Opinion: Soyinka ‘blunders’ again! – By EKANPOU ENEWARIDIDEKE

THERE is a towering aromatic blunder in the air. As before, ever and always – like ‘Abiku’ the perpetually irrepressible troubler of the Nobel Laureate’s creation – Soyinka, ‘the perpetual dramatist who tends to dramatise on every grammar of his own manufacture’, has blundered again. This is the first time Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka, born July 13, 1934 at Abeokuta, has blundered and unashamedly admitted he has actually blundered. General Sani Abacha and his cohorts must be in a derisory jubilant mood over the fact that the literary legend hitherto thought flawless has at last openly admitted his blunders. So even Soyinka blunders too! Wole Soyinka is my father – my literary father. This literary fatherhood is a fortified formation created of my own volition, seduced by the voluptuous features/physique unveiled or shed in his writings: drama, poetry, prose, essays, lectures, his oratorical prowess, fluidity and seductive phonological proficiency. And again, of my own volition, I have just dismantled this formation hitherto built on filial literary allegiance and love – a sudden dismantlement occasioned by Soyinka’s recent blunders! For a mind-bogglingly morbid portrait of a nation as one of paedophiles, assassins, anthropophagi, marketers of human parts, crisis-profiteers, ritual murderers, religious hypocrites, tainted government functionaries, promoters of development stasis , hunters of visionaries, pathological promoters of infanticide, homicide, terrorism, pathological promoters of arsonists, pathological haters of intellectuals and reformers and pathological scapegoaters of religious crisis as a camouflage for gold-mining in Zamfara State – a great nation like Nigeria for that matter! Soyinka merits dismantlement and expulsion from my republic as my literary father. This I have already done as the only distinguishable patriot in a great country called Nigeria where the welfare of the citizens is always speedily given a royal priority attention – a radiant reality which Soyinka does not bother to know in his boundless, unremitting vituperations in his recent artistic creation called Chronicles Of The Happiest People On Earth. From 1960 and beyond when Soyinka patriotically offers as rituals for societal reordering, re-orientation, re-direction and transformation his own babies of imaginative procreation – undaunted by the glaring risk of accusatory jabs and poisoned arrows of infanticide and homicide disparagingly deposited at his doorstep – A Dance of the Forests, The Swamp Dwellers, The Strong Breed, The Road, The Lion and the Jewel, The Interpreters, The Man Died, etc.etc. – his consistent critical dance is always anti-establishment whose murderous institutions are always poised to silence his stentorian voice of vision with every opportunity corralled or commandeered. [ALSO READ] Nigeria Customs arraigns four smuggling suspects over evasion of imports duties on rice Imaginatively procreative continuum of the anti-establishment critical dance of the Nobel Laureate is a normal expectation of his believers, but the Soyinka we know seems to have gone AWOL on this noble and commendable path – only sadly shaping ominous path out of his hitherto glorious noble path. Could this be that lionised Soyinka we know whose words and oral renditions could seduce Holy Mary and Helen of Troy into noble relationship? The Niger Delta is still an abandoned child full of scalding tears of underdevelopment. From the 1950s till now, Chief Harold Dappa Biriye, Major Isaac Boro, Ken Saro-Wiwa and High Chief Tompolo had megaphoned the developmental backwardness of the Niger Delta to the Federal Government of Nigeria whose present response – after series of failed interventionist developmental organs created – revolves around NDDC and the Presidential Amnesty Programme. NDDC is in the grip of a ‘mafiad’ systematic suffocation. Contractors with proofs of job-completion are denied payment. This deliberate non-payment of contrctors can be located in the deliberate non-payment of the canalisation project professionally carried out in Akparemogbene River in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State – a commendable canalisation project   taken on by a competent contractor in 2019 but the contractor is yet to be paid a kobo by NDDC. What about the Amnesty Programme now administratively captained some nautical miles away from the ideal course where only competent