Rivers crisis: Soyinka now ACN mouthpiece, Lagos group laments A frontline Lagos group, “Lagos Collectives” yesterday took a swipe at the Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, accusing him of being partisan and reducing his national iconic status to that of a mouth organ for opposition Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN. Lagos Collectives, in a statement made available to Sunday Mirror yesterday, stated that Soyinka’s attacks on the President and the First Lady over the Rivers State political crisis was unfortunate, bearing the need for Soyinka to be a true statesman. The Nobel Laureate had on Thursday condemned the ongoing political crisis in Rivers State, saying that democratic grounds were being eroded, accusing President Jonathan of complicity. He also criticised the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, for her alleged “over-bearing tendencies” and urged the President to call her to order. But reacting, Lagos Collectives, the group comprising prominent Lagos opinion leaders, in the statement by its chairman, Professor Tejumade Akitoye- Rhodes said Lagosians were saddened by the “withdrawal of Professor Soyinka from the once iconic emblem of a reflective arbitrational leader to a predictable partisan voice, now eager to rush to the defence of his compromised puppeteers without cautionary wisdom, and without contemplative rectitude.” The group added: “Professor Soyinka’s recent diatribe about the unfolding issues in Rivers State hardly portrays the supposed man of learning as a wizened voice with balanced and unhurried equipoise whose intervention should be borne upon the toga of truth, authenticity, candour and genuine pacifying logic of an African elder. “Somehow, Professor Soyinka appears to be too much in a hurry to apportion blame,to draw inferences without solid testimony and to stigmatize without verifiable adjudication. Perhaps stampeded by some veiled compromising bias, the hurried scholar jumped into the fray, nullifying rational comportment, indifferent to the necessary neutral canvass without which the truth will not be known, without which peace cannot be achieved.” The group, however urged Soyinka to learn from the maturity displayed by the Senate towards resolving the Rivers crisis, rather than fuel it with his comments. “The Nigerian Senate, in the loftiness of its wisdom is presently occupying that sane perch of neutrality in order to first calm the fray, heal the ruptured and broken landscape, unify the factions and move the state forward. “This is the role Professor Soyinka ought to be playing now rather than the untidy latchtment to divisive partisan advocacy. “Indeed the old Professor cannot pretend a grandstanding in some puris tic position anymore
Posted on: Sun, 14 Jul 2013 06:44:52 +0000
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