Written by Adamu Adamu.

Professor Wole Soyinka, who appears totally ignorant of the most burning issue in international current affairs, betrays an unacceptable level of illiteracy on a related issue at home. On the issue of culpability for the origin of Boko Haram, Mahmud Jega says of Soyinka that he thinks he knows; Sam Nda-Isaiah says he doesn’t, and is hopelessly dead wrong; Mohammed Haruna says he only peddles pure rubbish. All the three are right, but the truth really is that he doesn’t even understand—and probably never will.

This is because the tunnel vision with which he sees the country has been conditioned by three factors—an unfounded cultural superiority complex, a hubristic pagan worldview and an experience in which he saw the man died.

The issue of Boko Haram merely gave him another opportunity to take on his imagined old adversary—the Northern Establishment, which he now holds responsible for the creation of Boko Haram. This is simplistic and laughable; but it saves this unready analyst the trouble of having to know the background to the situation, engage in serious analysis of the issues involved, draw the necessary conclusions and find a way forward for society.

Certainly, a knowledge of the varieties of groups on the Islamic revival scene, which no one on the international scene should today be without, the fact that Boko Haram predated the Jonathan administration, and is confined to a corner of the country that is held by one of the opposition parties, and is opposed to all constituted authority including that to be wielded by the Northern leaders that were supposed to have founded it, would make Soyinka’s simplistic explanation all too obvious—and it might have been made to draw attention away from suspected US involvement.

No doubt, Soyinka suffers from tribal hubris of which he needs to be cured. Going by the themes of his literary output, he seems to believe that his race is the greatest and the most cultured—and therefore, by implication, his pronouncements must be the best and the final word the world is waiting for.

But what is this Yoruba culture in which people like Soyinka take so much pride? No doubt, his people love their language and love singing in it; they love their bodies and love waltzing them into a variety of dance forms. They love their lives and are always impulsively proud to say that they love the culture that has come to define the way they see themselves and view others.

However, what Soyinka holds aloft is not culture: it is paganism; though it must be admitted that it is quite elaborate. But the possession of a pagan past is no accomplishment; it is a fact of history and every tribe has had one; and after the advent of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, there is nothing more to glory in animistic heathenism: it is there at the centre and origin of every type of primitiveness. The issue therefore should not be the promotion of the pagan culture of a distant past, but the cultivation of culturedness in present conduct.

The proof and relevance of culture should be in its attitudinal pudding, measured by its practical moral utility in setting the standard of what is acceptable in human conduct; and not in the elaborateness of ancient idolatrous rituals.

For us, it represented the sub-humanness of our primordial cultural history; and we are not proud of it, and nor are we any more captivated by its elaborateness or by the depth of meaning and the symbolism of its meta-paganism. Of course that is not to say that cultural mores are without meaning. Not at all. They may often in fact be too pregnant with a variety of meanings capable of interpretations; but their import is for a world that is past and gone—and better forgotten.

Man’s cultural and social development have today passed the ignorance and obscurantism that paganism has to offer and the superficialities of the animus of those whose antipathy to divine values today finds expression in the cultivation and promotion of this new international pagan culture.

But there is no superiority in paganism: there was nothing in Yoruba native forest theology that was more diabolical than the heathenism of the Savannah, where, in the Benue valley, there is magic that is blacker than Sanponno; and in Niger valley, a Satanism that is darker than Esu’s; and among the Maguzawa there are totems that, though benign, are no less occultist.

The rituals of Tsumburbura were every inch as complex and elaborate as the possessed incantations of Ogun or the thunders of Sango, and no less diabolical. The Satanology of Santolo would beat every mumbo jumbo of Ifa Orisa divinations. The rites of Mai Barhaza would any day be more picturesque than the dance of the Egungun masquerade; and Babule and Dan Galadima more demonic than Ogboni totemism, and of women just as chauvinistic.

In lasciviousness and pure voluptuary the Gelede Festival pales in comparison to the Dala Dance of unclothedness. In number, in hideousness of Satanism and in the comprehensiveness of misguidance Obatala’s 4,000-odd Orisas would prove no match for the fetishism and atheistic devilry of the numberless Iskoki of pre-Islamic Bahaushe. Or of the pre-Christian Tiv man, for instance. But all these are facts of which no one is today proud, or on account of which cultural superiority is assumed over others.

