Ola Johnson:
Your continued insistence that I tell you the page(s), even after I gave you a cue that could lead you to them, only shows how worse the dying culture of reading could be. I find it difficult to believe that after telling you that you can find the quote in the part of the book where the officers that were killed and others are, you still can't find it. I won't tell you the page(s). Not now. If you still insist, I'll direct you to another book, "The Five Majors - Why They Struck" by A. M. Mainasara, pg 25, where the same quote is made. Thank you.

ACM10:

C'mon shut up! Are you not ashamed of yourself? I caught you committing a blatant act of intellectual dishonesty, yet you have the audacity to accuse me of poor reading culture. You were betting on our poor reading culture when you made that quote, hoping that you wont be caught. You must be a professor of metamorphosis, because the way you metamorphosized Ben Gbulie to Mainasara is nothing short of miracle. I bet that you will change your stance if I lays (sic) my hand on Mainasara's book. In case you've not read Five Major by Ben Gbulie, there is no chapter, where he discussed about (sic) the officers killed, he only listed the names of the casualties. I was surprised by (sic) your quote because the book painted the picture of Gen. Ironsi as eminently qualified and called Brigadier Ademulegun "an accomplished tribalist"(pg. 21). You are still shamelessly digging your hole. I once again challenge you to provide the page for your quote in Ben Gbulie's Five Majors.

Ola Johnson:
Indeed you read for wanting to make me believe that officers killed are different from casualties.

ACM10:

. . .and your point is. . .?

Ola Johnson:
I'll do exactly what one of the few sensible people here, Percipi1, has told me: to ignore some people. I just have to start that.

Ola Johnson:
I'll do exactly what one of the few sensible people here, Percipi1, has told me: to ignore some people. I just have to start that.

Son-Of-El:


ola, face it, you've been spanked black and blue.

percipi1:

The mere fact that a Nobelist like Nadine Gordimer said its Achebe should be construed within her experience as a writer who had her book published by Achebe. The fact that the first African to be awarded the Nobel Prize disagreed with that notion should equally be construed within his experience as a colleague of Achebe and a Father figure himself. Now, Soyinka is the only Nigerian whose face is on the postal stamp of another country- Sierra Leone. You don't just put any foreigner on a national postal, stamp, such a person must be a legend, so we must respect his views even if we disagree

In fact Peter Abraham, the South African who wrote ' Mine Boy' 1954, was considered the first person to introduce Modern African literature to the world audience. Until 'Mine Boy' was written, nobody knew what was like to live under an apartheid regime. Apartheid was of more relevance to world thinking than the refusal of some tribal groups to accept civilisation a'la ' Things fall apart'

By the way Ola, avoid responding to some people on the forum, not everybody can see beyond primordial and tribal allegiance.

percipi1:

I don't like people who turn down facts to boost their primordial sentiments. Honestly if a Nobel Prize winner, whose face is on a national postal stamp in Sierra Leone is considered, in your view, to be of 'relativey limited influence'; then you are definitey worse that your flippant tribalist. If you have issues with Soyinka's English, you should seek clarification.

eagle,eye:


You have spoken well.
Now if you say we should ignore Nadine a South African and Nobelist who did Achebe that honour, what makes you think we can't ignore Soyinka another Nobelist who doesn't see any reason why CA should bear that title?
If you say Nadine was speaking 'subjectively' because of her experience as a writer who had her book published by Achebe, what makes you think Soyinka as a Poet and Dramatist is not speaking 'subjectively' because of his own experience as one whose work (apart from one, which he claimed was published without his permision) was not published by Achebe?
You talk about Peter Abraham and his work MINE BOY, what other role did peter Abraham play in spreading the 'Modern African' ideology or story through literary works?
My brother, everybody arguing back and forth in this thread does so through the very narrow prism of TRIBALISM and BIAS.
The title is an honour from one to another (A South African to a Nigerian) and the media decides to grab the title and run. How is that Achebe's fault?
Are you going to tell me that Nadine did not know about Peter Abraham, a fellow South African?
This arguement stretches because the Yorubas and the Igbos have always gotten in each others faces.
All said and done, we are all arguing and trying to defend the Literary Heroes from our side of the divide.