administrators very much at home with the agitation nitty-gritty of the region were usually appointed when it began in 2009. It is today the capital of discordant songs as regards the course it is being piloted by the privileged hands. Is Soyinka not aware of these weird happenings in NDDC and PAP? Why the silence, Soyinka? I thought Soyinka’s vocal cords would assume stridency and deafening decibel over the visible storm threatening NDDC and PAP but suprisingly, he has chosen professional silence over and above weird occurrences that keep the interventionist development bodies convulsed. Soyinka appears not to be bothered that NDDC and PAP are dancing fractionally away from the known rhythm of development of the people for whom they are created. Is Soyinka afraid of NDDC and PAP? Strikingly, in Delta State the mantra that dwells on the lips of the people is that of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa as the road master – referentially echoed as a responsive critical appraisal of his development projects – and the Deputy Governor, Kingsley  Otuaro, around whom development theories revolve in their variety – ‘Otuaroism,’ ‘Otuaro-Singaporeanism,’ ‘Otuaro-Intellectualism’, ‘Otuaro-Ruralism’, ‘Otuaro-Philanthropism’ and many other allied development theories society can lean on for transformational progression. Governor Okowa’s mantra as the road master activated by a vision to finish strong, and Otuarosim and its allied development theories formulated can be given investigative thrusts for extraction of the truths in these phenomena distilled as materials to inspire and trigger off a chain of devleopment thrusts because Okowa’s developmemnt mantra, and Otuaroism and its allied development theories constitute a magical developmental compass when constructively mangled. As regards imaginative and constructive mangling of Okowa’s mantra and Otuaro’s ‘Otuaroism’ and its allied development theories, no writer on earth can do this better than Soyinka but in Soyinka I only see infectious disinterest and dismissive glares. Is anything the matter O Soyinka, the giant of Literature and activism? Is anything the matter with Soyinka the untainted voice of vision in the society? That Governor Okowa and Deputy Governor Otuaro are politicians may constitute the mitigating basis for Soyinka’s disinterest and analytical dissociation from the activities of the two personalities. What about the activities of King Alfred Izonebi? King Izonebi is of the world of Soyinka. King Izonebi is a philosopher, gifted musician who anchors the music revivalism movement through which he hopes to revive the ancient traditional Ijaw songs produced by old musicians of the dead years.These ancient but great songs – timeless in their didactive value and appeal – are faced daily with extinction. This king Izonebi has laboured to revive most of these dead songs for mankind and he is still at it. The music revivalist movement of King Izonebi ought to have rung a bell of high decibel loud enough to attract the creative sensitivity and sensibility of Soyinka. Even on this music revivalism matter alone, which is the domain of the Nobel laureate, he gives off professional distance and silence like bats upon BIA branches in Oyangbene town whose clanging voices are never heard when it is dawn. Is Soyinka at war with the talented Ijaw music revivalist called King Alfred Izonebi of Bayelsa and Delta states of Nigeria? It sounds incomprehensible that the widely applauded music genius King Izonebi is denied a portrait by Wole Soyinka – that Soyinka, known for his obsession with talent-hunt and talent-development often communicated through seductively radiant portraits – when everybody knows that the most feeble and tired word on errand from Soyinka could globally catapult King Izonebi to the highest heaven as regards his revivalist movement! By my own thoughtful presumption, Soyinka would have let his creative energies loose like a heavy downpour on Governor Okowa, his Deputy Governor Otuaro and King Izonebi the music genius – the very final result of whose creative engagement, imaginative procreation and imaginative distillation would have been the birth of these bouncing babies – Chronicles of Okowa As The Road Master On Earth, Chronicles Of Otuaro As The Meekest Theorist On Earth and Chronicles of King Izonebi As The Happiest Music Revivalist On Earth – but away from this noble and commendable path he strangely walks without any justifiable reason. [ALSO READ] How Nigeria can meet