Perhaps Soyinka’s—and Nigeria’s—problem lies in the fact that the Nobel Laureate considers himself an intellectual whose word the world looks forward to. And he is not. True intellectualism is not the mere fact of having been to school or teaching in one. It is all about being conscious, sensitive and aware of the circumstance and of one’s role in it and one’s readiness to sacrifice and suffer to make it better.

You are either born an intellectual or you are not: it is an attitude that cannot be learnt; because education and experience only help to refine and sharpen an already existing predisposition—being analytical, being objective and being truly concerned. While some intellectuals choose only to expose a bad situation, others, in addition, fight to change it; and of these, those that succeed are those unencumbered by prejudice of the kind that Soyinka has always exhibited.

It is not a quality that the receipt of an international prize—not even a Nobel—can confer on one; and a literary career based solely on the exploration of themes in Yoruba paganism is insufficient a social platform for someone like Soyinka, who is really not fully intellectualised, to articulate usefully on any of the many contentious national issues. That is why Soyinka is never known to have offered a solution that works; or that, when looked at closely, makes any sense. Of issues even within their areas of primary interest, they have no real knowledge—only fancy and conjecture and an overarching desire to belong to the cultural metropolis from which they unconsciously take their cue in spite of all the parroting of authentic Ogun-ness.

Nigeria has changed from the closed society of 1964, but those unable to see, or are averse to seeing, healthy change in the nation have decided to cling to the uncreative fiction of the Wetie. And the fact that he is not understood—in his literature and in his analyses—and is therefore not generally effective shouldn’t mean that he doesn’t belong to that distinguished class of tribal jingoists and sectional propagandists; because even if his analysis is not clear—and is probably not even an analysis—his objective is always only too obvious, not least because, as far as the North is concerned, what he bandies about as analysis of its condition and role has remained unchanging over all these years.

Three decades and someone has still not grown culturally or developed intellectually; and what a coincidence that Boko Haram also originated in Bo-ro-no State! Someone like him who has chosen the narrowness of a pagan worldview and eschewed the universalism of divine guidance or even that offered by objective secular multiculturalism will never taste the sweetness of true intellectualism. With a mind fixated on hatred and all muddled up with an incurable anti-Northern animus, it has become permanently set and is now a part of character, but too superficial and too ossified to be of any intellectual use.

In our situation, it is not those who do not know who are lost, it is those who do not want to learn who are; and all those pretentiously bookish creatures whose knowledge is only from books are in reality ignorant even of them. Of this and of Boko Haram, he doesn’t really understand—and probably never will.


[Last week, I inadvertently referred to His Excellency Ambassador Moshe Ram of Israel as Moshe Arens. The error is regretted.www.dailytrust.com

However, what Soyinka holds aloft is not culture: it is paganism; though it must be admitted that it is quite elaborate. But the possession of a pagan past is no accomplishment; it is a fact of history and every tribe has had one; and after the advent of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, there is nothing more to glory in animistic heathenism: it is there at the centre and origin of every type of primitiveness. The issue therefore should not be the promotion of the pagan culture of a distant past, but the cultivation of culturedness in present conduct.

Why is it that we never find brain-dead Islamic or Christian fundies like this offering the same critique of Shintoism, an animist religion, which for good or bad remains the preference in one of the most advanced countries in the world? Why is it that one never finds them directing the same level of opprobrium at Hinduism which is practiced by over 80% of the population in Indian?

Well, I suppose the truth is; after assuming human form, stupidity knows its own limits.

The best northern columnist better than muhd haruna an mahmud jega imo

^^^
Best columnist or rather an ideologue with undisguised BH sympathies?

Even the person who attempted to bomb the police headquarters in Maiduguri and was shot dead certainly didn’t fit the average Boko Haram adherent profile: what with Tommy Hilfiger boxers, doubly-folded pencil-denims and Yankee T-shirt, as against the expected stereotypical dan Itori tiri-kwata trousers, simple jampa and a cap and a rosary to match.