percipi1:

I don't like people who turn down facts to boost their primordial sentiments. Honestly if a Nobel Prize winner, whose face is on a national postal stamp in Sierra Leone is considered, in your view, to be of 'relativey limited influence'; then you are definitey worse that your flippant tribalist. If you have issues with Soyinka's English, you should seek clarification.

rhymz: Eagle eyes has succinctly answered youe subtle tribal pettiness. It is so comfortable for you lot to parrot about Wole Soyinka's greatness with every exaggerations possible yet the honorary title given to Achebe that has stuck becomes a problem all because even though it is mere honorary title, it towers above your tribe's man overrated Nobel Laureat.
Besides, I read the said interview, Wole sounded down derisive and patronizing when talking about Achebe, nobody needs him to put up appearance and act like he does not have issues with the man. Using all that unecessary and evasive grandstanding explanation to make a simple idea seem ambigious and confusing when he could have just said, Chinua and I are not particularly close but we share mutual respect for eachother, kappish!

With all his patronizing descriptions and baseless suggestive statements to make it look like the man had problem with his Nobel award, to the point of making statements that can not be proven and credited it to Chinau, how childish can Wole get. .scheeew! The man is full of himself and finds it difficult to be humble and let others blow his own trumpet.

When asked about the new generations of writers and who he prefers, the egocentric Wole could not even bring himself to even talk about anyone in particular, at best, all he had to say was that he read many of them during traffics and sometimes fights the temptation to fling some out of the windows, what an encouragement from Wole Soyinka to the new generation of Nigerian Writers, very cheeky!

Yet this same man has problems with people who had been inspired by Achebe's humility, efforts towards getting not just his own works but those of other great africans out to the world through his pioneering and collaborative publishing effort with Christopher Okigbo another accomplished litrary giant. What was Wole's response to such effort, uneccessary show of superiority and protest that he will not allow his books to be published by the heinemen publishing firm that had seen the efforts of the African Writers Series and decided to collaborate with them, after his lame explanation of not wanting his books to be categorized by such efforts, what did he do, he took his books to another whiteman's publishing firm to be published. . . Scheeew!
His grouse was probably because he did not want his coleagues to edit his work, not too good for his Ego, i guess!

Wole Soyinka is no match for Achebe in the litrary world, Achebe has done a lot for a African literature, Achebe wrote so that other African writers can write believing that their books wont be type-cast just as another book written by an african without the language ambiguity to impress on the english man of the writer's mastery of his language, Achebe just wrote like an African and told every other african to dare to do thesame.
I have said my piece.

rhymz: Eagle eyes has succinctly answered youe subtle tribal pettiness. It is so comfortable for you lot to parrot about Wole Soyinka's greatness with every exaggerations possible yet the honorary title given to Achebe that has stuck becomes a problem all because even though it is mere honorary title, it towers above your tribe's man overrated Nobel Laureat.
Besides, I read the said interview, Wole sounded down derisive and patronizing when talking about Achebe, nobody needs him to put up appearance and act like he does not have issues with the man. Using all that unecessary and evasive grandstanding explanation to make a simple idea seem ambigious and confusing when he could have just said, Chinua and I are not particularly close but we share mutual respect for eachother, kappish!

With all his patronizing descriptions and baseless suggestive statements to make it look like the man had problem with his Nobel award, to the point of making statements that can not be proven and credited it to Chinau, how childish can Wole get. .scheeew! The man is full of himself and finds it difficult to be humble and let others blow his own trumpet.

When asked about the new generations of writers and who he prefers, the egocentric Wole could not even bring himself to even talk about anyone in particular, at best, all he had to say was that he read many of them during traffics and sometimes fights the temptation to fling some out of the windows, what an encouragement from Wole Soyinka to the new generation of Nigerian Writers, very cheeky!

