bloggernaija: What opportunities did she not have?people of her generation had bountiful opportunities regardless of where you were born.
She was /is just stupid ,clueless and dumb.
Imagine a riffraff talking to Soyinka .even a husband is not fit to wipe Soyinka's shoes.
Terrorist in the north ,terrorist in the creeks.
Who was invited to brainstorm with experts around the world .
WOLE SOYINKA - A MAN WHO HAS NEVER CARRIED A GUN.
WHAT DO RIFF RAFFS EVER HAVE TO OFFER WHEN THEY CANNOT EVEN READ SPEECHES WRITTEN FOR THEM.
IN TERM OF THE RULE OF LAW,SOCIETY ,CIVIL RIGHTS,HUMAN RIGHTS ,CULTURE
SOYINKA RULES THEM ALL

wole Soyinka and his associates when they founded cultism in Nigeria with guns and pirates swords... A common association shared with Rotimi

Then suck on this if you can get your head around it


(Special to The Root) -- To such a degree has religion fueled conflict, complicated politics, retarded social development and impaired human relations across the world that one is often tempted to propose that religion is innately an enemy of humanity, if not indeed of itself a crime against humanity. Certainly it cannot be denied that religion has proved again and again a spur, a motivator and a justification for the commission of some of the most horrifying crimes against humanity, despite its fervent affirmations of peace. Let us, however, steer away from hyperbolic propositions and simply settle for this moderating moral imperative: that it is time that the world adopt a position that refuses to countenance religion as an acceptable justification for, excuse or extenuation of crimes against humanity.

While it should be mandatory that states justify their place as members of a world community by educating their citizens on the entitlement of religion to a place within society and the obligations of mutual acceptance and respect, it should be deemed unacceptable that the world is held to ransom for the uneducated conduct of a few, and placed in a condition of fear, apprehension, leading to a culture of appeasement.

There are critical issues of human well-being and survival that deserve the undivided attention of leaders all over the world. Let us recall that it is not anti-Islamists who have lately desecrated and destroyed -- and with such fiendish self-righteousness -- the tombs of Moslem saints in Timbuktu, most notoriously the mausoleum of the Imam Moussa al-Khadin, declared a world heritage under the protection of UNESCO and accorded pride of place in African patrimony. The orientation -- backed by declarations -- of these violators leaves us with a foreboding that the invaluable library treasures of Timbuktu may be next.

The truth, alas, is that the science fiction archetype of the mad scientist who craves to dominate the world has been replaced by the mad cleric who can only conceive of the world in his own image, proudly flaunting Bond's Double-0-7 credentials -- Licensed to Kill. The sooner national leaders and genuine religious leaders understand this and admit that no nation has any lack of its own dangerous loonies, be they known as Ansar-Dine of Mali or Terry Jones of Florida, the earlier they will turn their attention to real issues truly deserving human priority.

These cited clerics and their ilk are descendants of the ancient line of iconoclasts of Islamic, Christian and other religious molds who have destroyed the antecedent spirituality and divine emblems of the African peoples over centuries. Adherents of those African religions, who remain passionately attached to their beliefs, all the way across the Atlantic -- in Brazil and across other parts of Latin America -- have not taken to wreaking vengeance on their presumed violators in far-off lands.

Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

These emulators are still at work on the [African] continent, most devastatingly in Somalia, with my own nation, Nigeria, catching up with mind-boggling rapidity and intensity. Places of worship are primary targets, followed by institutes of education. Innocent humanity, eking out their miserable livelihood, are being blown to pieces, presumably to relieve them of their misery. Schools and school pupils are assailed in religion-fueled orgies -- measured, deliberate and deadly.

The hands of the clock of progress and social development have been arrested, then reversed in widening swathes of the Nigerian landscape. As if the resources of the nation were not already stretched to breaking point, they must now also be diverted to anticipating the consequences -- as in numerous nations around the world -- that would predictably follow the cinematic obscenities of a new entrant into the ranks of religious denigrators, who turns out -- irony of ironies -- to have originated from the African continent.

In sensible families, while every possible effort is made to smooth the passage of children through life, children are taught to understand that life is not a seamless robe of many splendors, but prone to the possibility of being besmirched by the unexpected and unpredictable. A solid core of confidence in one's moral and spiritual choices is thus sufficient to withstand external assaults from sudden and hostile forces. That principle of personality development is every bit as essential as the education that inculcates respect for the belief systems and practices of others.

