9jaBloke:
I think this issue is being overflogged.
Let's analyse the players:

Prof. W.S;
He is over 80 years, so it is very possible that he took that seat by mistake
If it was deliberate and he prefered window seats for obvious reasons, he should have planned it better-Ask for the seat during booking, most airlines would be happy to indulge him.
He didn't see it as a big deal so he got up. There's absolutely nothing petty about WS.

Bobo Fine;
He is young and probably exuberant and may not have recognised or even known WS
He may have gone the extra mile to get a window seat
He is opinionated and non-conventional
We don't know his story (no one actually knows this guy's story so we can't keep judging him). He might have a condition, he might have been unstable, goodness knows!
He was operating within his rights so he actually commited no crime.

Tonye Cole:
Was okay to have tried to reason with Bobo Fine but should have stayed out of it after the incident.
Had no business uploading that picture.
Probably did it to trend and gain national popularity for his Guber ambition.

Nigeria:
There's already the underlying issue of lawlessness and lack of regard for orderliness.
There's also the issue of the elders' demand for respect and their sense of entitlement.
Also, many Nigerians will rather go sentimental and more often than not, the real issues are left unaddressed.

Me:
I totally totally adore Prof. Wole Soyinka, I've read almost everything he has published and his views and policies resonate with me. I will consider it a privilege for him to have my seat on a plane (deliberately or mistakenly).

That said, If i catch any unidentified elder on my seat, you will surely have to 'gbe bodi' but i will definitely demand it very politely.

It's not really about respect. I have maximum respect for senior citizens. I defer to ladies, children and the elderly.

I just think we have to restore order and enforce some basic social principles so that this country can have a good shot at working.

u nailed it 100 percent, end of discussion

Esseite:
Good one from the young lad, Nigerian youths should learn to stand for their rights and what is right.. and only give up such right at their own discretion..

For me Soyinka was only trying to use complex psychology on the young lad, if it was an honest mistake like his son claimed, it wont have created such uproar.

was it WS that took the matter to SM? complex psychology for a 45 min flight seat. you think the prof doesn't have more important things to think about

Esseite:


Nobody disrespected the prof.. the young lad only insisted on getting his rightful seat.

Why did soyinka in the first place pick a sit which is not his own? If he didn't have the assumption "because he is soyinka" anybody would obviously let go..

That is why our leaders keep holding us down because majority are psychologically trained to let go of their rights when it involves a celebrity, popular, elderly person. And because of this asslicking and suppressing, it's always "get rich or die trying" in Nigeria.

What gain can soyinka derive from the window sit that the young lad is not worth enjoying and rightly paid for. With all due respect sir, that is not disrespect.

This one did not read the article

SarkinYarki:
The sooner this man knows his father is one of those that damaged this country , the damage Wole Soyinka has dealt Nigeria far exceeds any gains his Nobel honor brought Nigeria .

how please

9jaBloke:
I think this issue is being overflogged.
Let's analyse the players:

Prof. W.S;
He is over 80 years, so it is very possible that he took that seat by mistake
If it was deliberate and he prefered window seats for obvious reasons, he should have planned it better-Ask for the seat during booking, most airlines would be happy to indulge him.
He didn't see it as a big deal so he got up. There's absolutely nothing petty about WS.

Bobo Fine;
He is young and probably exuberant and may not have recognised or even known WS
He may have gone the extra mile to get a window seat
He is opinionated and non-conventional
We don't know his story (no one actually knows this guy's story so we can't keep judging him). He might have a condition, he might have been unstable, goodness knows!
He was operating within his rights so he actually commited no crime.

Tonye Cole:
Was okay to have tried to reason with Bobo Fine but should have stayed out of it after the incident.
Had no business uploading that picture.
Probably did it to trend and gain national popularity for his Guber ambition.

Nigeria:
There's already the underlying issue of lawlessness and lack of regard for orderliness.
There's also the issue of the elders' demand for respect and their sense of entitlement.
Also, many Nigerians will rather go sentimental and more often than not, the real issues are left unaddressed.