Yet this same man has problems with people who had been inspired by Achebe's humility, efforts towards getting not just his own works but those of other great africans out to the world through his pioneering and collaborative publishing effort with Christopher Okigbo another accomplished litrary giant. What was Wole's response to such effort, uneccessary show of superiority and protest that he will not allow his books to be published by the heinemen publishing firm that had seen the efforts of the African Writers Series and decided to collaborate with them, after his lame explanation of not wanting his books to be categorized by such efforts, what did he do, he took his books to another whiteman's publishing firm to be published. . . Scheeew!
His grouse was probably because he did not want his coleagues to edit his work, not too good for his Ego, i guess!

Wole Soyinka is no match for Achebe in the litrary world, Achebe has done a lot for a African literature, Achebe wrote so that other African writers can write believing that their books wont be type-cast just as another book written by an african without the language ambiguity to impress on the english man of the writer's mastery of his language, Achebe just wrote like an African and told every other african to dare to do thesame.
I have said my piece.

Ola Johnson:
Read my comment, removing your tribal bigotry cap, you will realize that there was no way, even more than twenty years before his death, CA could have won the Prize. He was compensated with a none-existing prize.

rhymz: Eagle eyes has succinctly answered youe subtle tribal pettiness. It is so comfortable for you lot to parrot about Wole Soyinka's greatness with every exaggerations possible yet the honorary title given to Achebe that has stuck becomes a problem all because even though it is mere honorary title, it towers above your tribe's man overrated Nobel Laureat.
Besides, I read the said interview, Wole sounded down derisive and patronizing when talking about Achebe, nobody needs him to put up appearance and act like he does not have issues with the man. Using all that unecessary and evasive grandstanding explanation to make a simple idea seem ambigious and confusing when he could have just said, Chinua and I are not particularly close but we share mutual respect for eachother, kappish!

With all his patronizing descriptions and baseless suggestive statements to make it look like the man had problem with his Nobel award, to the point of making statements that can not be proven and credited it to Chinau, how childish can Wole get. .scheeew! The man is full of himself and finds it difficult to be humble and let others blow his own trumpet.

When asked about the new generations of writers and who he prefers, the egocentric Wole could not even bring himself to even talk about anyone in particular, at best, all he had to say was that he read many of them during traffics and sometimes fights the temptation to fling some out of the windows, what an encouragement from Wole Soyinka to the new generation of Nigerian Writers, very cheeky!

Yet this same man has problems with people who had been inspired by Achebe's humility, efforts towards getting not just his own works but those of other great africans out to the world through his pioneering and collaborative publishing effort with Christopher Okigbo another accomplished litrary giant. What was Wole's response to such effort, uneccessary show of superiority and protest that he will not allow his books to be published by the heinemen publishing firm that had seen the efforts of the African Writers Series and decided to collaborate with them, after his lame explanation of not wanting his books to be categorized by such efforts, what did he do, he took his books to another whiteman's publishing firm to be published. . . Scheeew!
His grouse was probably because he did not want his coleagues to edit his work, not too good for his Ego, i guess!

Wole Soyinka is no match for Achebe in the litrary world, Achebe has done a lot for a African literature, Achebe wrote so that other African writers can write believing that their books wont be type-cast just as another book written by an african without the language ambiguity to impress on the english man of the writer's mastery of his language, Achebe just wrote like an African and told every other african to dare to do thesame.
I have said my piece.

Ola Johnson: Those that always cite Nadine Gordimer's statement, not even speech, that Chinua Achebe was the father of African literature when the latter won the Booker Prize in 2007, should ask themselves why didn't she make the same statement earlier in 1991 when she won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Is it not obvious it was a human error which we are all susceptible to as pointed out by Wole Soyinka. What was the basis of calling CA that when it was obvious that his last known book, Anthills Of The Savannah (1989), was published two years before Nadine Gordimer won the Nobel Prize in 1991? He later published There Was A Country in 2012, less than a year before he died.

