mr. Jonathan’s tenure, Mr. Soyinka said the former president, who left office in May following his defeat by the incumbent, President Muhammadu Buhari, in the March 28 presidential poll, did not know that the nation had been compromised so badly under him until he (Soyinka) brought some issues to his notice.

Mr. Soyinka, a professor, spoke in an interview with the current edition Zero Tolerance magazine, a publication of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

“Correct,” he affirmed when asked if the former president was caged. “There were forces around Jonathan, which he himself did not understand and that is why I stressed that you’ve got to choose your circles of advisers very carefully, when you are in charge. He was caged; things were going on that he did not know about.”

#BBB NEWS| Anyone Who Believes What I Am Alleged To Have Said About the Igbo Must Be A Moron, By Wole Soyinka

I have just read a statement attributed to me on something called The Cable, a news outlet, evidently one of the Internet infestations. My lecture at the Hutchins Centre, Harvard University, was video recorded. Anyone who believes what I am alleged to have said must be a moron – repeat, a moron.

It is demeaning, sickening and boring to have to deal with these cowards who cannot fight their own battles but must fasten their imbecilic pronouncements on others. Only the mentally retarded will credit this comment attributed to me regarding the Ndigbo voting pattern in the last elections.

#BBB NEWS| Nigeria At The Crossroads | Harvard Gazette

A Nobel laureate who has been called the conscience of Nigeria told a Harvard audience on Wednesday that ruthless Islamist religious fundamentalism is “the enemy of humanity.” (pictured above) Wole Soyinka speaking during a speech at Harvard Photo Credit: Harvard Gazette

“They do not want to reason — they kill,” said playwright and poet Wole Soyinka, urging vigorous international action against Islamist militant groups like Boko Haram, whose campaign of terror in northern Nigeria has included the kidnapping of thousands of women and girls.

“We’ve reached a state where there’s a party of life and a party of death,” he said, and those on the side of life must fight for their belief “as ruthlessly” as the foe they face.

Soyinka, a former political prisoner who became in 1986 the first black African to win the Nobel Prize in literature, spoke at the Barker Center in the wake of a historic vote in Nigeria. In a general election at the end of March, opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari, former military ruler of the country, prevailed over incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan by more than 2.7 million votes.

#BBB NEWS| Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka Headlines Remembrance For Abducted Chibok Girls [PHOTOS]

A year ago today, Islamist insurgents belonging to Boko Haram struck in Chibok, Borno State, abducting close to 300 schoolgirls who were taking their exams at the Chibok Girls Secondary School. To mark the anniversary of that tragic abduction, Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka today in Lagos led numerous marchers in a solemn event to remember the plight of the victims and to further mount pressure on the Federal Government to pursue the objective of rescuing the girls.

Women Arise, led by activist Joe Okei-Odumakin, organized today’s event. Tagged #Chibok1Year, the participants called on President Goodluck Jonathan to increase efforts to rescue the captives. The organizers also urged the incoming administration of President Muhammadu Buhari to help rescue the abducted schoolgirls should the incumbent government fail to do so.

The #Chibok1Year Lagos event was also attended by Pat Utomi, a professor of economics and one-time presidential contestant, Ganiyat Fawehinmi, wife of the late radical human rights lawyer and activist, Gani Fawehinmi, and Aisha Falode, a prominent broadcaster who recently lost her son in a mysterious incident in Dubai. Numerous musicians, artistes and activists also took part in the event.

#BBB NEWS| Presidential, N’Assembly Elections Vicious – Wole Soyinka

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has described the presidential and National Assembly elections as the most vicious, unprincipled, vulgar and violent he had ever witnessed.

Soyinka, in an interview with The Guardian UK on Sunday, was quoted as saying, “We’re talking about a very positive response by the public in terms of determination to register and vote but, you know, this has been one of the most vicious, unprincipled, vulgar and violent exercises I have ever witnessed.

“I just hope we won’t go down as being the incorrigible giant of Africa.”

According to Soyinka, the stakes appear to be so high that all scruples have been set aside and it’s very distressing to compare this election with that of 1993, which was one of the most orderly, civilised and resolute elections the country ever had.