Source: Apathy of a Boko-sceptic

Do BH Governors also wear dan Itori tiri-kwata trousers and simple jampa?
And how does your 'best columnist' reconcile his depiction of a BH adherent with Kabiru, who is said to hold a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics/Chemistry?

Ddaji:

However, what Soyinka holds aloft is not culture: it is paganism; though it must be admitted that it is quite elaborate. But the possession of a pagan past is no accomplishment; it is a fact of history and every tribe has had one; and after the advent of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, there is nothing more to glory in animistic heathenism: it is there at the centre and origin of every type of primitiveness. The issue therefore should not be the promotion of the pagan culture of a distant past, but the cultivation of culturedness in present conduct.
[Last week, I inadvertently referred to His Excellency Ambassador Moshe Ram of Israel as Moshe Arens. The error is regretted.www.dailytrust.com

Isn't it paradoxical that the man who accused the Laureate of simplistic thought by the same token denied millions of Nigerians their FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHT- the right to be a proud pagan and does this not confirm W.S assertions?

All this dogon turenchi from Northerners like this fellow Adamu and Sanusi about religion and "intellectual development" yet Gombe couldn't produce more than 17 candidates for university admission out of a group of 18,000 that took qualification exams. Maybe they were too busy relying on "divine guidance"? And it was also found that government officials had stolen millions of dollars meant specifically to improve education in the state. Maybe they were "divinely guided" to loot their state like mad.

Judaism and its offshoots are full of ritual and "pagan-like" mystical "obscurantism", but the author of this article is too daft to even know that. When he figures out why all those Muslims, every year, perform that ritual in which they gather around an inanimate object that they claim Abraham or somebody important touched, maybe then he'll realize what a fool he is. What is "animist" or "pagan" if not the belief that a stone is imbued with some spiritual importance because somebody said to be holy touched it or used it? And these same Muslims that travel miles to gather around a black rock in the desert will look down upon the few remaining Maguzawa and other pagan Hausa as "stone worshipers". I dey laff!


Soyinka = Nobel laureate

Adamu Adamu = A man with two first names, no achievements, and no insight to offer

Why are they attacking Soyinka?.Boko haram is virtually threatening their communities and livelihood but all they have been doing is to writie all sorts of nonsense about Soyinka.
You people had better stop seeing Bh issue as a Nigerian one,NO! it's not,right now it remains a Northern issue(NW,NE) and i am very sure any attack outside these areas and some part of NC like Niger.,Nasarawa states will be seriously resisted.I was shocked to me bone that after Bh killed more than 200 people in Kano the only response Kano leaders had was a prayer session,flipping hell-like! .North easterners/westerners need to take up the challenge now while the Nigerian structure is still in existence cos they will be in a huge mess if bh succeeds in tearing this country apart(i pity people like Sam nda Isaiah)

The president we have right now has been showing separatist inclination and no sign of  seriousness about tackling Boko haram.You lot better stand up to protect your communities and leave Soyinka and his Yoruba culture alone.

Ufeolorun:

Why are they attacking Soyinka?.Boko haram is virtually threatening their communities and livelihood but all they have been doing is to writie all sorts of nonsense about Soyinka.
You people had better stop seeing Bh issue as a Nigerian one,NO! it's not,right now it remains a Northern issue(NW,NE) and i am very sure any attack outside these areas and some part of NC like Niger.,Nasarawa states will be seriously resisted.I was shocked to me bone that after Bh killed more than 200 people in Kano the only response Kano leaders had was a prayer session,flipping hell-like! .North easterners/westerners need to take up the challenge now while the Nigerian structure is still in existence cos they will be in a huge mess if bh succeeds in tearing this country apart(i pity people like Sam nda Isaiah)

The president we have right now has been showing separatist inclination and no sign of  seriousness about tackling Boko haram.You lot better stand up to protect your communities and leave Soyinka and his Yoruba culture alone.

The irony is startling indeed. You would think their attention would be more on the destruction of boko haram for the survival of their people, but No! They are after Soyinka instead.

