Soyinka Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, offered President
Olusegun Obasanjo an unusual Christmas gift Wednesday
by way of a 1,788-word biting response to claims Mr.
Obasanjo made in his new and controversial three-volume
memoir, My Watch.
Mr. Soyinka mockingly described the old general as “our
Great Immortal, the Unparalleled Achiever, Divinely
appointed Watchman”.
“Okikiola, [Mr Obasanjo’s middle name] the overgrown
child of circumstance,” was how Mr Soyinka called out at
the former president whom he characterises as an
individual with “capacity for infantile mischief, and for
needless, mind-boggling provocations, such as his recent
‘literary’ intrusion…”
Defining Mr. Obasanjo’s many public interventions as a
“compulsive career of lying” and the former soldier as a
“Master of Mendacity,” Mr. Soyinka promised a “full,
frontal dissection of Obasanjo’s My Watch for later, most
especially since the work itself is currently under legal
restraint and is not readily accessible to a general
readership.”
However, he described Mr. Obasanjo as “a seasoned
predator on others’ achievements – he preys on their
names, their characters, their motivations, their true lives,
preys on gossip and preys on facts, preys on contributions
to collective undertakings…even preys on their identities,
substituting his own where possible. Well, hopefully he
may actually believe in the inevitable End to all vanities?”
The two elder citizens have a long history of squabbles and
public disagreements, but in his current comments, Mr.
Soyinka is part-sarcastic, part-playful, but still broad-
sweeping, from the personal to the policy ramifications of
Mr. Obasanjo’s life story.
He derisively described Mr. Obasanjo’s pet possession, the
Presidential library at Abeokuta, as a “Presidential
Laundromat,” pointing to the circumstances of the land
acquisition as “morally dubious” and suggesting that it
was “blatantly developed through a process that I
denounced as ‘executive extortionism’.”
The fund-raising event for the library drew intense public
smack at the time, and now Mr. Soyinka likens it to the
recent fund raising for Mr. Jonathan’s presidential election.
“That obscene proceeding has certainly set a competitive
precedent for impunity in President Jonathan’s recent
fund-raising shindig,” Mr. Soyinka said, jeering at the
relationship of the two presidents.
Mr. Soyinka was at his most scathing humour when he
drew presumed parallels between Mr. Obasanjo, whom he
calls “our Owu retiree soldier and prolific author,” and an
admonitory fictional character in Fagunwa’s famous
Yoruba novel, Igbo Olodumare : “The seventh…. is not
among those who set out to improve the world but rather
to cause distress to its inhabitants. It was through
manipulations that he attained a high position.
“Having achieved this however, he constantly blocked the
progress of those behind him, this being a most deplorable
act in the eyes of God, and rank behaviour in the
judgment of the dwellers of heaven – that anyone who has
enjoyed upliftment in life should seek to be an obstacle for
those who follow him.
“This man forgot the beings of earth, forgot the beings of
heaven, in turn, he forgot the presence of God. The worst
kind of behaviour agitated his hands – greed occupied the
centre of his heart, and he was a creature that walked in
darkness. This man wallowed in bribery, he was chairman
of the circle of scheming, head of the gang of double-
dealing, field-marshal of those who crept about in the dark
of night.
“With his mouth, he ruined the work of others, while he
used a big potsherd to cover the good works of some, that
others might not see their attainments. He nosed around
for secrets that would entrap his companions, and blew
them up into monumental crimes in the eyes of the world.
He who turns the world upside down, places the deceitful
on the throne, casts the truthful down – because such is a
being of base earth, he will never stand as equal among
the uplifted.”
“Chei! There is Death o!” Mr. Soyinka concludes his
response, in biting reference to the First Lady’s famous
dramatic torment in the wake of the abduction of 219
Chibok schoolgirls.

http://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/173763-obasanjo-seasoned-predator-infantile-career-liar-soyinka.html