Could it be that Nadine Gordimer was trying to compensate him because she knew CA would never win it. While the reason why a winners of the Prize is made public, the reason why other nominees lose is not. Gordimer, and by extension, Wole Soyinka, being past winners and possibly, possessing the power to nominate, probably knew why CA could not win it even more than twenty years before his death. It could be a thing which past winners keep secret to themselves. Of all his books only three are translated in Swedish. The number of his books which includes five novels, one list of short stories, one poetry and some children's book, could have also had an adverse effect on him not winning the Nobel Prize.

Ola Johnson: Those that always cite Nadine Gordimer's statement, not even speech, that Chinua Achebe was the father of African literature when the latter won the Booker Prize in 2007, should ask themselves why didn't she make the same statement earlier in 1991 when she won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Is it not obvious it was a human error which we are all susceptible to as pointed out by Wole Soyinka. What was the basis of calling CA that when it was obvious that his last known book, Anthills Of The Savannah (1989), was published two years before Nadine Gordimer won the Nobel Prize in 1991? He later published There Was A Country in 2012, less than a year before he died.

Could it be that Nadine Gordimer was trying to compensate him because she knew CA would never win it. While the reason why a winners of the Prize is made public, the reason why other nominees lose is not. Gordimer, and by extension, Wole Soyinka, being past winners and possibly, possessing the power to nominate, probably knew why CA could not win it even more than twenty years before his death. It could be a thing which past winners keep secret to themselves. Of all his books only three are translated in Swedish. The number of his books which includes five novels, one list of short stories, one poetry and some children's book, could have also had an adverse effect on him not winning the Nobel Prize.

Ola Johnson: Those that always cite Nadine Gordimer's statement, not even speech, that Chinua Achebe was the father of African literature when the latter won the Booker Prize in 2007, should ask themselves why didn't she make the same statement earlier in 1991 when she won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Is it not obvious it was a human error which we are all susceptible to as pointed out by Wole Soyinka. What was the basis of calling CA that when it was obvious that his last known book, Anthills Of The Savannah (1989), was published two years before Nadine Gordimer won the Nobel Prize in 1991? He later published There Was A Country in 2012, less than a year before he died.

Could it be that Nadine Gordimer was trying to compensate him because she knew CA would never win it. While the reason why a winners of the Prize is made public, the reason why other nominees lose is not. Gordimer, and by extension, Wole Soyinka, being past winners and possibly, possessing the power to nominate, probably knew why CA could not win it even more than twenty years before his death. It could be a thing which past winners keep secret to themselves. Of all his books only three are translated in Swedish. The number of his books which includes five novels, one list of short stories, one poetry and some children's book, could have also had an adverse effect on him not winning the Nobel Prize.

eagle,eye:


You have spoken well.
Now if you say we should ignore Nadine a South African and Nobelist who did Achebe that honour, what makes you think we can't ignore Soyinka another Nobelist who doesn't see any reason why CA should bear that title?
If you say Nadine was speaking 'subjectively' because of her experience as a writer who had her book published by Achebe, what makes you think Soyinka as a Poet and Dramatist is not speaking 'subjectively' because of his own experience as one whose work (apart from one, which he claimed was published without his permision) was not published by Achebe?
You talk about Peter Abraham and his work MINE BOY, what other role did peter Abraham play in spreading the 'Modern African' ideology or story through literary works?
My brother, everybody arguing back and forth in this thread does so through the very narrow prism of TRIBALISM and BIAS.
The title is an honour from one to another (A South African to a Nigerian) and the media decides to grab the title and run. How is that Achebe's fault?
Are you going to tell me that Nadine did not know about Peter Abraham, a fellow South African?
This arguement stretches because the Yorubas and the Igbos have always gotten in each others faces.
All said and done, we are all arguing and trying to defend the Literary Heroes from our side of the divide.

