The signs multiply – from direct acts of impunity to the abuse of the uniformed forces through co-option, such as are being revealed through exposed recordings, shaming a nation through the complicity of both the elected, and the supposedly professional forces of law, order and public security. This is a new low in the life of this nation, and a grave portent for the future of democracy. It bodes ill even for the postponed elections. Is the postponement truly to ensure enfranchisement for the entire electorate? Or to fine-tune a new strategy for the absolute and total cooption of the uniformed services?
We insist that the presidential convoy must pass unmolested. We must also insist that a procession of the meanest citizens in this nation be allowed freedom of movement.
President Jonathan, it is not too late: LIFT THE SIEGE!
To Chinweizu, Chuks Iloegbunam, and their recent media interventions, the following brief response:
What a lot of blather over nothing, and all on account of erroneous media coverage! What has China to do with my address to school pupils at Freedom Park over their abducted colleagues. But first, please take note of your catastrophic error: I did not deliver a lecture to the school pupils! The article you referred to had nothing to do with them. It was written for the media and circulated to the media, so the umbrage over addressing children in adult language is totally misplaced.
Regarding the “60” reasons for not voting Jonathan, may I invite you to check the video recordings. My address was ex tempore, conversational, and tuned to what all would agree is their expected level of comprehension. In the process of that address, I turned to the Festival Secretary on the podium and asked, “How many school pupils are with us?” She answered, “Roughly sixty”. I then proceeded to announce: “these are already sixty reasons why I shall not vote Jonathan, all sixty of them.” The media, yet again, has let itself down very badly, and in the process sent Chuks Iloegbulam and company barking frenziedly up the wrong tree. Chinese economic gamesmanship and political agenda for Africa are of general interest to us, but I never cited these as any of the “sixty” reasons for my electoral decision.
It is a strange proceeding however that Chinweizu should himself ascribe one of the “sixty” reasons, then work up a lather over his private presumption – “Soyinka has sixty reasons. Is this one of them?” And he proceeds to write an “investigative report” that centres on Chinese commercial adventurism. Now that really boggles the mind and raises troubling questions on the integrity of public discourse. No matter, demolishing the missing ‘59 reasons’ should be no problem for his fertile mind. We can look forward to some enlightened reading while INEC regroups and puts the nation out of its misery, or the forces of fascism plunge us deeper in its void.
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