Wole Soyinka has come out to boldly state the obvious and the result has been a two pronged attack; boko haram marking him for elimination, as well as a cortery of twopenny, severely bush "intellectuals" dreaming that they can malign his esteemed name. Anyone looking with a dispassionate eye at the level of energy behind the assaults on Soyinka, would conclude two things; one, that they are sponsored and two that Soyinka has hit a nerve very close to home.

The attacks on Soyinka have come in thick, fast and with unusual frenzy. How many news articles in the past few days alone?

The nerve Soyinka hit is the image of boko haram in the US. How do I know? Soyinka's address was to the foreign press and in recent weeks, there has been a pitched battle against the US officially listing boko haram as a terrorist group. That battle has been waged by certain interests (lets call them core-Northern elite), shady groups with the money and werewithal to lobby the US congress. They are savvy enough to know that the weight the voice of a Nobel Laureate carries (on any issue) is of galactic proportions.

It is easy to conclude that we are witnessing tricks that are all matching to the same script and strategy, all written and directed by the core-Northern elite. The threats to Soyinka's life by boko haram and the rolling out of war drums against the man by intellectual wimps are all one and the same thing; two sides of the same coin.

Beaf,

How is it that on Soyinka you can connect so many disparate dots together and exhibit them as a contingent family but when it comes to politics and Gej's Presidency you are lost and often buried in the cloud of multitude arrowheads, all issuing from the same bow of strike and eliminate effort to capsize his boat? Who do you work for. . . or perhaps, I should ask, what do you understand?

. . . . .oh, may I add, what a rascal!

Negro_Ntns:

Beaf,

How is it that on Soyinka you can connect so many disparate dots together and exhibit them as a contingent family but when it comes to politics and Gej's Presidency you are lost and often buried in the cloud of multitude arrowheads, all issuing from the same bow of strike and eliminate effort to capsize his boat?  Who do you work for. . . or perhaps, I should ask, what do you understand?   

You've always been a lost, incoherent fool with the intellect of a cockroach.
Please stop seeking my notice.

Is that the best you have for response? Creek dummy! Gej should fire your a s s if indeed you work for him. Are you a Nigerian? I have my doubts about your nationality. Nigerians are not this dumb.

PhysicsQED:

All this dogon turenchi from Northerners like this fellow Adamu and Sanusi about religion and "intellectual development" yet Gombe couldn't produce more than 17 candidates for university admission out of a group of 18,000 that took qualification exams. Maybe they were too busy relying on "divine guidance"? And it was also found that government officials had stolen millions of dollars) meant specifically to improve education in the state. Maybe they were "divinely guided" to loot their state like mad.

Judaism and its offshoots are full of ritual and "pagan-like" mystical "obscurantism", but the author of this article is too daft to even know that. When he figures out why all those Muslims, every year, perform that ritual in which they gather around an inanimate object that they claim Abraham or somebody important touched, maybe then he'll realize what a fool he is. What is "animist" or "pagan" if not the belief that a stone is imbued with some spiritual importance because somebody said to be holy touched it or used it? And these same Muslims that travel miles to gather around a black rock in the desert will look down upon the few remaining Maguzawa and other pagan Hausa as "stone worshipers". I dey laff!


Soyinka = Nobel laureate

Adamu Adamu = A man with two first names, no achievements, and no insight to offer

That stuff in bold is funny.

Anyway, I'm glad some folks can see through the sudden rush to criticize Soyinka.

At least if Soyinka did not achieve anything with his recent thoughtful rhetoric on this issue, he has succeeded in forcing more so-called northern muslim intellectuals out of their self-imposed shell, their conspiracy of noisy silence.

I admire those who spoke out before now, I'm glad more northern voices are joining the conversation. Time to stop sleeping while your house burn.

PhysicsQED:

All this dogon turenchi from Northerners like this fellow Adamu and Sanusi about religion and "intellectual development" yet Gombe couldn't produce more than 17 candidates for university admission out of a group of 18,000 that took qualification [b]exams. Maybe they were too busy relying on "divine guidance"? And it was also found that government officials had stolen millions of dollars meant specifically to improve education in the state. Maybe they were "divinely guided" to loot their state like mad.

Judaism and its offshoots are full of ritual and "pagan-like" mystical "obscurantism", but the author of this article is too daft to even know that. When he figures out why all those Muslims, every year, perform that ritual in which they gather around an inanimate object that they claim Abraham or somebody important touched, maybe then he'll realize what a fool he is. What is "animist" or "pagan" if not the belief that a stone is imbued with some spiritual importance because somebody said to be holy touched it or used it? And these same Muslims that travel miles to gather around a black rock in the desert will look down upon the few remaining Maguzawa and other pagan Hausa as "stone worshipers". I dey laff!


Soyinka = Nobel laureate[/b]

Adamu Adamu = A man with two first names, no achievements, and no insight to offer

I'm sorry I have to quote this again.

The Adamu Adamu guy is an idiota, all of what he wrote might have impressed his core readers, but, people who can understand and discern will know that he was just writing dongo turenchi without any meaning, his problem is not Soyinka, his problem is the Yorubas, maybe he sees the Yorubas as a stumbling block to his group's domination of Nigerian politics or as the people responsible for GEJ (he should direct his gaze somewhere else). The most peaceful people today are still the pagans, they are abused by both christians and muslims, yet, they keep to themselves, they do not practise their religion openly because of criticism and have not fought any war in order to forcefully convert anybody, the daily trust should look for better columnists.
@Physics
Do not include Sanusi in your criticism, inasmuch as Sanusi does write about tribes, you can at least see some sense in what he writes even if you do not agree with him, the one he wrote where he carpeted the Yoruba elites was on point, his mistake was to think all Yorubas were like that, also, he grew up mostly in Lagos so, he will always be scathing about the ills of the Yorubas, it is like a christian becoming atheist, he will attack christianity more.

Adamu Adamu- another loose canon+ boko haramist.

PhysicsQED:

All this dogon turenchi from Northerners like this fellow Adamu and Sanusi about religion and "intellectual development" yet Gombe couldn't produce more than 17 candidates for university admission out of a group of 18,000 that took qualification exams. Maybe they were too busy relying on "divine guidance"? And it was also found that government officials had stolen millions of dollars meant specifically to improve education in the state. Maybe they were "divinely guided" to loot their state like mad.

Judaism and its offshoots are full of ritual and "pagan-like" mystical "obscurantism", but the author of this article is too daft to even know that. When he figures out why all those Muslims, every year, perform that ritual in which they gather around an inanimate object that they claim Abraham or somebody important touched, maybe then he'll realize what a fool he is. What is "animist" or "pagan" if not the belief that a stone is imbued with some spiritual importance because somebody said to be holy touched it or used it? And these same Muslims that travel miles to gather around a black rock in the desert will look down upon the few remaining Maguzawa and other pagan Hausa as "stone worshipers". I dey laff!


Soyinka = Nobel laureate

Adamu Adamu = A man with two first names, no achievements, and no insight to offer

+1000

Beaf:

The irony is startling indeed. You would think their attention would be more on the destruction of boko haram for the survival of their people, but No! They are after Soyinka instead.

Wole Soyinka has come out to boldly state the obvious and the result has been a two pronged attack; boko haram marking him for elimination, as well as a cortery of twopenny, severely bush "intellectuals" dreaming that they can malign his esteemed name. Anyone looking with a dispassionate eye at the level of energy behind the assaults on Soyinka, would conclude two things; one, that they are sponsored and two that Soyinka has hit a nerve very close to home.

The attacks on Soyinka have come in thick, fast and with unusual frenzy. How many news articles in the past few days alone?

The nerve Soyinka hit is the image of boko haram in the US. How do I know? Soyinka's address was to the foreign press and in recent weeks, there has been a pitched battle against the US officially listing boko haram as a terrorist group. That battle has been waged by certain interests (lets call them core-Northern elite), shady groups with the money and werewithal to lobby the US congress. They are savvy enough to know that the weight the voice of a Nobel Laureate carries (on any issue) is of galactic proportions.

It is easy to conclude that we are witnessing tricks that are all matching to the same script and strategy, all written and directed by the core-Northern elite. The threats to Soyinka's life by boko haram and the rolling out of war drums against the man by intellectual wimps are all one and the same thing; two sides of the same coin.

+1000

Adamu Adamu

Erudition  and oratory  = +1000
sophistry = phenomenal
Message  = -1000