Professor Wole Soyinka few hours ago took a swipe
at the Nigerian First Lady Patience Jonathan
over her proposed N4 Billion Mission House
budget allocation.
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Prof Wole Soyinka registered his outrage in the form
of a Valentine's Day message addressed to Dame
Patience Jonathan.
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Read Wole Soyinka's letter below
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A St. Valentine's Day Card on the Occasion of
Women's March Against Connubial Corruption.
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A Valentine Day Message should be brief, so I must
plead for understanding for this departure from the
norm. In any case, I deplore the slavish adoption of
foreign saints of whatever shade, color, or religious
persuasion. However, the coincidence of dates for
women's intervention in yet another egregious
conspiracy to drain the Nigerian treasury, mounted in
the name of a high-flying member of your gender,
strikes me as a call to break the mould and submit
myself to the call of Saint Valentine.
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A Yoruba proverb goes thus: Ti a ba ma a j'opolo, ka
je eyi to l'eyin. (If one must eat a toad, then go for an
egg-bloated one). If I must send a Valentine card for
the first time in my life, then let me do so on a grand
scale. I have therefore elected not to lend my
affection to any one individual, but the entire
bevy of First Ladies of the African continent –
and that includes First Male Spouses. What,
after all, is to stop these male consorts from
developing 'pet projects' and setting up
Missions? Even if they number no more than
one or two, there is a saying that goes: What
is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the
gander.
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A mind-boggling fiscal misappropriation – Four
Billion Naira, no less! – is being attempted in your
names – openly, in an attempt to institutionalize an
illegality through a debasement of the democratic
process. It is no longer secretive but in-your-face, and
damn public opinion! Your names have been invoked
as the ultimate beneficiaries, and thus, you are
vicariously implicated. In the name of St.
Valentine and the love I bear for you all,
please dissociate yourself from this display of
shameless avarice. I shall not go so far as to
ask you to denounce what you probably know
nothing about, but if you ever get to hear of it,
distance yourselves from the gross
impropriety. I implore you in the name of all
local equivalents of St. Valentine: continue to
serve humanity within and outside your
borders, but without self-interest. Assist this
nation in crushing the increasing acquisitive
impudence of individuals and institutions that
do not exist in our constitution, yet insist on
fattening on national resources.
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The enthronement of vulgar preening and
opportunistic consumption is complicating the battle
of a principled minority on critical social issues. It
gets in the way of sanitizing society, and has become
an expensive distraction. When you visit in your
personal and/or professional capacities, or as
consorts to your spouses, we would love to love you,
respect and honor you. It will be painful to watch you
dodging a rain of rotten eggs and tomatoes in place
of flower petals and bouquets.
We all know our leaders do things upside down in this country. We are used to their sins
u are the one that is saying it o...na u o
this man is an englishiologist