Wole Soyinka, a Nobel laureate, says Peter Obi’s visit was not for “reconciliation,” as some have claimed.
However, in response to various accounts of Obi’s visit that have emerged since his visit, Soyinka issued a statement titled, “A VISITATION, and the ALLURE of “RECONCILIATION.”
“Before it gains traction and takes on a life of its own, I wish to state unequivocally that the word “Reconciliation,” which was inserted into some reports of Peter Obi’s visit to me yesterday, Sunday, May 7, is a most inappropriate and diversionary invocation.”
“Let me clarify: I am familiar with Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate. I can identify with
him. I am familiar with and relate to the Labour Party, on whose platform he ran for office. There are simply no disagreements between those two entities and myself. However, I am unfamiliar with and unable to relate to the “Obidient” or “Obidient Family.”
“Thus, in a different vein, any notion of Reconciliation, or even relationships – positive, negative, or neutral – with such a spectral emanation is simply grasping at empty air.”
“During that meeting, which was attended by only two other people, the word “Reconciliation” was never mentioned, either in its entirety or in any other form. It just didn’t happen. In contrast, there were expressions such as “burden of leadership”, “responsibility”, “apology”, “pleading”, “formal dissociation from the untenable” all the way up to “tragic ascendancy of ethnic cleavage,” particularly in such ironic, untenable circumstances. The discussions were candid and inventive. The concept of reconciliation was clearly marked as N/A – None Applicable. It was never brought up.
“The following should be understood but never undervalued.” The opening up of the dark, putrid recesses in the national psyche that we like to pretend do not exist remains indelible from that weekend of orgiastic rave in social media.
“It invited gruesome variations on images from Dante’s Purgatorio into minds seeking a grasp on reality.” A bottomless pit was revealed, with a throng of the damned writhing in competitive lust for the largest of the gangrenous ladles in a diabolical broth.
“To look over the edge” To be in that pit for an extended period of time was to become giddy, with the risk of falling into the tureen of inhuman pus. To attempt, however cautiously, to navigate one’s way along a mat spread across the infernal abyss is an invitation to moral suicide.
“For the serious minded, I draw your attention to essays I’ve written on the theme of Truth-based Reconciliation and the ethical imperative of Restitution.” Further elaborations will be forthcoming in DEMOCRACY PRIMER III – Bookcraft’s INTERVENTION series, which is now scheduled for publication on June 12, the watershed imposed by the current regime as the nation’s Democracy Day.
“If, from now on, I comply with entreaties from several valued, genuinely concerned directions and ignore new provocations, no matter how vile, it will be enough.”
is only because I also approve of Mohammed Ali’s strategy of Rope-a-Dope, where blind menace is left flailing hopelessly at the disdainful manifest of Truth.”
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