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Of Failed States and Tea-Bag Criticism

June 28, 2010

The saying goes that when your house – Nigeria in this instance – is on fire you do not go around chasing rats. Mr. Remi Oyeyemi’s attack on the person of Prof. Wole Soyinka is similar to that of the proverbial irresponsible rat chaser. “Attack” is the proper word to describe that unfortunate diatribe by Oyeyemi.

The saying goes that when your house – Nigeria in this instance – is on fire you do not go around chasing rats. Mr. Remi Oyeyemi’s attack on the person of Prof. Wole Soyinka is similar to that of the proverbial irresponsible rat chaser. “Attack” is the proper word to describe that unfortunate diatribe by Oyeyemi.

In his opener to this debate he carelessly throws up words like ‘integrity’, ‘truth’, ‘dignity,’ purporting that a chance meeting between Ibrahim B. Babangida (IBB) – the general who engineered the destruction of Nigeria as a state – and Soyinka amounts to an erosion of those qualities in the latter. Did Soyinka personally make an appointment with IBB?

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True, in his opening article, “Did Soyinka Drink Tea with IBB,” Oyeyemi proceeds with some caveats, ‘graciously’ allowing for the possibility of oversights, mistakes, human error and so on. But this is the underhand route he takes to prepare the grounds for his job as a political lickspittle, suggesting that the professor is guilty of compromising principles simply because he was active in the public sphere in which arena he has championed Nigeria’s cause since, at least, 1965 when Oyeyemi was probably in diapers. In this instance the professor is involved in his usual high-minded political activity, engaging the opposition as well as political friends. If Oyeyemi’s sense of history is atrophied, it is about time someone reminded him that Soyinka has always taking the high road, above pettiness, a sign of which is that he is open to uncompromised dialogue if occasion permits, just as he dialogued with this intemperate hack of a journalist and tea-bagger. We find an example in Soyinka’s intervention in Nigeria’s civil war, where he initiated a third force, that was neither Yoruba, ‘Nigerian’ nor ‘Biafran’ but merely a detribalised mediator and peacekeeper.

An impartial political disposition and courtesy towards adversaries is the gentlemanly principle pursued by all true progressive such as, for example, Obama, who rules in that country where Oyeyemi is in exile away from the many enemies he must have created for himself in Nigeria due to his intemperate poison pen and political carpet crossing. For example, since when did he transform into a progressive? Did he not work for Atiku in the past – vice working with vice? Since when is this ‘tea-bagging’ journalist-for-hire, who has praised Lamidi Adedibu’s brand of Amala politics, declared Olagunsoye Oyinlola as messiah, become the voice of progress and truth?

Civility has been the hallmark of any Soyinka intervention in the past in engaging opponents. Yes civility but with a firm opposition to such black sheep as an IBB. Courtesy and progressive deportment towards a political adversary as the professor hinted in his own response does not automatically suggest an affiliation with those who have reduced Nigeria to a laughing stock and a failed state. This disposition is a normal Yoruba social code even if ‘Oleyemi’ – sorry – Oyeyemi has chewed up his sense of Yoruba decency with a MacDonald’s Burger. Obviously civility is not part of Oleyemi’s code of journalistic conduct nor is it a tool of his political ambitions.  Yes, he clearly has political ambitions as the subtext of his misguided critique reflects. Hence the nickname, ‘Oleyemi’!

This is another political hitman and jobber in the classic Nigerian fashion preparing for his retirement benefits as prospective returnee from exile. The modus operandi is familiar: join a toothless political lobby organisation in the USA like a ‘Nigerian People’s Parliament in Diaspora,’ gauge the political mood on the ground in Nigeria, sniff the air to probe from what political kitchen the cooking smells better; then proceed to realign and juggle past friendships, enmities and insinuate yourself here and there. Get attention; make noise.  Through his predatory calculations those who ‘appear’ to be his enemies are good pawns in his ‘jenu-jeun’ game. I have abused IBB before so no one would think I am propositioning him now. And suddenly: Soyinka did you drink tea with IBB?! The professor has said he does not drink tea; he drinks wine. Everyone all over the world knows that. His British education stopped at tea taking.