The most intense ethical education, including severe social sanctions, has not eradicated material corruption, exploitation, child defilement and murders in society, not even deterrents such as capital punishment. How, then, can anyone presume that there shall be no violations of the ideal state of religious tolerance to which we all aspire, or demand that the world stand still, cover its head in sackcloth and ashes, grovel in self-abasement or else prepare itself for earthly pestilence for failure to anticipate the occasional penetration of their self-ascribed carapace of inviolability?

What gives hope is the very special capacity of man for dialogue, and that arbiter is foreclosed, or endures interminable postponements as long as one side arrogates to itself the right to respond to a pebble thrown by an infantile hand in Papua New Guinea with attempts to demolish the Rock of Gibraltar. I use the word "infantile" deliberately, because these alleged insults to religion are no different from the infantile scribble we encounter in public toilets, the product of infantilism and retarded development. We have learned to ignore and walk away from them. They should not be answered by equally infantile responses that are, however, incendiary and homicidal in dimension, and largely directed against the innocent, since the originating hand is usually, in any case, beyond reach.

With the remorseless march of technology, we shall all be caught in a spiral of reprisals, tailored to wound, to draw virtual blood. The other side responds with real blood and gore, also clotting up the path to rational discourse. What we are witnesses to in recent times is that such proceeding is being accorded legitimacy on the grounds of religious sensibility. It is pathetic to demand what cannot be guaranteed. It is futile to attempt to rein in technology: The solution is to use that very technology to correct noxious conceptions in the minds of the perpetrators of abuse, and educate the ignorant.

I speak as one from a nation whose normal diet of economic disparity, corruption, marginalization and ethnic and political cleavages has been further compounded by the ascendancy of religious jingoism. It is a lamentable retrogression from the nearly forgotten state of harmonious coexistence that I lived in and enjoyed as a child.

One takes consolation in the fact that some of us did not wait to sound warnings until the plague of religious extremism entered our borders. Our concerns began and were articulated as a concern for others, still at remote distances. Now that the largest black habitation on the globe has joined the club of religious terror under the portentous name Boko Haram -- which means "the Book Is Taboo" -- we can morally demand help from others, but we only find them drowning in the rhetoric and rites of anger and/or contrition.

Today it is the heritage and humanity of Timbuktu. And tomorrow? The African continent must take back Mali -- not later but right now. The cost of further delay will be incalculable, and devastating.

The spiral of reprisals now appears to have been launched, what with the recent news that a French editor has also entered the lists with a fresh album of offensive cartoons. To break that spiral, there must be dialogue of frank, mature minds. Instant, comprehensive solutions do not exist -- only the arduous, painstaking path of dialogue, whose multitextured demands are not beyond the innovative, as opposed to the emotive, capacity of cultured societies.

So let that moving feast of regional dialogues -- which was inaugurated by former President Khatami of Iran in these very chambers -- be reinforced, emboldened and evenhanded. The destination should be a moratorium, but for this to be strong and enduring, it must be voluntary, based on a will to understanding and mental reorientation, not on menace, self-righteous indictments and destructive emotionalism. Perhaps we may yet rescue religion from its ultimate indictment: conscription into the ranks of provable enemies of humanity.

Pirate meetings with Wole Soyinka present and proudly honored.

Blogger werreva!! I'll always tell you!! Stop posting on NL!! You always sound foolish!!

You shot yourself when you said
"What opportunities did she
not have?people of her generation had
bountiful opportunities"

Chai!! My dear modify that comment sharply before plenty people see it!!

homesteady: Blogger werreva!! I'll always tell you!! Stop posting on NL!! You always sound foolish!!

You shot yourself when you said
"What opportunities did she
not have?people of her generation had
bountiful opportunities"

Chai!! My dear modify that comment sharply before plenty people see it!!

Everyone seeks to destroy her character. There is no shooting on the foot. Bountiful indeed. Any how you want to look at it, she your First Lady. Would you ever take that away that she is the wife of your elected president? It is neo colonial thinking that makes everyone think we must behave or act like Oyibos to be accepted by society. It is wrong.

la_unique: Soyinka is biased. He is becoming a tribalist and he has always been a malechauvanist

He has always been.

akpomeme:

He has always been.

Now you've gone from chauvinist and cultist to tribalist, all to denigrate someone who's selflessly pursued the Nigerian cause even at the risk of his own life as during the biafran war. You are indeed a very shameless person. May the gods soyinka worships pay you back in your own coin.

How many wives did Wole marry and why hasn't he been able to stay long in marriage? Is there a side to this man that we all don't know?

duni04:
Now you've gone from chauvinist and cultist to tribalist, all to denigrate someone who's selflessly pursued the Nigerian cause even at the risk of his own life as during the biafran war. You are indeed a very shameless person. May the gods soyinka worships pay you back in your own coin.

gods!!! After God on earth are women!!! who is any man born by a woman to demean earth makers of life? So you think your Soyinka is not shameless considering the manner he has conducted his senile self lately? May the blood of those spilled in the name of cultism be upon the head of Soyinka and his cohorts. Criminals who hide unden spoken English using their privileged platforms to talk down on women!!!

