I am always impressed and intrigued by the enduring freshness, timeless bonds and transformative essence of any literacy work that carries the Wole Soyinka brand. His prison memoirs, The Man Died, is one such masterpiece.
I had a bit of catch-up to do with some of my old classmates in Nigeria and abroad the other day and we wandered into our theatre and comparative literature experiences which we were taken through by no less a person than pedagogic protégée, Professor Hope Eghagha.
In recalling our days at the Ilokun-Iraba, Ado-Ekiti campus of the old Ondo State University, now University of Ado-Ekiti (UNAD) we talked about the complex stream of words often employed by the distinguished literary icon Professor Wole Soyinka.
It has always been my belief that it is essential to have an understanding of the person before attempting to deconstruct the quintessential wordsmith that Soyinka has always being.
I have never sat in Soyinka’s class, but I have had encounters with him in the course of practicing as a journalist.
When he made his first re-entry into Nigeria, after the maniac Sani-Abacha junta which sought Soyinka’s life had melted from the scene of political power, I was one of the journalists who met, covered and interviewed him at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Wuse, Abuja.
The forum which the Nobel Laureate attended was the Professor Gana – led Centre for Good Governance and Democracy. We are not talking of Professor Jerry Gana, the good-mannered former Information Minister, but the other Professor Gana from the University of Jos.
My impression of Wole Soyinka in the course of a 24-hour remains indelible. Some of us who were genuinely struck by his larger than life personality tried to selfishly keep him. We were having endless photo session with him, imperishable memorabilia.
Soyinka, at the interaction we had with him on that day, appears to me to be a man that cannot be daunted by negative and cruel treatments. He could both be jovial but firm, for example, he appreciated the fact that people wanted his picture, but he knew as well that they could keep him from others who wanted the same opportunity.
Above all, the man was not in any way bitter that people like Abiola Ogundoku, late Abidina Coomasie and others made fortunes, collecting millions in had currencies from Abacha, to denigrate and malign him. Yet he firmly believed in justice.
I cannot pretend, and I do hope to pretend, to be an expert on W.S. just because of a less then eight hours encounter, but have read him in his works, words and deeds long enough to say that he is an authentic global hero.
Soyinka’s detention/war time memoir, The Man Died heavily lays on my heart to warn fellow Nigerians the danger of allowing history to repeat itself in harsh way.
Although Soyinka’s work does not entirely restrict itself to the plight of a certain journalist, Mr. Sofoluwe, who had reported on the inconsiderate profligacy and unrestrained lavishness of the Mobolaji Johnson era as the Military Governor of Lagos State, right in the middle of the Nigerian civil war, yet the epic work was solely inspired its title.
Sofoluwe was flogged and beaten sore, with no intervention or voice of caution for simply doing his job as a news reporter Soyinka wrote in the introduction to The Man Died that he continued to follow the saga of Sofoluwe even in the dungeon where he was held for simply campaigning for a stop to the blood letting that was the civil war.
And eventually W.S. got words that Sofoluwe died as a result of the inhuman treatment received from Brigadier General Mobolaji Johnson and his agents. The fact that so many people could not speak out against the crime of torturing a defenseless journalist to death meant that the mad died in so many in that season. The bigger picture, I am sure, that Soyinka was conveying was how the man died “in all who kept silent in the face of tyranny and oppression.”
Sadly, it looks like those of us who carry the Nigerian DNA often find it difficult to make a change of directions. The same 1968 attitude and approach is what we still employ today in dealing with the need for constructive engagement with all class of professionals.
This is 2009, but it has all the footmarks of 1968 Nigeria. I love the country, and I am very serious about that feeling. It is a genuine feeling. I do not want to see the country as a nation of walking corpses: most distressing for me is the striking parallel between the two epochs (1968 and 2009) in Nigeria.
