THECABLE APOLOGISES TO SOYINKA OVER ‘IGBO’ STORY

Online news portal , The Cable has released a statement of apology to Prof. Wole Soinka over reports he described Igbos as money-hungry people who votes based on their stomach. 
The statement below..
"The management of Cable Newspaper Ltd, publishers of TheCable, would like to make the following statement concerning our report on the lecture by Professor Wole Soyinka at the Harvard University Hutchins Centre for African & African American Research. Soyinka was quoted to have made derogatory remarks about the Igbo over their voting pattern in theMarch 28 presidential election. He has since denied the offensive quotes attributed to him.

IGBOS VOTE BASED ON THEIR STOMACH – SOYINKA

• Says they are Predictable and Incurably Money-Minded
Nobel Laureate and foremost social critic, Wole Soyinka, is of the opinion that Nigerians of Igbo extraction are the only people in the country who can be predicted accurately. Delivering a lecture titled ‘Predicting Nigeria, Electoral Ironies’ at the Harvard University Hutchins Centre for African & African American Research, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, the revered scholar described people from that part of the country as “greedy”. “Igbos remained unrepentant and resolute towards their strategic objective of secession at worst; or a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction at best,” he said at the lecture, which held on April 29. “The climax of MASSOB’s war against the Nigerian state was the call for sit-ins and civil disobedience that shut down markets and public services, as Igbos stayed at home in a symbolic gesture to assert Biafran independence.

NIGERIANS MUST BE UNITED TO END TERRORISM —SOYINKA

Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka and other prominent Nigerians including, the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who is also the coordinating Minister of the Economy, on Tuesday declared that only concerted efforts of Nigerians can put a stop terrorism in the country.
They made the assertion while speaking at a “National Rally Against Terror,” held at the Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos.
The rally tagged, Nigerians Unite Against Terror (NUAT), was led by Dr Joe Okei-Odumakin.

THE SILVER LINING IN THE CLOUD OF POSTPONEMENT BY WOLE SOYINKA

The “Advertorial” – full front page of Punch“ Feb 23, 2015 – sponsored by Mr. Ayo Fayose (aka “No Apology”) deserves to succeed in its aim of putting an end to all dispute surrounding the Ekiti elections of June 21, 2014. After all, its entire page is dedicated to a Press Statement from the US Department of State, which purportedly endorses the results of that election, congratulates the electoral organization, the winner/loser duo, not forgetting the security forces – all for their laudable contributions. The release could not be more timely, what with the governor’s own exhortations on the virtues of credibility, avoidance of violence, and its special appeal to “ALL THOSE WHO HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE”.

SOYINKA: GMB MOST BRUTAL DICTATOR AFTER ABACHA

Wole Soyinka, a professor and Nobel Laureate, has described Muhammadu Buhari, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the most brutal face of military dictatorship after Sani Abacha. The revered professor, who spoke to the BBC, suggested that Nigerians are in a serious dilemma with lack of alternative. When asked about his comments about the general as a brutal devil, Soyinka said he did not exactly call him the devil, but a brutal dictator. “I didn’t exactly call him a devil, but of course I talked about dinning with the devil with a very long spoon, but he (Buhari), I didn’t even want to dine with him at all,” he said. “After Abacha, he represented the most brutal face of military dictatorship, there’s no question at all about that. “I’ve got to the point whereby I look at the possibility of a genuine internal transformation with some individuals.

I DIDN’T ENDORSE ANY CANDIDATE – SOYINKA

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, on Thursday dismissed claims that he had endorsed some politicians as his presidential and governorship candidates ahead of the February elections.
Soyinka, in a piece titled, ‘Identity Thieves and the 2015 Election Peace Accord,’ warned those spreading the rumour of his purported endorsement of candidates “to be less gullible, and avoid becoming cheap conduits for the deception industry.”
He said, “Let me thus seize the occasion of the Abuja accord to state categorically that I have never made a statement endorsing any presidential or governorship contestant. All such attributions are fabrications by faceless, often self-appointed agents of deception, and should be publicly pilloried.

OBASANJO, AN IRREDEEMABLE HYPOCRITE —WOLE SOYINKA

Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has described former president, General Olusegun Obasanjo, as an irredeemable hypocrite and a liar who takes delight in denigrating people.
Soyinka, in his reply to the attack on him by Obasanjo in his latest controversial book, My Watch, pillories Obasanjo for invoking God all the time and wonders whether Obasanjo actually believes in such an entity, given his recourse to lying compulsively.
“Our Owu retiree soldier and prolific author is an infliction that those of us who share the same era and nation space must learn to endure,” Soyinka writes.
Obasanjo has a “capacity for infantile mischief.”
Soyinka describes him as “master of mendacity,” writer of ‘ignoble fabrication’ and an “indefatigable peddler of lies.”