Me:
I totally totally adore Prof. Wole Soyinka, I've read almost everything he has published and his views and policies resonate with me. I will consider it a privilege for him to have my seat on a plane (deliberately or mistakenly).

That said, If i catch any unidentified elder on my seat, you will surely have to 'gbe bodi' but i will definitely demand it very politely.

It's not really about respect. I have maximum respect for senior citizens. I defer to ladies, children and the elderly.

I just think we have to restore order and enforce some basic social principles so that this country can have a good shot at working.

I concur

The seat owner had a right- that is enforceable. But the elder though he or she is entitled to some deference and respect, can only hope for it. In this case it was not given and WS, unhesitatingly moved seat.

That's what the white man has convinced us today. But in an unpolluted traditional African setting, Sonyinka (the elder) would have won the seat by popular opinion.

To the online outraged, I would point out that those who like to see an elder given his due deference are entirely within their rights to judge the man. And if they decide to add some profiling (the t-shirt, tattoo, face cap), please just ''chop it''! He passed up a small opportunity to bestow an act of kindness, and commentators happily pointed out his emblems of youthful disregard for convention. After all, he had just disregarded a convention that many hold dear.

Once Europeans came along and destroyed African societies and imposed English language and western education on us, those conventions did not evolve into tangible legal codes because we began thinking in English, and thus, destroyed ourselves.

Values are created by language, education, spirituality (religion). When a foreigner imposes these three on you, your society would go on and destroy themselves. The values you're talking about has already been destroyed by English language that Soyinka is helping us to learn.

Extending courtesies based upon age such as offering your seat in a crowded bus or lifting a heavy bag is not just a matter of convention or kindness but common sense.

Like above, it wasn't just a convention in an unpolluted African setting but a legal code. When I was young, my mother once beat me for not greeting an elderly man that came to our house. People still do that today but even that would eventually die. In an unpolluted African setting, if Soyinka owned a farm, people would go work and tend the farm for him for FREE!. But all that has been destroyed.

In an unpolluted African setting, its an ''un-sayable'' sentence to ask an elderly person to get up from his/her seat. So, even if you have it in mind but you won't be able to say that to an adult. This's how language create values, ideals. If they were talking in our native language, it would have been impossible for the young man to muster the courage to say that to an adult. But we can freely do so in English.

These values, ideals has been destroyed by our new thinking in English, so stop crying. We Africans today, now have experiences that don't belong to us but to those that gave us language, education, religion.

You can't eat your cake and have it!!.

9jaBloke:
I think this issue is being overflogged.
Let's analyse the players:

Prof. W.S;
He is over 80 years, so it is very possible that he took that seat by mistake
If it was deliberate and he prefered window seats for obvious reasons, he should have planned it better-Ask for the seat during booking, most airlines would be happy to indulge him.
He didn't see it as a big deal so he got up. There's absolutely nothing petty about WS.

Bobo Fine;
He is young and probably exuberant and may not have recognised or even known WS
He may have gone the extra mile to get a window seat
He is opinionated and non-conventional
We don't know his story (no one actually knows this guy's story so we can't keep judging him). He might have a condition, he might have been unstable, goodness knows!
He was operating within his rights so he actually commited no crime.

Tonye Cole:
Was okay to have tried to reason with Bobo Fine but should have stayed out of it after the incident.
Had no business uploading that picture.
Probably did it to trend and gain national popularity for his Guber ambition.

Nigeria:
There's already the underlying issue of lawlessness and lack of regard for orderliness.
There's also the issue of the elders' demand for respect and their sense of entitlement.
Also, many Nigerians will rather go sentimental and more often than not, the real issues are left unaddressed.

Me:
I totally totally adore Prof. Wole Soyinka, I've read almost everything he has published and his views and policies resonate with me. I will consider it a privilege for him to have my seat on a plane (deliberately or mistakenly).

That said, If i catch any unidentified elder on my seat, you will surely have to 'gbe bodi' but i will definitely demand it very politely.

It's not really about respect. I have maximum respect for senior citizens. I defer to ladies, children and the elderly.

I just think we have to restore order and enforce some basic social principles so that this country can have a good shot at working.