From their books to their domestic behavior and utterances we shall know them.

40 laptop, keep earning your pay.

the only thing jona will be remembered for - the empowerment of yahoos on the internet

BekeeBuAgbara: Wole Soyinka is a misogynist by using ''A mere domestic appendage'' to address another man's wife, what message does he want to send to those men that still believe a woman place is in the kitchen. How could he organise a press conference for the sole aim of degrading a woman.
Nigeria has gained nothing from this Prof., only big big grammar.

Please Prof, respect yourself.

i think ur foolishness knew no bounds..........he achieve what no african has never achieve b4 him?.......and i no u dnt no d value of him.....'cos if u dnt have sumtin u cant appreciate it's value.....mtcheew

akpomeme:
gods!!! After God on earth are women!!! who is any man born by a woman to demean earth makers of life? So you think your Soyinka is not shameless considering the manner he has conducted his senile self lately? May the blood of those spilled in the name of cultism be upon the head of Soyinka and his cohorts. Criminals who hide unden spoken English using their privileged platforms to talk down on women!!!

retierate ur words......i dnt blame u anyway u must be 4rm d east.....u all lack home training....we no u kick ur papa 4rm bed 2 wake him...dats nt new........................and if u are not informed au many lives were lost when soyinka co organize confraternities......u ought 2 be well informed b4 creating a public thread like dis........mtcheew

Lmao!!!! it's now Soyinka? hahahaha Soyinka is now a chauvinist ko? Hahahahahaha I pity these guys. After 2015, shey una job go finish? no le le!!!

omobajohn58: i think ur foolishness knew no bounds..........he achieve what no african has never achieve b4 him?.......and i no u dnt no d value of him.....'cos if u dnt have sumtin u cant appreciate it's value.....mtcheew

Ngwakwe: PEJ is disrespected because of hate, disrespect for womanhood and high regard for Whiteman's Language.

This is what I call mental slavery on the part of Nigerians and the acclaimed intellectuals.

Language is a means of communication and nothing else. Provided the message is understood, every other thing is history. As one of my Chinese colleague will say "make tea, cup for one peoples" and yet his technological acumen is astronomical.

BekeeBuAgbara: Wole Soyinka is a misogynist by using ''A mere domestic appendage'' to address another man's wife, what message does he want to send to those men that still believe a woman place is in the kitchen. How could he organise a press conference for the sole aim of degrading a woman.
Nigeria has gained nothing from this Prof., only big big grammar.

Please Prof, respect yourself.

Soyinka needs to respect Nigeria and Nigerians as a whole. You can bet he would never refer to Michelle Obama as a ''mere domestic appendage'', no matter what she did, but he reckons he can freely use such insulting terminology on the Nigerian first family. Very disappointing.

bloggernaija: Then suck on this if you can get your head around it


(Special to The Root) -- To such a degree has religion fueled conflict, complicated politics, retarded social development and impaired human relations across the world that one is often tempted to propose that religion is innately an enemy of humanity, if not indeed of itself a crime against humanity. Certainly it cannot be denied that religion has proved again and again a spur, a motivator and a justification for the commission of some of the most horrifying crimes against humanity, despite its fervent affirmations of peace. Let us, however, steer away from hyperbolic propositions and simply settle for this moderating moral imperative: that it is time that the world adopt a position that refuses to countenance religion as an acceptable justification for, excuse or extenuation of crimes against humanity.

While it should be mandatory that states justify their place as members of a world community by educating their citizens on the entitlement of religion to a place within society and the obligations of mutual acceptance and respect, it should be deemed unacceptable that the world is held to ransom for the uneducated conduct of a few, and placed in a condition of fear, apprehension, leading to a culture of appeasement.

There are critical issues of human well-being and survival that deserve the undivided attention of leaders all over the world. Let us recall that it is not anti-Islamists who have lately desecrated and destroyed -- and with such fiendish self-righteousness -- the tombs of Moslem saints in Timbuktu, most notoriously the mausoleum of the Imam Moussa al-Khadin, declared a world heritage under the protection of UNESCO and accorded pride of place in African patrimony. The orientation -- backed by declarations -- of these violators leaves us with a foreboding that the invaluable library treasures of Timbuktu may be next.