rhymz: Eagle eyes has succinctly answered youe subtle tribal pettiness. It is so comfortable for you lot to parrot about Wole Soyinka's greatness with every exaggerations possible yet the honorary title given to Achebe that has stuck becomes a problem all because even though it is mere honorary title, it towers above your tribe's man overrated Nobel Laureat.
Besides, I read the said interview, Wole sounded down derisive and patronizing when talking about Achebe, nobody needs him to put up appearance and act like he does not have issues with the man. Using all that unecessary and evasive grandstanding explanation to make a simple idea seem ambigious and confusing when he could have just said, Chinua and I are not particularly close but we share mutual respect for eachother, kappish!

With all his patronizing descriptions and baseless suggestive statements to make it look like the man had problem with his Nobel award, to the point of making statements that can not be proven and credited it to Chinau, how childish can Wole get. .scheeew! The man is full of himself and finds it difficult to be humble and let others blow his own trumpet.

When asked about the new generations of writers and who he prefers, the egocentric Wole could not even bring himself to even talk about anyone in particular, at best, all he had to say was that he read many of them during traffics and sometimes fights the temptation to fling some out of the windows, what an encouragement from Wole Soyinka to the new generation of Nigerian Writers, very cheeky!

Yet this same man has problems with people who had been inspired by Achebe's humility, efforts towards getting not just his own works but those of other great africans out to the world through his pioneering and collaborative publishing effort with Christopher Okigbo another accomplished litrary giant. What was Wole's response to such effort, uneccessary show of superiority and protest that he will not allow his books to be published by the heinemen publishing firm that had seen the efforts of the African Writers Series and decided to collaborate with them, after his lame explanation of not wanting his books to be categorized by such efforts, what did he do, he took his books to another whiteman's publishing firm to be published. . . Scheeew!
His grouse was probably because he did not want his coleagues to edit his work, not too good for his Ego, i guess!

Wole Soyinka is no match for Achebe in the litrary world, Achebe has done a lot for a African literature, Achebe wrote so that other African writers can write believing that their books wont be type-cast just as another book written by an african without the language ambiguity to impress on the english man of the writer's mastery of his language, Achebe just wrote like an African and told every other african to dare to do thesame.
I have said my piece.

One_Naira:

This is beautiful. Described the situation to the damn T. Even the ending correlated perfectly with a quote from Boubacar Diop, a sengalese writer, that said chinua achebe TFA actually showed him the "real africa". Dude standing ovation. In my opinion, this is the best comment I've seen of NL.

rhymz: Eagle eyes has succinctly answered youe subtle tribal pettiness. It is so comfortable for you lot to parrot about Wole Soyinka's greatness with every exaggerations possible yet the honorary title given to Achebe that has stuck becomes a problem all because even though it is mere honorary title, it towers above your tribe's man overrated Nobel Laureat.
Besides, I read the said interview, Wole sounded down derisive and patronizing when talking about Achebe, nobody needs him to put up appearance and act like he does not have issues with the man. Using all that unecessary and evasive grandstanding explanation to make a simple idea seem ambigious and confusing when he could have just said, Chinua and I are not particularly close but we share mutual respect for eachother, kappish!

With all his patronizing descriptions and baseless suggestive statements to make it look like the man had problem with his Nobel award, to the point of making statements that can not be proven and credited it to Chinau, how childish can Wole get. .scheeew! The man is full of himself and finds it difficult to be humble and let others blow his own trumpet.

When asked about the new generations of writers and who he prefers, the egocentric Wole could not even bring himself to even talk about anyone in particular, at best, all he had to say was that he read many of them during traffics and sometimes fights the temptation to fling some out of the windows, what an encouragement from Wole Soyinka to the new generation of Nigerian Writers, very cheeky!