her water needs — Ale Strangely away from electrifying portrayal of Governor Okowa as road master, Otuaro’s Otuaroism and its allied development theories and the music revivalism movement of King Izonebi,   Soyinka walks and walks into a morbid portrait of a country ruled by a mediocre Prime Minister (Sir Goddie) on the ticket of POMP (People on the Move Party) – a nation where nomadic herdsmen display inalienable right to kill people without the visitation of punitive action. It is the cultic anthropophagous government of Sir Goddie that morbidly draws supportive partnership from Papa Davina ‘the creative spiritual trafficker’ (the proprietor of Healing Ekumenika Ministry), Otunba Pitan-papyne the human-flesh eater entrepreneur, Shekere Garuba the Special Adviser on Energy, Merutalia the image-maker and script writer of Sir Goddie, Chief Modu Udenzy Oromotaya the proprietor of ‘The National Inquest’ newspaper who cunningly confers YOY (Yeomen of the Year Award) and PACT (The People Award for Common Touch) on tainted government officials – and occasionally on deserving people like Dr. Kighare Menka the Gumchi-born medical doctor who had national award conferred on him in recognition of his services to the victims of Boko Haram brought to him for medical attention – Chief Akpanga the governor notorious for intellectual property theft and many other strategically planted profiteers, the focal point of whose government is the thriving human part trade sustained by barbarities unleashed on the populace by Boko Haram, the patronage by special human part-buying clientele, the purchase of human parts from hospitals handled by special syndicates kept through secret alliance with the Islamic sect Yantu Lai Al-yarimeh and Papa Davina (Teribogo). A disgustingly cultic government it is by every standard – the POMP-led government of Sir Goddie. As a cultic anthropophagous government of unrepentant masochists and sadists of underdevelopment whose interest lies solely in relentless accumulation and appropriation of the national resources for their personal economic progression and self-aggrandisement, only remembers the developmentally ignored and abandoned Gumchi Village when Dr. Mukarjee the Indian geologist alerts Sir Goddie to the existence of a gold deposit in Gumchi – a revelation that brings Sir Goddie and Papa Davina into verbal war over the former’s insistence that Gunchi should be left to the constructoin of a Rehabilitation Centre for Boko Haram victims as it is in the will of late Duyole Pitan-payne and the latter’s counter insistence that Gumchi should be another site for his Prophesite, the Healing Ekumenika Ministry – that Teribogo (Papa Davina) who exploits the unsuspecting and undescerning public through publicly parading himself as an apostle of ecumenism and cunningly seeks inter-denominational unity and peace in all religions as his priority project, they need human parts packaged, preserved and sold either for consumption or for mystical fortification, with a readiness to eliminate any human that stands on its way – a reason why   the The Hilltop Manor Club is burnt down, and Duyole pitan-payne the electronic engineer and consultant to UN on Energy Commission, bombed in his studio while trying to decrypt a cryptography linked to the anthropophagy-consolidated government of the Pomp-led government. Bombed and later flown abroad for medical attention, Duyole dies in Salzburg (in Austria). For carriers of wakeful eyes like the ‘wakeful eyes’ in JP Clark’s poem ‘Olokun’, rhetorical flourishes and verbal embellishments are not needed to discern that the cultic architecture administratively built in the governance of the country by the POMP-led government is inimical to national growth – so inimical it becomes the rampaging virus of progressive debilitation, progressive functional distortion and progressive dwindling of the ‘Gong O’ Four’ of four personalities distinguished by their gung-ho idealism – Duyole Pitan-Payne, Dr. Kighare Menka, Badetona and Farodion. The Nigerian government located in Villa Potencia under the leadership of Sir Godfrey Danfere The People’s Steward (in allegorical appropriation, allusion or suggestive resemblance) is a government that specialises in trade in human parts for consumption and enhancement of spiritual powers. The killing and the atrocities in Nigeria will never stop as long as the cliquish anthropophagous government of Nigeria is in power because they get the needed human parts from the carnage of Boko