JONATHAN IS NIGERIA’S NEBUCHADNEZZAR – SOYINKA

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, on Tuesday likened President Goodluck Jonathan to the Biblical Babylonian autocrat, King Nebuchadnezzar.
He said Nigerians have been cast into a “furnace” in the manner of Shedrack, Mishak and Abednego.
Unfortunately for the citizens, no divine miracle appears to be at hand for a last-minute rescue, Soyinka said.
The three biblical characters where cast into a fiery furnace for refusing to bow down to an image made by the despotic king, but they were miraculously rescued.
Soyinka while speaking at a media briefing at the Freedom Park in Lagos, with the theme: “King Nebuchadnezzar – the reign of impunity,” said Jonathan’s administration has become known for lawlessness.

INTERNET REVOLUTION CAN DESTROY SCHOLARSHIP, SAYS SOYINKA

Foremost Nigerian writer and Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka warned yesterday in Awka that if reasonable steps were not taken, the current internet revolution would destroy scholarship.
Delivering the 3rd Zik annual lecture at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Soyinka said the heavy reliance on internet for academic activities would soon witness the end of books as instrument for mind development and potential building.
According to him, there has been so much decline in writing and reading among the younger generation and urged them not to allow any primordial considerations to hinder them from developing their innate potentials.
He observed that certain traditional, religious and western teachings enslaved Africans from exploiting their environment and potentials, adding that the problems in Nigeria today such as Boko Haram, which could be attributed to poor mental development occasioned by wrong teaching.

SOYINKA SLAMS JONATHAN’S SUPPORT GROUP OVER FABRICATION

Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has slammed the Goodluck Support Network, one of the groups championing the re-election bid of Nigeria’s President Jonathan, for fabricating a statement and crediting it to him.
The statement purportedly written by Soyinka has as its title: ‘The North Must Stop Bombing Nigeria And Blaming Jonathan’. The angry professor described the statement as a desperate tactics by the group to change the impression Nigerians have of President Jonathan by using prominent people in the society.
“This is an unscrupulous, disgusting and cowardly fabrication. The Goodluck Support Network must be truly desperate to resort to such despicable tactics,” Soyinka said.
The statement claimed that Professor Soyinka blamed the failure of government’s inability to curtail insurgency on the people of northern Nigeria and their refusal to co-operate with the government.

JONATHAN HAS INFORMATION ABOUT CBN BOKO HARAM FINANCIER —SOYINKA

•Backs Falana’s call for prosecution of sponsors
Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka has alleged that President Goodluck Jonathan already has information about the financier of the dreaded Boko Haram sect, who is a staff of the CBN.
Soyinka, in his latest release, claimed to also know the identity of the financier, argued that the information has been “passed” to the president, admonishing him to summon the needed political will to prosecute all those named by Stephen Davis, the Australian negotiator as sponsors of the dreaded sect.
“That name, we confidently learnt, has also been passed on to President Jonathan. When he is ready to abandon his accommodating policy towards the implicated, even the criminalised, an attitude that owes so much to re-election desperation, when he moves from a passive “letting the law to take its course” to galvanising the law to take its course, we shall gladly supply that name.”

B’HARAM MENACE MAKING NIGERIA’S BREAK-UP LESS LIKELY -SOYINKA

Nigeria is suffering greater carnage at the hands of Islamist group Boko Haram than it did during a secessionist civil war, yet this has ironically made the country’s break-up less likely, Nigerian Nobel Literature Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has said.
Speaking at his home surrounded by rainforest in Abeokuta, Soyinka said the horrors inflicted by the militants had shown Nigerians across the mostly Muslim north and Christian south that sticking together might be the only way to avoid even greater sectarian slaughter.
The bloodshed was now worse than during the 1967-70 Biafra war, when a secessionist attempt by the Igbo almost tore Nigeria up into ethnic regions, he added.
“We have never been confronted with butchery on this scale, even during the civil war,” Soyinka said in his front room, surrounding by traditional wooden sculptures of Yoruba deities on Tuesday.

EKITI: PREVENTING APC GOVERNORS FROM CAMPAIGN WAS ‘ACT OF WAR’ – SOYINKA

Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, has condemned the stopping of some governors of the All Progressives Congress, APC, from attending a campaign rally in Ekiti State describing it as an act of war.
At a press conference in Lagos, Saturday, Mr. Soyinka urged the affected governors to seek redress in court, noting that it was a violation of their human rights.
Some APC governors who were attending Governor Kayode Fayemi’s final electioneering campaign in Ado-Ekiti, last Thursday, were prevented from getting to their destination by army soldiers.

