Federal Republic of Fiction @ 63

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

Nigeria is fiction. The country’s Constitution has been transferred to a new shelf in the library: the shelf containing fictional works. The latter-day patriots of Nigeria can cry all they want against me, but in this instance I only choose to stand solidly in solidarity with the words that Samuel Johnson uttered on the evening of April 7, 1775, to wit: “Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.”

There can never be a short supply of toadies and ill-assorted scoundrels defending the many fictions of the government of Nigeria in this new age when former activists and revolutionaries have turned into government spies and informants. 

The Quintessential Soyinka At 85

By DAN AMOR

It was once the fashion to single out four men of letters as the supreme titans of world literature – Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe –  each the embodiment of a great epoch of Western culture – ancient, medieval, Renaissance and modern. These four literary icons of all times remain secure, but idolatry of Professor Wole Soyinka as the prototype of the inquiring spirit and courageous intellect of modern man has been sharply appreciated in our time, especially as we pass beyond the more leisurely issues of the post modernist era.

*Wole Soyinka

The intensely contemporary character of his works has made him the tallest iroko tree in the post-modernist forest of global dramatic literature. Yet, the commencement, two weeks ago, of the Wole Soyinka 85th Birthday Festival, which ultimately climaxed on July 13, his date of birth, unfortunately doesn't seem to wear the official insignia of the Nigerian government especially because he has started telling them the truth about the Nigerian condition. But, it is expected, as Christ Himself says in Matthew 13:57, "A prophet is not without honour, save his own country and his own house."

Segun Osoba: No longer Waiting For Godot

By Banji Ojewale

“A man will turn over half a library to make one book”

—Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English critic and lexicographer.

Waiting for Aremo Segun Osoba’s book, BATTLELINES: My Adventures In Journalism And Politics, has been akin to the experience of the two characters expecting the arrival of someone called Godot who never arrives. In his 1952 tragicomedy, Waiting For Godot, Irish writer, Samuel Beckett presents the helplessness and an accompanying barrenness of an endless wait for a Godot who doesn’t show up. Joined by three other funny actors, these tarrying figures get further mired in a futile wait for the person they do not know. The play closes, tragically and comically, without Godot being revealed in the two-act work.

*Segun Osoba 

Mercifully, lingering for the autobiography of Osoba, former editor of Daily Times of Nigeria, who went on to become the paper’s Group managing-director and the governor of Ogun State, hasn’t followed the trajectory of Godot. Yes, there was a long expectation. But, as it turned out the other day in Lagos, it wasn’t a wait for Godot. Osoba’s own Godot arrived at the presentation of his book ahead of his birthday.