Point of correction Bashir Yusuf is not Atiku's politcal adviser and was never one of them . Twitter is an individual personal stuff, why would you attached mallam Bashir to Atiku? this shows that the publisher of this article is a fool

It is highly mischievous to try and attribute a personal statement made by Malam Bashir Yusuf on his personal tweeter page to Atiku Abubakar. Without holding brief for the Turakin Adamawa, he has had to date only two political advisers, Dr. Usman Bugaje and later Professor A. D Yahaya, both of whom are highly respected political figures. Malam Bashir, despite being a member of NPLF is not Atiku’s political adviser and anyone having a bone to pick with him should do so without trying to bring Atiku in this kind of political mischief.

You guys should reason. Wole Soyinka is now a politician if u don't knw. Eversince January, he has been making the news for one reason or the other. He is always thinking negative, which is not adviseable, (in a time like this, everybdy nids to think positive to solve our problems). He said Nigeria is dis-intergrating, he said boko haram wants to kill him. Haba, this man should be more positive when he speaks again.

manchy7531:

i wonder what is it with all these Hausa and yoruba people.

last year it was OBJ and IBB

tiunbu vs balarabe musa

not too long it was femi fani kayode vs malam elrufai / sanusi lamido sanusi

abiola family vs almustafar

now it is wole soyinka vs Malam Bashir Yusuf


is the alliance crumblingsomebody tell me, pls i need to know.have the slave finally decide to take its rightful place and stop serving the masters

One alliance that can never crumble is the Igbo Hausa Slave master relationship

Azikwe boy boy to balewa
Ekwueme boy boy to Shagari
Sylvester Ugo boy boy to Bashir Tofa
Ben Obi boy boy to Atiku
Soludo boy boy to Atiku



And most recently Ojuku servant to IBB

[size=20pt]2011: Ojukwu canvasses support for IBB[/size]
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2010/05/2011-ojukwu-canvasses-support-for-ibb/
http://www.thenigerianvoice.com/nvnews/21981/1/ojukwu-pledges-support-of-igbos-for-ibb.html

aurenflani:

wole soyinka has always fought as a critic in other to line his pocket. he is an opportunist unlike some1 like achebe, ali mazrui or ngugi. where as d trio speak out of consciencious convictions, soyinka 1st analyses what he stood 2 gain 1st. he is a stooge of d west & dat is why he was choosen 4 d nobel price & not far more better writers in africa.[/b]those nincompoops & low lives insulting muslims & d prophet should not be taken seriously as they are basically brought 2 d world as basstardds & continue 2 live in d world worshipping an israeli prophet who does not recognise them just as his kinsmen have always refused 2 recognised him (Jesus).
the only religion nigerian christians follow is blame & ignorance, money & vulgar pursuit.

[b]The Nobel Prize in Literature 1986 was awarded to Wole Soyinka "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence". . .

Have you read any of his Works, you dim-witted Schmuck?

I suggest you go to a good Bookshop and get the Book, "Ake: The Years of Childhood". . .just to have an insight into what it requires to be a Nobel Laureate. . .I.diot!

Frankly I am surprised that posters have considered this (IMHO) crude and opinionated comment (from a personality who obviously has a political agenda of sorts) so strongly they have proceeded to demonstrate bile, intolerance and utter hatred for each other on a public forum.

I see a lot of respected posters on this thread and I am lost for words at the way we have thrown reason into the winds and are desperately clutching at the straws of tribalism, religion and ignorance to argue a simple criticism - haba!! whether is is couched crudely or has sentiments attached or directed at eliciting an equally negative response is not the matter here. we should recognize that Politics is always a dirty game - that is its nature. We must learn to see beyond the slurs and ignore incidents that do not contribute to the bigger picture in a positive way. Negativism is the sister of immaturity - these two only serve to propagate the same blissful ignorance our founding fathers have planted more than 50 years ago.

We must recognize the facts on ground and deal with them for the moment - discounting past-events that have been overtaken by history, political amnesia and public dis-interest. We must focus on what to do now and tomorrow - not argue and fight and curse like it is going to change anything for the better

He thinks he knows

Written by Mahmud Jega mmjega@dailytrust.com, 08054102925 Monday, 06 February 2012 05:00


Last week, when I engaged on this page in a “search for a meaning” to the Boko Haram attacks that have gripped Nigeria in recent times, several readers sent text messages and e-mails saying I only discarded many possible explanations without providing a concrete answer.

That is because I do not claim to know the exact answer, but a man who was certain he knew the answer was Prof Wole Soyinka, a man often fond of pouring kerosene into a blazing flame. Speaking to a South African newspaper late last week, he said “both religious and political forces were driving the insurgency by the Islamist sect Boko Haram.”

According to Soyinka, “power-hungry politicians from Nigeria’s Muslim North are using indoctrinated young militants, drawn from the ranks of the poor unemployed and educated in Islamic schools, as foot soldiers in a battle over who should control the country.” He also said, “Those who unleashed Boko Haram on the nation are politicians… Unfortunately one has to point to what section they come from, and that is the North. This minority is much focused, very powerful, very rich, they used to be in government, and they’ve accumulated billions… They are the ones who unleashed this monster on the nation. They have articulated their conviction that it is their turn to rule Nigeria.”

Now, myself not being rich, powerful, focused or power hungry, I do not think Soyinka was referring to me. Still, just as I did last week, I have seen some weaknesses in his claims and accusations and I intend to point them out today.

I have no doubt in my mind that there are some power-hungry politicians in the North who could pull all stops to get at political power, just as there are similar persons in the West, East, Middle Belt and South-South. If indeed such power-hungry Northern Muslim elite sponsored Boko Haram in order to launch violent attacks on other Nigerians and capture power, then they must be big fools to locate it in Maiduguri, an old city with an overwhelmingly Muslim population. It would have been more strategic, I think, to locate such a wild army in Abuja, Lagos or Port Harcourt.

There is also a problem with time lines. If the Northern elite are using Boko Haram to capture power, why did they unleash it during the tenure of President Umaru Yar’adua in 2009? Old man Yar’adua became president after 8 straight years of rule by a Southerner, Obasanjo, so what was the idea behind plunging his reign into chaos?

Don’t forget, Boko Haram opened its campaign with an attack on prisons and police stations in Bauchi and Maiduguri, quickly followed by a bloody revolt in Maiduguri, Potiskum and other North Eastern cities. Now, if the Boko Haram uprising was a Northern Muslim plot, why did Umaru Yar’adua, a scion of a prominent Northern Muslim family, order security forces to suppress it? He should have secretly assisted it!

If Wole Soyinka is sure about the sponsors, it looks like the Boko Haram cadres themselves are not sure. Since January 2010, when they launched a renewed insurgency, except for the high-profile Madallah church bombing, most of their targets have been Muslim. The sect targeted and killed many Borno bulamas, or local chiefs. It killed many policemen and soldiers, many of them Muslim. It killed many prominent ANPP political leaders in Borno, including a party national vice chairman, a governorship candidate, and some local government chairmen, all of them elite Muslims.

In a well-publicised statement last year, Boko Haram demanded apologies from the governors of Borno, Bauchi and Gombe State for what it said was the arrest of its members and demolishing of its mosques. It didn’t sound to me as if the two were in alliance. If the Northern elite control Boko Haram, how come it launched a machine gun, rocket, grenade and suicide bomb attack on Kano, the largest and richest city in Northern Nigeria?

In the wake of the Kano attack, Boko Haram’s spokesman, the now captured Abul Qaqa, also threatened to attack Sokoto, and he said they had sent messages to the Sultan and to House Speaker Aminu Tambuwal to organise the release of their men from detention or else. All these attacks were not per chance, because the sect’s leader Malam Abubakar Shekau justified them in several tapes posted on YouTube.

Anyway, when Wole Soyinka says Northern elite, who exactly is he thinking of? If he is thinking of the Arewa Consultative Forum [ACF] which has an office in Kaduna, I personally doubt it. From my several visits to its forlorn office, I doubt if it has any more control over the North than Afenifere has over the Yoruba or that Ohanaeze Ndi’Igbo has over the Igbo. It carries out its few and far between functions by regular appeals to the Northern governors for money.

Maybe he was thinking of the Northern Governors Forum, but that is very doubtful, because there are four Christians among the 19 of them, who are an unlikely support base for Boko Haram. What about the Northern emirs and chiefs, what some Nigerian newspapers call “the Caliphate”? One of the most prominent members of this group, the Emir of Kano, recently shed tears in public after a Boko Haram attack. Another very prominent member, the Shehu of Borno, had his brother killed by the sect. This is a bit like saying it was the British Establishment that plotted Prince Charles’ divorce and other events of 1992 that made Queen Elizabeth to describe the year as annus horribilis.

The North’s top Muslim clerics have also been railing against Boko Haram sect for years, saying its resort to violence is misguided. One of the top clerics, Sheikh Jafar Adam of Kano, was killed in 2007 in what many now believe was a Boko Haram operation.

Even if Soyinka was referring to the Northern Muslim political establishment, there are at least three wings of it. The biggest wing is the PDP men led by Vice President Sambo, Speaker Aminu Tambuwal and the governors. This wing openly supported President Jonathan and paid for it in the post-election riots, when their homes were attacked.

The wing with the biggest popular support is led by General Buhari. That can hardly be called an Establishment, but it must be among Soyinka’s top suspects. Then there is the third wing, a renegade PDP faction led by General Babangida, Atiku Abubakar, General Ali Gusau and Malam Adamu Ciroma. It was noticeable that despite this group’s objections to President Jonathan, it refused to support Buhari in the last elections, which throws doubt on Soyinka’s theory that there is a blind Northern quest for the presidency. Anyway, since SSS has now got a senior sect figure in its hands, I wish to urge Wole Soyinka to go and compare notes with it.

Not waiting for this impending outcome, Wole Soyinka quickly brought up his old call for a “Sovereign National Conference,” knowing full well that Northern leaders of all hues are averse to it. Clearly, Northern political leaders do not want a break up of Nigeria at this point, so why should they instigate an inter-communal war between Muslims and Christians that could achieve precisely that result? It doesn’t add up, far as I can see.

Many people are bound to ask me again this week, what then is Boko Haram all about? Again, I am afraid that I don’t know. I can only point to the history of the North, which is replete with insurgent anti-Establishment groups, beginning from the Mahdist groups such as the one that staged the bloody Satiru uprising of 1906, right up to the Maitatsine sect of the 1980s and 1990s. It is a terrible phenomenon, but then, other sections of the country all have some nasty historical phenomena of their own.

Well, it takes a very very foul-mouthed, STARK ILLITERATE to call a World renowned Nobel Laurette (in Literature for that matter!) an illiterate!

[size=14pt]It does not surprise me, we always have one "Femi Fani-Kayode", every 7years![/size]

Lastpage!

There's a difference between being educated bookwise and educated politics wise.

honeric01:

There's a difference between being educated bookwise and educated politics wise.

true that

Okay, not all Christians are cannibals but all cannibals are Christians.

Soyinka is an illiterate, I agree. But that HAUSA CATTLEFUCKER is a factory fitted slowpoke.

Okija_juju:

Soyinka is an illiterate, I agree. But that HAUSA CATTLEFUCKER is a factory fitted slowpoke.

LOL,

Another boko-haram.

Malam Bashir Yusuf

I'm sick of this guy. He speaks like an illiterate. When they voted for MKO in 1993 & OBJ in 1999 he was opposed to both candidates.

Wole Soyinka, is a Yoruba man, yet he opposed Two Yoruba  men(MKO and OBJ).

How does that make him an illiterate.

Na im oga be illiterate!!!.

@suleiman hong
Is Atifku ya fada!!!
If not y are you angrymad at the writer.

Wole Soyinka is spent fuel. he hasnt written, done or said anything worthy of a nobel consideration lately.

in fact, he hasnt written, done or said anything worth considering at all.

confused senile buckwheat-headed old f00l.

lilliesonwater:

Na im oga be illiterate!!!.

two things are certain in life:

1. it'll always be wet when it rains

2. id1ots will always open their mouths and spout forth further idiocy

i'm sorry you had to be an id10t. im sorrier you had to prove it in a public forum.

Bashir yusuf is an idi0t. but he's right.

Sure Wole Soyinka can tell stories in English. But he is far too over - rated.

I know some people will always change the argument. The man did not say 'northern muslims'. He said power hungry politicians from the muslim north.

Secondly, it doesn't matter where their base is or where it is located or how good their strategy is. What matters is they should stop their senseless killings and opt for peaceful resolution.

And for those attacking Soyinka: At least he is doing something. Revealing his knowledge, thoughts and suspicions. What are you doing about the situation? Have you set up a watch group in your area? Have you publicly condemned the senseless killing of humans or are u busy enjoying the boko haram jokes circulating?

**Laughing**

@Ex Inferis,
na ya fada bi idi0t.

who has an award and who does not
who's boss is a failure and whos the boss of himself
guy is a fool he's just seeking attention

Its unfortunate that most nairalanders speak out of hatred. Did anybody care to ask wether the prof is telling the truth. How did he come about that information?

dayokanu:

One alliance that can never crumble is the Igbo Hausa Slave master relationship

Azikwe boy boy to balewa
Ekwueme boy boy to Shagari
Sylvester Ugo boy boy to Bashir Tofa
Ben Obi boy boy to Atiku
Soludo boy boy to Atiku



And most recently Ojuku servant to IBB

And your Oga Awolowo was a slave to an Illiterate Army Gowon. An illegitimate government for that matter.
How worse can it be?

Watch dis man, he is a sponsor of boko haram. Wen an illitrate takes another illitrate as his advicer, all u will get is a illitrate advice

Sure Wole Soyinka can tell stories in English. But he is far too over - rated.

by who my friend,? take away the nobel price the guy is still rated sky high.
go listen to his opening speech during the festac 77, guess u were still in your pampers then.

@ode remo

Perhaps he was good in 1977 and could make a good speech. What did he do after the speech? You cannot rate someone as great in 2012 because he spoke well in 1977. Come on , let this man fade away respectfully.

@lilliesonwater, if you choose to be like a drunking fisher man who will tell you a story in a beer palour that a cat chase a lion to the cave the fact remain he (bashir yusuf ) is not Atiku's political adviser but you guys can continue wit ur argument, when the elephant fight na u go suffer

sorry but maybe there's more to the tweet, what does being on a hitlist and opposing previous governments have in common hmmm,

abubaka101:

You guys should reason. Wole Soyinka is now a politician if u don't knw. Eversince January, he has been making the news for one reason or the other. He is always thinking negative, which is not adviseable, (in a time like this, everybdy nids to think positive to solve our problems). He said Nigeria is dis-intergrating, he said boko haram wants to kill him. Haba, this man should be more positive when he speaks again.

We have been thinking positive since 1960 or before sef, what have we achieved by that so far why suffer and smile when u can let ur opinion out? it might not be heard or considered up dere but u said it as u saw it, not sit dere deceiving urselves dt nigeria is paradise when it obviously doesn't match up to the biblical description of soddom and gomorrah after destruction. the first step to getting a solution to any problem is identifying the problem, not trying to make urself believe u don't have a problem.

Imagin! Aboki, calling a yoruba prof an ilitrate.