Franchise21:
Soyinka Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, offered President
Olusegun Obasanjo an unusual Christmas gift Wednesday
by way of a 1,788-word biting response to claims Mr.
Obasanjo made in his new and controversial three-volume
memoir, My Watch.
Mr. Soyinka mockingly described the old general as “our
Great Immortal, the Unparalleled Achiever, Divinely
appointed Watchman”.
“Okikiola, [Mr Obasanjo’s middle name] the overgrown
child of circumstance,” was how Mr Soyinka called out at
the former president whom he characterises as an
individual with “capacity for infantile mischief, and for
needless, mind-boggling provocations, such as his recent
‘literary’ intrusion…”
Defining Mr. Obasanjo’s many public interventions as a
“compulsive career of lying” and the former soldier as a
“Master of Mendacity,” Mr. Soyinka promised a “full,
frontal dissection of Obasanjo’s My Watch for later, most
especially since the work itself is currently under legal
restraint and is not readily accessible to a general
readership.”
However, he described Mr. Obasanjo as “a seasoned
predator on others’ achievements – he preys on their
names, their characters, their motivations, their true lives,
preys on gossip and preys on facts, preys on contributions
to collective undertakings…even preys on their identities,
substituting his own where possible. Well, hopefully he
may actually believe in the inevitable End to all vanities?”
The two elder citizens have a long history of squabbles and
public disagreements, but in his current comments, Mr.
Soyinka is part-sarcastic, part-playful, but still broad-
sweeping, from the personal to the policy ramifications of
Mr. Obasanjo’s life story.
He derisively described Mr. Obasanjo’s pet possession, the
Presidential library at Abeokuta, as a “Presidential
Laundromat,” pointing to the circumstances of the land
acquisition as “morally dubious” and suggesting that it
was “blatantly developed through a process that I
denounced as ‘executive extortionism’.”
The fund-raising event for the library drew intense public
smack at the time, and now Mr. Soyinka likens it to the
recent fund raising for Mr. Jonathan’s presidential election.
“That obscene proceeding has certainly set a competitive
precedent for impunity in President Jonathan’s recent
fund-raising shindig,” Mr. Soyinka said, jeering at the
relationship of the two presidents.
Mr. Soyinka was at his most scathing humour when he
drew presumed parallels between Mr. Obasanjo, whom he
calls “our Owu retiree soldier and prolific author,” and an
admonitory fictional character in Fagunwa’s famous
Yoruba novel, Igbo Olodumare : “The seventh…. is not
among those who set out to improve the world but rather
to cause distress to its inhabitants. It was through
manipulations that he attained a high position.
“Having achieved this however, he constantly blocked the
progress of those behind him, this being a most deplorable
act in the eyes of God, and rank behaviour in the
judgment of the dwellers of heaven – that anyone who has
enjoyed upliftment in life should seek to be an obstacle for
those who follow him.
“This man forgot the beings of earth, forgot the beings of
heaven, in turn, he forgot the presence of God. The worst
kind of behaviour agitated his hands – greed occupied the
centre of his heart, and he was a creature that walked in
darkness. This man wallowed in bribery, he was chairman
of the circle of scheming, head of the gang of double-
dealing, field-marshal of those who crept about in the dark
of night.
“With his mouth, he ruined the work of others, while he
used a big potsherd to cover the good works of some, that
others might not see their attainments. He nosed around
for secrets that would entrap his companions, and blew
them up into monumental crimes in the eyes of the world.
He who turns the world upside down, places the deceitful
on the throne, casts the truthful down – because such is a
being of base earth, he will never stand as equal among
the uplifted.”
“Chei! There is Death o!” Mr. Soyinka concludes his
response, in biting reference to the First Lady’s famous
dramatic torment in the wake of the abduction of 219
Chibok schoolgirls.

http://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/173763-obasanjo-seasoned-predator-infantile-career-liar-soyinka.html

soyinka na wow oh no merry christmas from u abi u no dey celebrate am?

davo90tico:
soyinka na wow oh no merry christmas from u abi u no dey celebrate am?

Lolz