SOYINKA: I NEVER SAID PATIENCE JONATHAN IS AN ILLITERATE

Over a year ago, when MuhdLawal published online the following statement attributed to Professor Wole Soyinka — “When you marry an illiterate woman as a wife, you make stupid decisions like Jonathan” — Soyinka wrote a strongly worded rejoinder, saying that at no time did he say anything like that.
In the wake of Mrs Patience Jonathan’s vilification in the media, on account of her insensitive response to the abduction of the Chibok school girls, Soyinka’s alleged abuse has resurfaced.
From his base in California, Professor Soyinka has sent yet another rebuttal. In it, he appeals to all well-meaning online editors for their intervention in terminating what he describes as “the disgusting career of the fabrication”.

BOKO HARAM MENACE BEYOND JONATHAN’S GOVT –SOYINKA

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, on Tuesday said the government of President Goodluck Jonathan was not capable of countering the menace of the violent Islamic sect, Boko Haram.
Speaking on Amanpour on CNN, Soyinka submitted that the international community must intervene in what he called the bestiality of the insurgents when responding the question of the host, Christine Amanpour on how the insurgency in the country could be tackled.
“This menace has to be internationalised; every country has to be involved in finding solutions to the problem. It is not a Nigerian problem but the problem of the whole world. From the activities of the group and the response of the government since this madness started, it is clear that this government cannot handle this problem alone,” he said.
Soyinka accused both the past and the present governments in the country of living in self denial, by believing that they could negotiate or “appeal” to “murderers and killers” to stop their activities.

SOYINKA SEEKS NON-PARTISAN APPROACH TO B’HARAM WAR

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has said that Nigeria need to seek non partisan approach towards solving the problem posed by the Boko Haram sect to the country.
Soyinka said this in Osogbo on Monday at colloquium organised by the Centre forBlack Culture and International Understanding entitled “Fundamental Imperatives of Cohabitation Faith and Secularism.”
Soyinka, who is the Chairman of CBCIU said that the killings by the sect transcended partisan politics saying every Nigerian irrespective of religious or political leaning must rise up against it.
He described the incessant killings by the sect as nothing but a war with the nation.
He said, “What is happening now goes beyond politics. I think there should be a non partisan approach to it. Enough atrocities have been committed, programmed structured atrocities with a goal in view.

RELIGIOUS WAR LOOMS — SOYINKA

Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has warned Nigerians to beware of being pushed to the point where adherents of religious faiths would engage in a war, stressing that the outcome of it may be very devastating for the country.
Speaking yesterday in Osogbo at a press conference to herald a three-day colloquium organized by the Centre for Black Culture and International Understanding, CBCIU, in collaboration with Osun State Government, which begins tomorrow, Soyinka noted that activities in recent past in the country pointed to the fact that religious war was looming.
Tagged, ‘All Comers Colloquium’, under the theme: ‘Fundamental Imperatives of Cohabitation: Faith and Secularism’, the event is expected to bring Christians, Muslims and traditionalists to discuss ways of preventing religious war in the country.
Soyinka, who is the Chairman, Board of Directors of CBCIU, represented by a member of the Board, Prof. Wale Adeniran, stated that with Nigeria surviving a civil war, the next war the nation may fight is religious war.

WOLE SOYINKA LOSES 48-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER

A daughter of Nobel Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka, Iyetade, is dead.
A statement signed on behalf of the family by a former Editor of the Guardian on Sunday, Mr. Jahman Anikulapo and a close aide to Soyinka, stated that Iyetade, a mother of two, died while receiving treatment for an undisclosed ailment at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

NO, OBASANJO SHOULD NOT BE YOUR NAVIGATOR —SOYINKA

Professor Wole Soyinka,has reacted to a statement credited to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu that APC would like General Obasanjo to be the navigator of his party. The Nobel Laureate said that the move will lead to ‘’the guaranteed crash’’ of the APC’s ship. Soyinka then threw in this jibe: ‘’Don’t forget to alert the coast guards – ECOWAS, AU, UNO etc etc – to be on the alert for possible salvage operations. He concluded: “By the way, if General Sani Abacha were alive today, would he also have been on the ship’s complement? As captain perhaps’’?
Source: PMNews

APC’S VISIT TO OBJ: NIGERIA MAY BE HEADING FOR A SHIPWRECK -SOYINKA

NOBEL Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has warned that Nigeria might be headed for a shipwreck, as top officials of the All Progressives Congress (APC) visited former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, to court his support.
In a statement entitled: “Shipwreck ahead,” Soyinka warned that Nigeria would need urgent rescue operations if the APC wanted to invite people like Obasanjo to serve as a navigator for the ship of state.
“An APC-led group, we understand, has been paying courtesy visits to former heads of state,” he said.
Professor Soyinka said it would be disastrous for the country if the purpose of the visit was captured in the mission statement credited to the APC national leader, Senator Bola Tinubu, that the party had resolved to rescue Nigeria and appealing to Obasanjo to lead the mission.