How else do we characterize the present travesty being committed by the Nigerian Police and the powerful Mr. Samuel Pemu-Amuka the Publisher of Vanguard Newspaper against the investigative reporter, Mr. Steve Ogwu-Chinuwa.
Nobody accuses Mr. Amuka of any crime. But in mobilizing his strong connections to quash the
Allegation of ritual murder being leveled against his wife, Mrs. Oyindamola Amuka, looks to me to be an indecent obstruction of justice.
And no one should jump to the misleading impressions that Mrs. Amuka is guilty or innocent of anything. Only a court of competent jurisdiction can prove things either way just that I find it terrible that the Nigerian assumes too much. One, that the rich and mighty cannot commit a demeaning crime of ritual killing such as being alleged against Oyindamola Amuka.
Two, the Nigerian system also assumes that the innocent and in this case, the accuser, can swop place with an accused without consequence. Otherwise, why is Mr. Ogwu-Chinuwa, being treated as if it is a crime to report individuals caught in the act of alleged crime?
The Nigerian Police do not usually measure up to average when it comes to representing decency and the sanctity of the rule of law. The Nigerian Police is not also disturbed that it has a disgraceful image when it comes to solving cold cases, disappearances and contract killings. It has not perfected the art of stopping a crime in process either. This is what Ogwu-Chinuwa did by stumbling on a crime and calling the Nigerian Police, an establishment that is now demonstrating that justice is for sale and that it always goes to the rich.
Nigeria cannot be the country of walking corpses. But why is no one living to the promises of liberty and true democracy, the one promised by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Vice President Jonathan Goodluck that there would be constitutionality and the rule of law?
I am still unable to see any evidence of that, or else someone would have raised a voice that Ogwu-Chinuwa cannot be treated inhumanely for exposing an alleged crime.
The ordinary citizens of Nigeria cannot be blamed. Much of the guilt and the shame for Steve’s plight should be borne by members of the media, who saw and heard what happened to a poor 14-years old boy in Ikorodu, a destiny truncated alleged for mundane things and yet did not allow their ink to pour. Have things degenerated so badly? Would late Mr. Dele Giwa, May Ellen Ezekiel and other fallen heroes of this noble profession allow this story to go unreported all in the name of extending dubious hand of solidarity to Mr. Amuka?
Is this the kind of spell that years of persecution, assassinations and brutality have now foisted on all of us?
We must refuse to die before our time; we must determine to uphold our professional creed and ethics of non-bias and objectivity that is what Amuka opted for in taking on the late Bolarinwa Abioro when he was allegedly unjustly removed as the Editor-in-Chief of Punch newspaper. Because Amuka got justice, the Vanguard was born. Nobody is asking for partiality, just that Amuka must stand aside and allow justice to be done, he should present his run-away wife, Oyindamola, to tell the world what she was doing with head of the decapitated unknown fourteen-year-old.
You know what; it is when the man dies in each of us that we would simply shirk in demanding justice and equal treatment in the eyes of the law. There must be mutual respect. The violation of Steve Ogwu-Chinuwa is the violation of every Nigerian.
Last Saturday, Mr. Steve Ogwu-Chinuwa, the journalist who allegedly caught Mrs. Amuka and co beheading an hypnotized young man, was arrested and detained at the Igbogbo Police Station in Ikorodu, Lagos. He was rough-handled and paraded in handcuffs like a common felon for reporting murder. The piece of his home and neighborhood as he was being led away was shattered. Late Saturday evening, he was moved to the Police Headquarters at Ikeja, Lagos. The Police has refused him bail, saying the order for his arrest came from higher quarters. In advanced democracy, Mr. Ogwu-Chinuwa would be accorded the treatment of a hero for uncovering and reporting a heinous crime. He and his family would have been accorded protection for life. Nigeria is not exactly, a land of the savage, but strange things can happen to people who act on good intentions. Please spare a thought and prayer for Steve and his family and pray that a day would come in Nigeria when just and peace shall reign.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });