Dear Professor Soyinka, please you are just making a fool of yourself

by Nkechi Nwokorie

“Let me end with a Red Card to those noisome creatures, the nattering nit-wits of Internet: maybe Trumpland is not as despicable as the Naijaland you impose on our reality from your secure cesspits of anonymity. Go back to school. Your problem is ignorance, ignorance of whatever subject you so readily comment upon. Learn to study your subject before opening up on issues beyond your grasp. Sometimes you make one feel like swapping one green for another, out of embarrassment for occupying the same national space as you.

That was on 15 November.

“Our common sense is totally lost. I am embarrassed sometimes that I occupy the same nation space with some people.”

This was just today.

Professor Wole Soyinka, Africa’s Nobel Laureate spending quite some words attacking his fellow countrymen – with disdain and not a little malice.

What causes such a hysterical response? Did somebody die? Did someone kill somebody? Was some atrocity committed against the person of the laureate? Did someone insult those closest to him? Is it directed at those who have stolen public funds? Has Patience Jonathan awoken yet again the sleeping sexist in him? Is this the response to some major national thieving scandal?

Nope. None of the above.

Just a simple expectation: that an 80-year old would do what he said he would do.

In the hysteria of pre-Trump America, when the entire elite university was resolutely certain that Donald Trump – the grabber of pu__ies, and attacker-of-beauty-queens-at-3am – could not be President of America, it became cool to denigrate him and the possibility with all kinds of statements.

Many of the people who made those statements were dead sure, no matter how dramatic it was, they would not have to keep their promise because the unthinkable could not happen. Some people promised to eat bugs, some promised to dress up as a woman.

But Nigeria’s attention-loving professor, not content with reasonable threats, decided to one-up everybody else, with a totally outlandish promise: if Donald Trump became president of America, he would tear up his Green Card – a privilege granted by the generosity of his host country, America, for which he should have been wise not to abuse recklessly in the first place.

Hear him: “The moment they announce his victory, I will cut my green card myself and start packing up.”

It sounded like the kind of thing a teenager high on marijuana would say, but Nigerians are generally used to Professor Soyika’s over the top declarations and dramatic reflexes, and since Donald Trump was not going to be president anyway, we figured we could let this slide and there would not be occasion – finally – to test the Professor’s everyday integrity.

Unfortunately, the universe has a wicked sense of humour: Trump won.

It was time to see the character of those who made silly threats:

Nigerians quickly turned to the nearest culprit with a very simple request: when will you do what you promised loudly in the national media?

And that’s how Professor Soyinka began to kill a fly with a sledgehammer, and he has continued rabidly since then, trying to bully a surprised nation.

This is typical gas lighting: it is not he who told a brazen lie in making a promise he could not keep that had a problem. It was us, who made a mistake of thinking him a man of simple integrity who are nattering nitwits, and senseless for daring to ask that he do what he says.

What manner of man is this?

This could have been sorted in a minute if he had chosen humility instead of condescension: if he had simply said, ‘Oh I was just kidding, you guys can’t take a joke? Trump is not coming near my Green Card’. We would have giggled, we would have sneered with affection for this near miss and we would have gone about our daily lives.

Instead, he chose disdain, he chose denigration, he chose a dramatic volte-face because he couldn’t deal with the fact that he had been caught in a lie. How could he destroy a Green Card that brings him so much comfort, so much prestige? Something that he cannot take back once it is taken away.

The attack made Nigerians more resolute, especially on the free internet: Tear The Damn Card, dude.

Then he said he would wait until inauguration to tear it, as if that makes any difference. As if that were a cop-out, as if he does not know what ‘when he wins’ means. By all that is right, at this point what is the difference between Professor Wole Soyinka and Prophet TB Joshua?

Then, on Saturday, he came up with a new one: in an interview with the AFP, he claimed – incredulously – that he has destroyed the card.

Ogaaaaa! Photos or we don’t believe it.

What do we look like to you? Fools. Wasn’t it your mate, Olusegun Obasanjo that called the national media together, and tore his People’s Democratic Party membership card, in front of the whole world? What kind of kindergarten games are we playing here?

It’s a tragedy. The Man Died. The man we used to respect lost a huge deal of that regard based on something that should not have been an issue in the first place. Because the old man’s pride chooses infantile bullying over humble introspection.

Soyinka’s actions show that he has no integrity, period. That what he says cannot be trusted. That he so craves public attention that he will say or do anything to court it. And that when caught in a compromising position, he cannot be trusted to do what is right.

As he insulted his country men for asking him a simple question, newspapers report that “He also wondered why Nigerians were concerned if he destroys his green card or not.”

Huh?

We are concerned because you said it with your own mouth. We are concerned because you made a promise and now you are lying your way out of it. We are concerned because there are too many old men in Nigeria who lie about things big and small and together, that kind of lack of integrity led to the collapse of the moral and social fabric of our nation.

The more you speak on this matter without apologising for misspeaking, the more you lose the respect of the people who should keep your legacy when you’re gone.

Don’t let this matter be the defining question mark for a life of literary excellence, sir. Just bow your head in the shame of silence and use your Green Card to jump the queue the next time you are lucky to be allowed into those United States.

The only person who deserves a red card, is you. 

Comments (3)

  1. The writer of this piece is making a fool of herself. The Prof owes no one anything.

  2. age factor is unpopularizing the renowned prof.

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