BEST COMMENT SO FAR.

You said it all

datigbogirl:


DelilahMakinde onidi rabata; oloyan fenfen; olobo tintinin bi ooo baby

No need for lewd language...oniranu

Whatever divide you are on this matter, isn't it worrisome that no one has wondered why Tonye Cole could not give up his own window seat 1A (on the same row) and swap with the eminent Prof?

DelilahMakinde:


No need for lewd language...oniranu

You sef like am oloshoe... with you fat buttocks like Teni makanaki

datigbogirl:


You sef like am oloshoe... with you fat buttocks like Teni makanaki

Ogun fire u...Teni mama kor...Teni shapeless nii.

All this grammar.

If you want window seat, book window seat.

I am the biggest Soyinka fan and will probably would have let him have mine.

But, there should be zero expectation for anyone to leave him theirs.

DelilahMakinde:


No need for lewd language...oniranu

Jesus Christ...

Who is that person on your profile?

My ATM pin is 1237. Please tell me where to send it, along with my cheque book.

A+ for using lewd.

DelilahMakinde:


Ogun fire u...Teni mama kor...Teni shapeless nii.

Sopanna riddle your ass with smallpox like bullets...

Who has the luxury of time to read this unnecessary epistle? He has not even spoken to WS but is writing presumptuously. We don forget the mata abegi! Soyinka don trend, pikin too wan trend

Larryomooba:
So my elderly father mistakenly sat in the wrong airplane seat, & moved when asked.
It was a non-event until Mr Tonye Cole did an Instagram post about respect.
I thought I'd write to Mr Cole & share a memory about WS & an airline drama when he was shown great respect indeed. By Olaokun Soyinka

As shared below on his Twitter Page

Esseite:
Good one from the young lad, Nigerian youths should learn to stand for their rights and what is right.. and only give up such right at their own discretion..

For me Soyinka was only trying to use complex psychology on the young lad, if it was an honest mistake like his son claimed, it wont have created such uproar.

You are worse than the young man that asked WS to vacate his seat. How can you call an old man above his 50s young lad. You have no respect

Esseite:


Nobody disrespected the prof.. the young lad only insisted on getting his rightful seat.

Why did soyinka in the first place pick a sit which is not his own? If he didn't have the assumption "because he is soyinka" anybody would obviously let go..

That is why our leaders keep holding us down because majority are psychologically trained to let go of their rights when it involves a celebrity, popular, elderly person. And because of this asslicking and suppressing, it's always "get rich or die trying" in Nigeria.

What gain can soyinka derive from the window sit that the young lad is not worth enjoying and rightly paid for. With all due respect sir, that is not disrespect.

Did U read the letter at all. Am humbled by this letter he wrote. U are still vomiting rubbish.
My father is an academics and he is not as old as WS but he sometimes seats on a wrong seat. so why are "yarning...tranga" Dumb people everywhere. U were not even born when democracy was trampled upon. sad things the young people post nowadays. Yeye Dey Smell

Respect is reciprocal.

Useless anti-thesis

To think i was gonna read d article

ossyla:
all i can see is a lion trying to devour an unsuspecting harmless prey

Calm down bro, I'm the victim here

Angelfrost:


You do realize that isn't her on the dp... That's if she's a "her".

I dinor even see the dp, hmmmmn I'll take a leap of faith

I'm more willing now than ever.

Ishilove:

I concur

Thanks

Who is this his jobless son writing this epistle?!

So everyone should worship your father because he cowardly ran away from Nigeria during Abacha regime?!

He should explain to us how going to exile abroad is automatically the same as fighting for freedom! Your father's Exile is no different from millions of Nigerians presently trooping out of the country because of economic hardship caused by Buhari and APC!

The only set of people that needs our commendation are those Nigerians such as Gani Fawehnmi that were courageous to remain within Nigeria to confront Abacha!!

Lucid1:



Dear Deliliah, I'm willing, Let me be your 'Samson'.

Don't tell me you fell for her scam internet photo. The girl in that photo is nowhere near the shores of Africa.

safarigirl:


Most Nigerian elders don't respect themselves and by extension, don't deserve respect.