The above is the subtext of Oleyemi’s unwarranted attack on a symbol of progress, integrity, honesty, vision, and selfless service – alongside Gani Fawehimi, Beko Ransome Kuti, Tai Solarin and others. People like Oleyemi are members of a political assassin squad to which Arthur Nzeribe before him belonged.  For what he is doing is good old character slaughter. This is not much different from what Arthur Nzeribe did to M.K.O. Abiola on behalf of IBB. Oleyemi has turned himself into an attack dog and internet tiger; he bites and tears and generally mauls before escaping with fangs reeking blood, hopping back on all fours to, hopefully, a juicy political bone when the dog handler gets into thieving office. If we remember well, Arthur Nzeribe protested that he never had anything to do with IBB. His Association for Better Nigeria or ‘Area Boys of Nigeria’ was just a dispassionate disinterested platform for, well – a ‘better’ Nigeria.

Oleyemi has tried to distance himself from IBB, effusively assuring the reading public that he has bitten IBB many times like a true Doberman. But the man doth protest too much. His caveats are just that – caviar!
In the presentation of his own credentials as Mr Patriotism, as ‘The Citizen,’ bellicose and belligerent as the character of that name in James Joyce’s Ulysses, Oleyemi lies by default, conveniently forgetting to give us the background to his own political jobbing in past corrupt governments.

Instead what he does is to quickly cover his Adedibu-Atiku-Oyinlola exposed ass by holding up how Soyinka worked for IBB and ‘took’ five million Naira. As if the five million were personal pocket money and not a fiduciary account towards the running of the Federal Road Safety Commission, which the professor managed so successfully that road accidents where almost non-existent during that tenure. Look at our roads now and the daily carnage on them. In Oleyemi’s journalistic ‘brown envelope’ mentality all money is potential bribe. That is his opportunistic understanding of budgetary arithmetic.

There is an anxiety in Oleyemi’s prose, which suggest he is eager to hide his soiled underpants and win us to his corrupt side of the fence. He loudly toots his citizenship, his goodness, probity, integrity, his past good works as seasoned (money-seasoned?) journalist – all of that in opposition to, of course, Soyinka who lacks all the good qualities of Saint Oleyemi! Yes, he is the saint even if he tries to foist that title upon Soyinka. It is a simple case of projection. This textual anxiety can be gleaned from his revision of history. Soyinka is not a progressive, he has something to hide vis-à-vis IBB, IBB was Soyinka’s boss, with whom the latter is now in collusion; Soyinka is trying to gag the press (i.e. Sahara Reporters) and manipulate the Nigerian press; Soyinka’s Pyrates Confraternity is a criminal organisation rather the original anti-fascist force it was on the Nigerian University campus. Oleyemi’s text and ‘con’-text is exposed – to the discerning reader – by that subtext (those caveats) which he liberally serves up to us his readers: well, Soyinka is an elder and a Yoruba man; as a Yoruba man myself, I respect my elders. But in the same breath Oleyemi pulls down his entire Yoruba ‘omoluabi’ upbringing and begins to behave like a true Area Boy of Nigeria in the fashion of Arthur Nzeribe. How many times does Oleyemi say, tongue-in-cheek, ‘our revered professor of English’?

 A true Adedibu thug borrowed out to an IBB gangster the irate journalist is infuriated he has been denied thuggish street credibility and might look harmless to his handlers: “me faceless, professor, ah, me faceless? Ma ku lo ni! I am somebody! Look at my CV. The likes of Oleyemi are predictable; these kinds of Nigerians are truly boring and nauseating. We know their ilk. The old, dirty and underhand, pull-him-down politics is at work. IBB goes out and makes false claims, name-dropping shamelessly like Paris Hilton: I met Soyinka; we drank tea! This tells us clearly he did not have that metaphorical proximity. Soyinka does not drink tea. And then the stage is set. The next move in this chess-game is for IBB to find a front – in an Oleyemi, who moves to cue: Soyinka did you drink tea? No, Oleyemi and IBB do not actually have to have spoken about it or met. Vermin like IBB and Oleyemi know each other due to an in-built parasite’s instinct; they identify only by surreptitious public nods, and automatically multiply in each other’s public vomits in which they are cultured – like vermin. Political cheques can be cashed in the future. Oleyemi’s articles are there as evidence of parasitical filiations. 

Spinning the truth for political capital and to fit the moment is an age-old 419 scam of Nigeria’s rotten political and journalistic class. ‘Soyinka is chief pirate, is IBB’s friend, he drank tea’ etc: lies and half-truths, de-contextualised and served up to the gullible. Nigerians are not as stupid as Oleyemi thinks. With each keyboard stroke he lacerates himself in permanent ways. The likes if IBB have moved Nigeria back into the dark ages. This is no time for a self-proclaimed patriot to be asking inane questions but for thinking up urgent solutions. If you carry an elephant on your head, you do not begin to seek an ant with your toes. Oleyemi’s halting prose is that of a tea-drinker; the setting is IBB’s chateau.


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