By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor
NOBEL laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, yesterday, gave a rebuttal to
former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s latest book, My Watch describing it
as a narrative by a career liar always determined to crookedly project
himself above his true standing among men.
Affirming his general detestation of such men, Soyinka said the
Obasanjo brand was compounded by the inclination of even foisting the
lies on members of the younger generation.
Obasanjo had in his book flayed Soyinka as a self serving critic who
he said always sought to shine out among men claiming that the Nobel
Laureate is a “misfit as a political analyst, commentator or critic.”
He had written “For Wole, no one can be good, nor can anything be
spot-on politically except that which emanates from him or is ordained
by him.”
Continuing his assessment of Soyinka, Obasanjo had said: “He is
surely a better wine connoisseur and a more successful “aparo” (guinea
fowl) hunter than a political critic, not to talk of what he would do as
a politician,” adding “I take him seriously on almost all issues except
on the political particularly Nigerian politics.”
Soyinka’s treatise
Replying, yesterday, in a treatise, titled Watch and Pray, Watch and
Prey, Soyinka said: “I had fully attuned myself to the fact that our Owu
retiree soldier and prolific author is an infliction that those of us
who share the same era and nation space must learn to endure. However,
it does appear that there is no end to this individual’s capacity for
infantile mischief, and for needless, mind-boggling provocations, such
as his recent ‘literary’ intrusion on my peace.
Perhaps I ought to interrupt myself here with an apology to some
mutual acquaintances – ‘blessed peacemakers’ and all – especially in
this season of ‘peace and goodwill to all men’. Please know that your
efforts have not been entirely in vain. I had a cordial exchange with
Obasanjo over the phone recently – engineered by himself, his ground
staff and/or a chance visitor – when I had cause to visit his
Presidential Laundromat for the first time ever. During that exchange, I
complemented him on making some quite positive use of landed property
that was acquired under morally dubious circumstances, and blatantly
developed through a process that I denounced as ‘executive
extortionism’. That obscene proceeding has certainly set a competitive
precedent for impunity in President Jonathan’s recent fund-raising
shindig, editorialized in The Punch (December 23, 2014) as “Impunity
Taken too Far”. So much for the latest from that direction – we mustn’t
allow Handing-Over notes between presidents to distract us for too long.
Creative conversion
To return to our main man, and friendly interventionists, you may
like to note that I went so far as to engage him in light banter,
stating that some of his lesser sins would be forgiven him for that
creative conversion of the landscape – a conversation that he shortly
afterwards delightedly shared with at least three mutual acquaintances. I
promised a follow-up visit to view some mysterious rock script whose
existence, he informed me, was uncovered by workers during ground
clearing. The exchange was, in short, as good as ‘malice towards none’
that any polemicist could hope to contribute to the ongoing season of
peace and goodwill. Obviously that visit will not now take place, any
more than the pursuit of vague notions of some creative collaboration
with his Centre that began to play around my mind.
That much I do owe you from my report card. Perhaps you will now
accept that there are individuals who are born incorrigible but, more
importantly, that some issues transcend one’s personal preferences for
harmonious human relationships even in a season of traditional good
will. The change in weather conditions sits quite well with me, however,
since we are both acquainted with the Yoruba proverb that goes: the
child that swears his mother will not sleep must also prepare for a
prolonged, sleepless infancy. So let it be with Okikiola, the overgrown
child of circumstance.
One of the incessant ironies that leapt up at me as I read Obasanjo’s
magnum opus was that we are both victims of a number of distasteful
impositions – such as being compelled again and again to seek justice
against libel in the law courts. I felt genuine empathy to read that he
still has a pending thirty-year case instituted by him against his
alleged libelers! Judgment was delivered in my favour regarding one of
the most nauseating only this year, after surviving technical and other
procrastinations, defendant evasions and other legalistic impediments
for nearly as long as his.
Resurrection ritual language
That leaves only a veritable Methuselah on the court list still
awaiting re-listing under the resurrection ritual language known as de
novo. Unfortunately, not all acts of defamation or willful
misrepresentation are actionable, otherwise, my personal list against
this newly revealed fellow-sufferer would have counted for an
independent volume of the Nigerian Law Report since our paths first
crossed during the Civil War. My commitment to the belief in the
fundamental right of all human beings not to be lied against remains a
life obsession, and thus demands, at the very least, an obligation of
non-commission among fellow victims.
I must, therefore, reserve 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. So, for now, let me single out just one of the most glaring
instances of this man’s compulsive career of lying, one sample that the
media can readily check upon and use as a touchstone – if they do need
one – in assessing our author’s multifaceted claims and commentaries on
people and events. I refer here to the grotesque and personally
insulting statement that he has attributed to me for some inscrutable
but obviously diversionary reasons. In the process, this past Master of
Mendacity brazenly implicates an innocent young man, Akin Osuntokun, who
once served him as a Special Adviser. Instead of conferring dignity on a
direct rebuttal of an ignoble fabrication, I shall simply make a
personal, all-embracing attestation:
I despise that species of humanity whose stock-in-trade is to concoct
lies simply to score a point, win an argument, puff up his or her own
ego, denigrate or attempt to destroy a fellow being. However, even
within such deplorable species, a special pit of universal opprobrium is
surely reserved for those who even lack the courage of their own lies,
but must foist them on others.
Twilight disgrace
When an old man stuffs a lie into the throat of an age-mate of his
own children – omo inu e! – we can only pity an irredeemable egomaniac
whose dotage is headed for twilight disgrace.
D.O. Fagunwa, the pioneer Yoruba novelist, was a compulsive moralist.
I suspect that he may have exerted some influence on our garrulous
general, resulting in his pupil’s tedious, misapplied and self-serving
deluge of moralizing. It seems quite likely indeed that the ghostly,
moralistic hand of Fagunwa reached out from the Great Beyond, sat his
would-be competitor forcefully before a mirror and bade him write what
he saw in that image. I invoke Fagunwa because, at his commemorative
colloquium in Akure in August last year, I drew my audience’s attention
to a remarkable passage in Fagunwa’s Igbo Olodumare. The passage had
struck me during translation and stuck to my mind. I found it uncanny
that the original creative moralist, Fagunwa, had captured the
psychological profile of a being whom I have been compelled by
circumstances to study as an eerie creation, yet this was a character
Fagunwa was unlikely to have encountered in real life at the time that
he produced that work.
The section comes from an account of a visit to the abode of Iku,
Death, the terrifying host to Olowo-aiye, the narrative voice of the
adventure. Iku, the host, had been admonishing his guests through the
histories of seven creatures who were not permitted a straightforward
passage to Heaven or Hell, but were subjected to admonitory punishment
at the halfway house to the abode of the dead. The most horrendous
tortures were reserved, it would seem, for the last of the seven such
‘detainees’, and I invited my audience to ponder if they could identify
any prominent individual, a public figure whose life conduct seamlessly
fitted into Fagunwa’s portrayal, which went thus:
“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.
Creature that worked in darkness
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.”
My co-occupants of the High Table, in side remarks, and those who
came up from the audience afterwards to volunteer their answer to the
riddle, without exception named one individual and one individual only,
even as I remained non-committal. Indeed, one or two tried to put up a
defence of that nominee, and I had to remind them that I had named no
one! Fagunwa wrote largely of the world of mongrelized creatures but, as
I remarked, his fiction remains a prescient and cautionary mirror of
the society we inhabit, where beasts of the forest appear to have a
greater moral integrity than those who claim to be leading lights of
society.
Season of goodwill
In this season of goodwill, we owe a duty to our immediate and
distant neighbours: CAVEAT EMPTOR! Let all beware, who try to buy a
Rolex from this indefatigable watch peddler. His own hand-crafted,
uniquely personalized timepiece has been temporarily confiscated by
NDLEA and other guardians of public health but, there is no cause for
despair. Such has been the fate of the misunderstood and the envied,
avatars descended from the heavens before their time, the seers, and all
who crave recognition. Our author invokes God tirelessly, without
provocation, without necessity and without justification, perhaps
preemptively, but does he really believe in such an entity? Does our
home-bred Double-O-Seven believe in anything outside his own
Omnipotency? Could he possibly have mistaken the Christian exhortation –
‘Watch and Pray’ for his private inclination to “Watch and Prey?
This is 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? So, let our Great Immortal, the
Unparalleled Achiever, Divinely appointed Watchman even on the world
that is yet to come remember Fagunwa’s Iku, the ultimate predator whose
visitation comes to us all, sooner or later.
Chei! There is Death o!