Yet this same man has problems with people who had been inspired by Achebe's humility, efforts towards getting not just his own works but those of other great africans out to the world through his pioneering and collaborative publishing effort with Christopher Okigbo another accomplished litrary giant. What was Wole's response to such effort, uneccessary show of superiority and protest that he will not allow his books to be published by the heinemen publishing firm that had seen the efforts of the African Writers Series and decided to collaborate with them, after his lame explanation of not wanting his books to be categorized by such efforts, what did he do, he took his books to another whiteman's publishing firm to be published. . . Scheeew!
His grouse was probably because he did not want his coleagues to edit his work, not too good for his Ego, i guess!

Wole Soyinka is no match for Achebe in the litrary world, Achebe has done a lot for a African literature, Achebe wrote so that other African writers can write believing that their books wont be type-cast just as another book written by an african without the language ambiguity to impress on the english man of the writer's mastery of his language, Achebe just wrote like an African and told every other african to dare to do thesame.
I have said my piece.

Aigbofa:

I agree. This calls for another award; the father of Nairaland commentary.

eagle,eye:

If you have noticed, the Igbos hardly try to down play the achievement of the Yorubas. But the reverse is the case when an Igbo achieves something, the Yorubas will all be up in arms trying to down play it.
Yes, Soyinka is a great Literary icon. And No, The Nobel Prize or his face being in the Postal Stamp of Sierra Leone does not make him more popular than Achebe.
In this case, WS vs CA, I will defend the man from my tribe with all sentiments and I hope you do the same. Stop trying to sound NEUTRAL while playing the Tribal card.

percipi1:


My friend, I do not hold brief for Wole Soyinka nor am I here to dispute Achebe’s honor. I am simply here to appraise the fact in issue- that is, whether or not the honor “Father of modern African literature” can be awarded to a single individual.

If you have issues with Wole Soyinka’s position, it is most appropriate if you address him directly, but if you want to discuss the fact in issue, then you will need to shelf your ethnic toga and approach the matter from the perspective of an analyst.

If you are interested in a serious debate, let’s start with this question” Citing relevant literary authorities, what is the definition of Modern African Literature?

Once we can scale this hurdle, we will now move to the contentious phrase” father of Modern African Literature”

I belong to the Socratic school and I can assure you that a difficult question can only be solved when we do not assume any position but approach the issue from a question and answer position. We call it the dialectical method.

Lets have it from you first:” Citing relevant literary authorities, what is the definition of Modern African Literature?

percipi1:


My friend, I do not hold brief for Wole Soyinka nor am I here to dispute Achebe’s honor. I am simply here to appraise the fact in issue- that is, whether or not the honor “Father of modern African literature” can be awarded to a single individual.

If you have issues with Wole Soyinka’s position, it is most appropriate if you address him directly, but if you want to discuss the fact in issue, then you will need to shelf your ethnic toga and approach the matter from the perspective of an analyst.

If you are interested in a serious debate, let’s start with this question” Citing relevant literary authorities, what is the definition of Modern African Literature?

Once we can scale this hurdle, we will now move to the contentious phrase” father of Modern African Literature”

I belong to the Socratic school and I can assure you that a difficult question can only be solved when we do not assume any position but approach the issue from a question and answer position. We call it the dialectical method.

Lets have it from you first:” Citing relevant literary authorities, what is the definition of Modern African Literature?

eagle,eye:

If you have noticed, the Igbos hardly try to down play the achievement of the Yorubas. But the reverse is the case when an Igbo achieves something, the Yorubas will all be up in arms trying to down play it.
Yes, Soyinka is a great Literary icon. And No, The Nobel Prize or his face being in the Postal Stamp of Sierra Leone does not make him more popular than Achebe.
In this case, WS vs CA, I will defend the man from my tribe with all sentiments and I hope you do the same. Stop trying to sound NEUTRAL while playing the Tribal card.

Son-Of-El:

my friend keep quiet. Do you think you are with novices? Follow WS for all i care, the world resonates what a nobel laurette has said in honour of CA. DEAL WITH IT!

percipi1:

Only intelligent people who are well nurtured in civilised cultures are welcome to this debate. I understand that you have serious ethnic issues, you are ,therefore, excused.