IT is natural for his latest statement to be trailed with anger, mockery and teases – mockery of the writer by those who may not be happy with the opinion, and teasing of the targeted subjects by their rivals. This is evident from the comments below which were extracted from social media:
Chinwe Duruaku-Agu twitted that “God created the Obidient Movement to expose the hidden evil in Nigeria, unfortunately Soyinka is one of the evils. It is now obvious that all through his life, he has fought for Yoruba supremacy and not the good and unity of Nigeria, unlike Obasanjo”.
“Considering the fact that social critics have described the membership and followership of the two major political parties in Nigeria as being purely composed of Psychosocially Deprived People (PDP) and All Psychopathic Criminals (APC) – people of like-minds – Soyinka feels bad about the fact that the Obidients have no such pure composition, as it has become rather a composition of people of different motives and ideologies.”
Charley Boy also twitted that, “The kin respect I had for dis man, was almost the kind of respect I had for my stainless father, The Socrates of the Supreme Court. It has finally dawned on me that Soyinka can never be the man Chinua Achebe was”. To this, KemKem replies; “Boy Charly stick with taking naked pictures & hugging dustbins, Prof Wole Soyinka is way above your pay grade.”
HOUR ✍🏾CITYBOY. 🇳🇬 also says: “We are YORUBA, we are wise, smart and we love our leaders, y’all just hating and envy. Respect us and we are political smarter than you. Be ready to wail till 2031. Envy people with hatred heart”.
Those were some of the malicious comments that the recent outburst by the Nobel Laureate generated.
“I think the Obidients and their rivals should retreat their malicious attacks on one another and on Soyinka. I still want to say emphatically that, the Nobel Laureate might have used antithesis to mean more than what we read, which is typical with proficient literary icons.”
In whichever end it may come from, I think both the Obidients and their teasers might be demonstrating their literary naiveté. As a researcher and reader in the literary field, I have read Soyinka’s texts enough to understand his proficiency in the manipulation of innuendoes, typical of a mother who would pour invective words meant for a rival on her child. It may be directed at the Obidients, but the target was occlusive – that is, the Nobel Laureate laureated his statement with innuendo. Please, be my guest for a short while, as I explain analytically with few examples from what he wrote.
“Fascism on Course,” he says, and, to me, this is rather antithetical to corroborate the opinion by many writers that APC’s leadership “has slided Nigeria into a state of authoritarian fascism”. The Nobel Laureate had to heap it on the Obidients, the sloppy ground on which waters flow, since, as he puts, “a climate of fear is being generated” by Nigerian leaders who never “entertain corrective criticism”. The Obidients couldn’t be this regarded. It was clearly an address to the Nigerian leaders, but, like the type of mothers alluded to earlier, the literary giant used poetic license effectively to address them indirectly. Now the real targets are celebrating what, ordinarily, would make them start a malignant war with him.
Second, Soyinka only expressed his disappointment with the composition of the membership, not with the ideology of the Obidient Movement, when he said that “‘Obidients’ is one of the most repulsive, off-putting concoctions”. Considering the fact that social critics have described the membership and followership of the two major political parties in Nigeria as being purely composed of Psychosocially Deprived People (PDP) and All Psychopathic Criminals (APC) – people of like-minds – Soyinka feels bad about the fact that the Obidients have no such pure composition, as it has become rather a composition of people of different motives and ideologies.
The Obidients are not one, unlike the PDP and APC members and followers that are said to be “psychosocially deprived and psychopathically criminal in nature, and have united in one faith against the poor citizens. Unfortunately, there are ‘Yahoo boys’ who claim to be Obidients and are using the platform to promote their ruses; there are boys of Obi’s haters who are claiming Obidients, but are just there to tarnish the name of the Obidient Movement; and there are idle or jobless youths who joined the Movement in search of selfish opportunities. Hence, the Obidient Movement’s membership and followership are ‘concocted’ and, therefore, ‘repulsive’ and ‘off-putting’ in this sense, unlike the APC’s and PDP’s that are birds of a feather. I have some time ago loathed and expressed dissatisfaction to friends about the Obidients make up too.
I think the Obidients and their rivals should retreat their malicious attacks on one another and on Soyinka. I still want to say emphatically that, the Nobel Laureate might have used antithesis to mean more than what we read, which is typical with proficient literary icons. Though the Obidients have the prerogative to be angry for being used as the subject while targeting the ruling class, however, they should understand with an old critic who is now afraid to speak against the ruling class openly because they won’t “entertain corrective criticism”. He had to lean on ‘Obidients’ to shoot at them. Those that have ears let them hear.
Even if we doubt me, recall that he also addressed so many issues, not only the Obidients’, like the supreme chief judge who disguised in a wheelchair to visit Tinubu, and also the sanction of Channel TV for allowing Datti to come on it and speak. He also writes: “Project NIGERIA, I must confess, has become near terminally soul-searing. Do I still believe in it? I am no longer certain”. He can’t be serious to say that it is the Obidients that have made him not to believe in the project NIGERIA anymore. It is the wicked and disgracing attitudes of the ruling class that have made most Nigerians not to believe in the project Nigeria any longer. Therefore, all he wrote was an indirect address to the hijackers of Nigeria and, its resources and institutions, not the Obidients. He knows that the ‘Obidients’, in its pure sense, is on a just cause.
Anyway, I don’t, however, question the possibility of him been giving some dollars as some are alleging, since integrity is an illusion here in Nigeria, or been threatened, but what I am pointing at is the fact that the words of literary exponents are usually overloaded with meanings and innuendoes that shouldn’t be judged by the surface.
Olohy, a social critic, writes from Nasarawa State.