The truth, alas, is that the science fiction archetype of the mad scientist who craves to dominate the world has been replaced by the mad cleric who can only conceive of the world in his own image, proudly flaunting Bond's Double-0-7 credentials -- Licensed to Kill. The sooner national leaders and genuine religious leaders understand this and admit that no nation has any lack of its own dangerous loonies, be they known as Ansar-Dine of Mali or Terry Jones of Florida, the earlier they will turn their attention to real issues truly deserving human priority.

These cited clerics and their ilk are descendants of the ancient line of iconoclasts of Islamic, Christian and other religious molds who have destroyed the antecedent spirituality and divine emblems of the African peoples over centuries. Adherents of those African religions, who remain passionately attached to their beliefs, all the way across the Atlantic -- in Brazil and across other parts of Latin America -- have not taken to wreaking vengeance on their presumed violators in far-off lands.

Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

These emulators are still at work on the [African] continent, most devastatingly in Somalia, with my own nation, Nigeria, catching up with mind-boggling rapidity and intensity. Places of worship are primary targets, followed by institutes of education. Innocent humanity, eking out their miserable livelihood, are being blown to pieces, presumably to relieve them of their misery. Schools and school pupils are assailed in religion-fueled orgies -- measured, deliberate and deadly.

The hands of the clock of progress and social development have been arrested, then reversed in widening swathes of the Nigerian landscape. As if the resources of the nation were not already stretched to breaking point, they must now also be diverted to anticipating the consequences -- as in numerous nations around the world -- that would predictably follow the cinematic obscenities of a new entrant into the ranks of religious denigrators, who turns out -- irony of ironies -- to have originated from the African continent.

In sensible families, while every possible effort is made to smooth the passage of children through life, children are taught to understand that life is not a seamless robe of many splendors, but prone to the possibility of being besmirched by the unexpected and unpredictable. A solid core of confidence in one's moral and spiritual choices is thus sufficient to withstand external assaults from sudden and hostile forces. That principle of personality development is every bit as essential as the education that inculcates respect for the belief systems and practices of others.

The most intense ethical education, including severe social sanctions, has not eradicated material corruption, exploitation, child defilement and murders in society, not even deterrents such as capital punishment. How, then, can anyone presume that there shall be no violations of the ideal state of religious tolerance to which we all aspire, or demand that the world stand still, cover its head in sackcloth and ashes, grovel in self-abasement or else prepare itself for earthly pestilence for failure to anticipate the occasional penetration of their self-ascribed carapace of inviolability?

What gives hope is the very special capacity of man for dialogue, and that arbiter is foreclosed, or endures interminable postponements as long as one side arrogates to itself the right to respond to a pebble thrown by an infantile hand in Papua New Guinea with attempts to demolish the Rock of Gibraltar. I use the word "infantile" deliberately, because these alleged insults to religion are no different from the infantile scribble we encounter in public toilets, the product of infantilism and retarded development. We have learned to ignore and walk away from them. They should not be answered by equally infantile responses that are, however, incendiary and homicidal in dimension, and largely directed against the innocent, since the originating hand is usually, in any case, beyond reach.

With the remorseless march of technology, we shall all be caught in a spiral of reprisals, tailored to wound, to draw virtual blood. The other side responds with real blood and gore, also clotting up the path to rational discourse. What we are witnesses to in recent times is that such proceeding is being accorded legitimacy on the grounds of religious sensibility. It is pathetic to demand what cannot be guaranteed. It is futile to attempt to rein in technology: The solution is to use that very technology to correct noxious conceptions in the minds of the perpetrators of abuse, and educate the ignorant.

I speak as one from a nation whose normal diet of economic disparity, corruption, marginalization and ethnic and political cleavages has been further compounded by the ascendancy of religious jingoism. It is a lamentable retrogression from the nearly forgotten state of harmonious coexistence that I lived in and enjoyed as a child.

One takes consolation in the fact that some of us did not wait to sound warnings until the plague of religious extremism entered our borders. Our concerns began and were articulated as a concern for others, still at remote distances. Now that the largest black habitation on the globe has joined the club of religious terror under the portentous name Boko Haram -- which means "the Book Is Taboo" -- we can morally demand help from others, but we only find them drowning in the rhetoric and rites of anger and/or contrition.

Today it is the heritage and humanity of Timbuktu. And tomorrow? The African continent must take back Mali -- not later but right now. The cost of further delay will be incalculable, and devastating.

The spiral of reprisals now appears to have been launched, what with the recent news that a French editor has also entered the lists with a fresh album of offensive cartoons. To break that spiral, there must be dialogue of frank, mature minds. Instant, comprehensive solutions do not exist -- only the arduous, painstaking path of dialogue, whose multitextured demands are not beyond the innovative, as opposed to the emotive, capacity of cultured societies.