Haram and their allied cohorts or forces. Perhaps, the anthropophagous pathology of the Nigerian government is the reason behind the incapacitation of the service chiefs in their war against terrorism, banditry, kidnapping and nomadic herdsmen.The hunting and the marketing of human parts for consumption and ritualistic enhancement of mystical powers located as the oxygen and morbid obsession of the Nigerian government found in Villa Potencia under the ticket of People On The Move Party led by Sir Goddie (Godfrey Danfere), Soyinka maligns, demarkets and defames Nigeria when he blunders captivatingly with the quotable coda in his latest novel, Chronicles Of The Happiest People On Earth, after 48-year hiatus in prose-writing, blurted out through the mouth of Sir Goddie the Prime Minister who hopes to brief Mr. President in dedicated, eloquent dismissal of the disparaging stories told about Nigeria:’The nation is in no danger. We remain our Number One position – The Happiest People on earth’. Even with a rudderless government that sees targeted suffocating of the ‘Gong O’ Four’ to the extent of bombing Engineer Duyole the visionary and entreprenuerial man; even with a cannibalistic government that turns on its own citizens for human flesh, mind habitually conditioned to scamper away from developmental transformation of the people, yet Soyinka terms such people the happiest people on earth when he knows that the happiness of the so-called happiest people morbidly revolves around mutilated head, kidney, toe-nails, menstrual pads, surgically operated limbs, etc. This is why Wole Soyinka has blundered again to the discomfort of the benighted and to the comfort of the illumined Soyinka, you actually blundered indelibly in the history of Nigeria in your own chronicles! Nigerians are indeed the happiest people on earth because the POMP-led government of Sir Goddie in Villa potencia – the allegorical Aso Rock – is a cultic one of ritualists and anthropophagi who scapegoat religion, terrorism and their allied barbarities as a camouflage for their morbid thriving trade in human parts – particularly the scapegoating of religious crisis as a camouflage for gold-mining in Zamfara State. Now that Soyinka is through with his morbid portrait of our great and caring Nigeria as an African nation where happiness caresses all the people because the land is filled to the brim with carnage, rituals, cannibals, terrorism, bandits, kidnapping, anthropophagy and systematic development stasis or stalemate, the question can be comfortably asked thus: Did Soyinka survive my disgruntled dismantlement as my literary father, having blundered irredeemably in his morbid vituperative portrait of Nigeria in Chronicles Of The Happiest People On Earth as a nation whose government is peopled by government functionaries pathologically attracted to carnage, anthropophagy and mystical power fortification using ‘smoked kidney’ and other human parts packaged and stored in designated areas of the country? Seemingly dead to the risk of verbosity, verbiage and ‘repeated repetitions’ like an anaestheticised candidate for surgery – as artistically communicated by Soyinka in a morbid parlance – crisis in the form of terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, insurgency and nomadic herdsmen-aggression are nourishing maintenance ration to the Nigerian government because the resultant carnage will guarantee the steady flow and supply of human parts required for fortification and enhancement of spiritual powers systematically unleashed or deployed from time to time to perpetually hold the ordinary people captive for desired profitable theatrical manipulation as it is in puppetry… Finally, even with the knowledge that the dugout canoe that thunders against the creative blunders of the Nobel Laureate who leaves gashes and bruises on the body of a nation named Nigeria, allegorically run and piloted from Villa Potencia by Sir Goddie the Prime Minister allegorically used by the author to Nigerianise his artistic tapestry, has been moored to the iroko pillar at the waterside where the late Timiebi Maika often fastened her tired fishing canoe, I must add unhesitatingly again and again that Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka blundered. Soyinka, you actually blundered in your laceration of the Pomp-led government of Sir Goddie who sees in religion a ‘perfect camouflage no matter where’ – though rather captivatingly! Enewaridideke, a poet, wrote from Akparemogbene, Delta State.