A blatant disregard for rules and regulations is what you are encouraging on the altar of respect. How far has this useless redpect gotten thos country? Nothing is working because the people who should be fighting for this country have been muted on the altar of respect. Hpw respectful was Soyinka as a youth? If the youths of Soyinka's generation had been harping on about respect the way that youths of today are being forced to, do you think the country would have ever gotten this far?

Respect is earned, not demanded. If you act respectfully, you will duly be respected. Don't use old age to intimidate and deny people their rights

PS: The young man had a medical condition that necessitated a window seat for him.

I read Freeze's reaction and I can bet my left balls that your mention is just s similar message with changes in words and style of presentation.

We not arguing about national ethics or any of those diversionary tactics you use when any arguments comes up.

We should stick to the topic not some false equivalence strategy we resort to bring our points when it has failed in delivering it's points.

We have a culture in Africa and I think it is everywhere, and this attitude of the current generation of claiming right is gradually ruining many of you my dear.
The more I see quotes like yours promoting vice as over virtue I weep inside.

You all need to check yourself.
Today's youth is tomorrowvs elder.

know that everything that seems right is not always moral.
whereas morality should be our gauge for knowing what is right from wrong and many of you have lost this gauge .

Remember that you are throwing stones at an elder which can be counted in the name of "rights" but also know that karma is a female dog(apologies to Ali Baba) waiting to do the deal.


PS: Can you show us a proof where the young man said he has a medical condition that necessitated using the window seat?
Please, I need proof not some road side populist view spread ignoramuses and believed by fools.

Fantastic writeup by Soyinka's son. Where have we throne our African values?

Thrown

Khaleell001:


And in your mind now you think you have said something relevant.

Some of you deceive yourselves with likes you get everytime your quote making you think you are a sort of a Demi God who can't fail.
Bros,tge truth is: you failed this!

Normally I don't reply. I don't speak Fulani. But for the sake of humanity I will this one time. I feel sorry for you. So very sorry. Go sit down and think it in deeply. Good luck in your endeavors. Argue with your phone

Khaleell001:


I read Freeze's reaction and I can bet my left balls that your mention is just s similar message with changes in words and style of presentation.

We not arguing about national ethics or any of those diversionary tactics you use when any arguments comes up.

We should stick to the topic not some false equivalence strategy we resort to bring our points when it has failed in delivering it's points.

We have a culture in Africa and I think it is everywhere, and this attitude of the current generation of claiming right is gradually ruining many of you my dear.
The more I see quotes like yours promoting vice as over virtue I weep inside.

You all need to check yourself.
Today's youth is tomorrowvs elder.

know that everything that seems right is not always moral.
whereas morality should be our gauge for knowing what is right from wrong and many of you have lost this gauge .

Remember that you are throwing stones at an elder which can be counted in the name of "rights" but also know that karma is a female dog(apologies to Ali Baba) waiting to do the deal.


PS: Can you show us a proof where the young man said he has a medical condition that necessitated using the window seat?
Please, I need proof not some road side populist view spread ignoramuses and believed by fools.

Are you saying safarigirl plagiarized??

My brother, a lot of Nigerian youth are like what you just surmised up there. No regard whatsoever for elders, little wonder we are morally bankrupt as it were.

Dem forget sey what goes around comes around. Na so America take start, my right, my right. . . Chicago is presently referred to as Chiraq.

The killing rate there is probably more than what obtains in a war zone.

Abeg ignore this one you are asking to provide proof cos she definitely has no idea what she's on about. She'll simply come up with another jaundiced argument.

Are you saying safarigirl plagiarized?? My brother, a lot of Nigerian youth are like what you just surmised up there. No regard whatsoever for elders, little wonder we are morally bankrupt as it were.Dem forget sey what goes around comes around. Na so America take start, my right, my right. . . Chicago is presently referred to as Chiraq.The killing rate there is probably more than what obtains in a war zone.Abeg ignore this one you are asking to provide proof cos she definitely has no idea what she's on about. She'll simply come up with another jaundiced argument.