So let that moving feast of regional dialogues -- which was inaugurated by former President Khatami of Iran in these very chambers -- be reinforced, emboldened and evenhanded. The destination should be a moratorium, but for this to be strong and enduring, it must be voluntary, based on a will to understanding and mental reorientation, not on menace, self-righteous indictments and destructive emotionalism. Perhaps we may yet rescue religion from its ultimate indictment: conscription into the ranks of provable enemies of humanity.

Verbose and empty...

la_unique: Soyinka is biased. He is becoming a tribalist and he has always been a malechauvanist

He wasn't a tribalist when he berrated GMB, but with PEJ he is. Think you are the one who's been bias here.

Rossikk:

Soyinka needs to respect Nigeria and Nigerians as a whole. You can bet he would never refer to Michelle Obama as a ''mere domestic appendage'', no matter what she did, but he reckons he can freely use such insulting terminology on the Nigerian first family. Very disappointing.

That is because Mrs Obama conducts herself in such a manner she leaves no room for such criticisms. Flawless, she certainly isn't, but I don't see her ever trying to dictate even to a county sheriff!!!

Mrs Jonathan realy needs to take a leave off the public scene. After her sujourn in the land of the dead and upon her resurection, I thought she returned a sage. Apparently, I thought wrong.

homesteady: Blogger werreva!! I'll always tell you!! Stop posting on NL!! You always sound foolish!!

You shot yourself when you said
"What opportunities did she
not have?people of her generation had
bountiful opportunities"

Chai!! My dear modify that comment sharply before plenty people see it!!

They guy/Girl is something else.

duni04:
Now you've gone from chauvinist and cultist to tribalist, all to denigrate someone who's selflessly pursued the Nigerian cause even at the risk of his own life as during the biafran war. You are indeed a very shameless person. May the gods soyinka worships pay you back in your own coin.

will you guys stop bringing this Soyinka Biafran war hero stuff up. So because he stood up against injustice at one time , he should be allowed at the next time to shit poo. WS has to apologize to PEJ for the misfire.

Well we understand he has issues with most women in his life. But that should not make him transfer his anger to PEJ.

ILLITERACY IS A BIG PROBLEM.
THAT IS THE MAIN PROBLEM OF THE JONATHAN'S FAMILY(PARTICULARLY THE WIFE.
WHEN YOU ARE HAVING OPPORTUNITY LIKE PEJU, WHAT SHE SHOULD HAVE DONE IS TO USE THE POSITION TO INFLUENCE THE LIVES OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN,MATERNAL HEALTH AND MANY LAUDABLE PROGRAMMES THAT WILL LOOK LIKE SHE IS RUNNING A CHARITY ORGANIZATION.

BUT DUE TO HER LEVEL OF LITEARACY OR ILLITERACY, SHE COULD NOT DECIPHER BETWEEN PRIVILEDGES AND RIGHT.
HER FIRST LADY POSITION IS A PRIVILEGE, IT IS NOT CONSTITUTIONAL.
SO SHE CAN NOT GO AHEAD TELLING AN ELECTED GOVERNOR TO SHUT UP.
GOES TO RIVERS VILLAGES HOLDING BOTH DAY AND NOCTURNAL MEETINGS WITH PEOPLE TO DENIGRATE A SITING GOVERNOR.
AMAECHI IS NOT PERFECT. BUT PEJU AND HIS HUSBAND SHOULD PROOF TO NIGERIANS THAT RIVERS STATE UNIVERSITY IS WORTH ITS NAME.
CAUTION! CAUTION!! CAUTION!!!

mafiffle:


will you guys stop bringing this Soyinka Biafran war hero stuff up. So because he stood up against injustice at one time , he should be allowed at the next time to shit poo. WS has to apologize to PEJ for the misfire.

Well we understand he has issues with most women in his life. But that should not make him transfer his anger to PEJ.

This is so on point. No man is perfect and in pointing accusing fingers at PEJ he is pointing the rest on him. This is why everyone is berating Soyinka the chauvinist. Simply apologize and move on.

Wole Soyinka: "She is a wife. She is an unconstitutional being... a mere domestic appendage"

how chauvinistic and sexist can you get!?

99cent: Wole Soyinka: "She is a wife. She is an unconstitutional being... a mere domestic appendage"

how chauvinistic and sexist can you get!?

When you highlight this again, they will say you have been paid by patience to do her bidding. Such cheap blackmailers.

mafiffle:



They guy/Girl is something else.

Foolish enough to be heard.