Nigeria: Soyinka Marches for Good Governance

Professor Wole Soyinka, a Nobel laureate, is known to have lived an exemplary life, agitating for the good of his country. Each time issues of national development and progress are involved, he is known to have always been at the forefront, most times at his own personal discomfort.

True to type, Soyinka, in company of other eminent Nigerians, led a protest on Tuesday, titled "Enough is enough." The march was to compel the National Assembly to address the issue of President Umaru Yar'Adua's health, and his 49th day of absence from office.

Soyinka sanctioned the mass action to jolt the government, which he described as a ridiculous regime that has held the country from doing the right thing. The action also aimed at ensuring that an elongation of the current state of uncertainty was not sustained.

He further declared that it was wrong for the Nigerian government to continue to lie to its people, stressing that those responsible for such lies should not go unpunished.

"If the President of a nation is not in a situation where he can manage the affairs of the nation, and you keep lying and covering up to the nation, you are committing treason against the people," he said.

He went on to criticise Nigerians for their docility, which, in his own view, made it possible for government officials to engage in such practices as currently playing out in the country.

Soyinka, who just came back to the country after experiencing first hand, the ordeal of Nigerian travellers under the United States of America (USA) latest directive on Nigeria, criticised the people for their passivity on burning national issues.

He said the march was necessary as it was meant to mobilise Nigerians to legitimately confront government over its inaction. "For me, the most important thing is to wake the nation, to make people understand that they don't have to accept the act of contempt from their rulers and regard it as the norm."

The acclaimed wordsmith also accused the National Assembly of being responsible for the situation that has developed over the President's health. He insisted that it was as a result of their complacency in addressing the issue that has made the conspiracy of lies by people in government possible.

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Wole Olanipekun, says though he has enormous respect for Soyinka, "the Nigerian Constitution is elaborate enough; its clear, and what Nigerians should do is to follow the Constitution."

To many Soyinka's admirers, talking about his activism is just a tip of the iceberg of what he represents. He is a poet, actor, singer, teacher, social critic and several other things rolled into one.

Before the Abuja march, the literary icon had made his marks in rising up against autocratic regimes and governments perceived to be lacking in ideas on how to move the country ahead. At the dark era of military regimes, he was on occasions detained for championing actions against some government anti-people policies. He was for instance arrested and detained during the civil war years, for visiting the Biafran enclave. It was while he was in the gulag that he wrote his prison memoir, The Man Died.

Besides agitating for good governance, Soyinka has equally shown good examples of how to get things done. As the first Corps Marshall of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Soyinka was known to have provided the outfit with a definite sense of direction.

He is a member of many intellectual bodies, including Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Born in 1935, Soyinka hails from Isara in Ogun State. He had his tertiary education at University College Ibadan, as well as the University of Leeds, United Kingdom.

Daily Independent (Lagos)