Soyinka’s Utterance Against Me Is “Aggravated Libel” – Maja-Pearce

Interview With Adewale Maja-Pearce

BY YEMI ADEBISI

Wole Soyinka


How would you describe your experience so far in Nigeria’s book industry?

I’m right now a consultant for Evans. Evans bought over Nelson Publishers and they want to develop together a literary series. I told them we shouldn’t leave the foreign publishers to be publishing Nigerian writers. Some of these old publishing houses publish textbooks for schools. We are ready to publish six papers every year. Instead of waiting for other series, let’s publish the first two so we would generate interest. We would begin to launch our first papers in November at the Lagos Book Fair that is run by Toyin Akinosho. We have to make things happen in Nigeria. Apart from that I have a small publishing company since 2005 called New Gong. So that is really a small fascinating publishing house we have and we don’t physically publish books. We load up a book and then they print, sell it as Print On Demand (POD). We don’t have probably any physical book in Nigeria. If you want to buy it you have to go online to purchase the book. The only problem we have in Nigeria is distribution because in small developed country like South Africa and even in America, the publisher is not involved in selling the book. The publisher goes to train that we have so, so and so copies, bla, bla, bla. So the train has bookshops all over the countries and they will distribute it. So the publisher doesn’t know how they sell the books; we don’t have that in Nigeria.

Adewale Maja-Pearce

Let’s talk about the POD you spoke about. Judging by probably what you have been able to put together, what would you advise an author that wishes to publish through such medium too?

Anybody can do it. If you simply go to our site, there is an icon in the site called ‘create space.’ When the book is ready you upload it, the cover and the inside pages. They will give you a file page so that every of your work will be filed. What you see about a week is your book on our site. We print and sell as requested. And it is a big advantage, a very big one.

There is this rumour that you have some personal grudges with Wole Soyinka over your comments in your review on one of his books. It was even gathered that you were exchanging abusive words publicly. Can you throw more light into this?

Grudge! No! I first met Soyinka shortly after he won the Nobel Prize because I used to work for a magazine in London called Index On Censorship. I was their African editor from 1983 to 1997. So, before I joined, Soyinka had already been published by them and also had written for them. He was familiar with the magazine. So when I joined, I told him, “I am the new African editor. I hope you will continue with us.” We have a means he used to send us materials; we had a good working relationship. The problem came when he published You Must Set Forth At Dawn. I was asked by the London Review of Books to review it. I didn’t like the book so I gave my reasons. So, when it came out people told me that Soyinka didn’t take it kindly with criticism. I was just working for a magazine anyway. 

Police Officer Threatens To Shoot Michelle Obama

A Washington D.C. police officer who allegedly threatened to shoot the United States First Lady, Mrs. Michelle Obama, has been removed from his unit. He is being investigated by the Secret Service.  

The officer who reportedly issued the threat during a Wednesday July 11, 2012 morning roll call in the presence of his colleagues while they discussed threats against the Obamas has been reassigned to the  administrative section pending the outcome of investigations. A senior officer who heard him voice the threat had reported him to their superior.  

According the Washington Post, the officer "allegedly said he would shoot the First Lady and then used his phone to retrieve a picture of the firearm he said he would use" to show his colleagues.  

Before his redeployment, the officer worked as a motorcycle escort to White House officials and visiting dignitaries.  

Reports say the Secret Service is trying hard to downplay the incident.

“Pump the brakes on this one” a Secret Service official told NBC.

"We're aware of it and taking the appropriate steps," another official of the Service told msnbc.com. 

The name of the officer who issued the death threat is yet to be released by the Metropolitan Police Department.

There has not been any response from the White House on the incident.

Should Math Determine Who Can Read English In Nigerian Universities?

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye  

Great expectations are usually piled on our universities as very essential intellectual factories for the production of reliable human resources for achieving our lofty dreams and aspirations as a people. That is what it should be. Every year, the universities are expected to give the country quality graduates whose formal education and other forms of grooming ought to duly equip with sound intellectual, psychological and even ethical properties to assume very important and strategic positions in both private and public institutions for the advancement of national development.  

But what appears to be seriously in doubt now is whether the National Universities Commission (NUC), could still be considered a reliable ally in this aspiration, either because it has run out of quality ideas, or it is being savagely influenced by some unwholesome sentiments within its ranks to, in fact, brazenly sabotage this grand expectation.  It is tragically surprising that we have had to sit passively and watch a handful of men and women that constitute the NUC churn out a cocktail of clearly misguided policies whose only benefit is their ability to effectively erect uncrossable mountains before otherwise brilliant students and promote devastating mediocrity in the university system, with far-reaching implications to the larger society. While several local and foreign observers are bemoaning the quality of the graduates our universities are turning out these days, the NUC is busy compounding the problem by formulating policies that can only further devalue the degrees awarded in Nigeria. 

I wish to examine one of the most offensive and pernicious of these policies, and I would like to begin with an illustration.  A young girl who chose English Studies as a course of study sat for the last Unified Tertiary  Matriculations Examinations (UTME), and passed very well. She went to her university of choice, sat for the Post-UTME tests and performed brilliantly and was offered admission by the university. But when she packed her bags and went to the university to register in order to commence her programme, she met a brick wall. Even though that university had stated in the JAMB brochure that it required a pass in Mathematics to admit students to study English, she was now told at the departmental office that only a credit in Mathematics would qualify her for an admission. Okay, she would be considered if she had a credit in a science subject.  That is what the 'almighty' NUC has decreed.  

Another Day In Lagos...

Take A Breath ...Relax A Bit

Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

Africa On My Mind

Alleged Plagiarism: Dike Drags Two UNIPORT Professors To Court

With the dust raised by his suit against the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN), Mr. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, whom he accused of grossly violating his intellectual property rights by extensively plagiarizing his work in two public lectures he (Sanusi) gave at two Nigerian universities still heavy in the air, Victor Dike, a Nigerian-born United States-based academic is in court again.   

Victor Dike

This time, Dike who is of the School of Engineering & Technology, National University (Sacramento Center) Sacramento, California, has dragged two Nigerian professors, Steve O. Tamuno and Needorn Richard Sorle, of the Department of Economics, University of Port Harcourt, to court for plagiarism.   

The suit (No. FHC/PH/CS/154/2012) which was filed on Dike’s behalf by his attorney, Onyinye Obiaju, came up for mention before Justice L. Akanbi of the Federal High Court 1, Port Harcourt, on June 12, 2012.  But Professors Steve O. Tamuno and Needorn Richard Sorle were absent in court. Consequently, the court gave an order that the defendants be served with notice of the next hearing date which is November 6, 2012.

In the statement of claim signed by his counsel, E.U. Chinedum Esq., Prof Dike avers that he is the original author of the article:  “Corruption in Nigeria: A New Paradigm for Effective Control” published in the AFRICAN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS, and later republished in the NIGERIA ECONOMIC SUMMIT GROUP (NESG) – Economic Indicators (2003) July-September 2003, Volume 9, No.3 (p.32-45), under a new title, “Corruption in Nigeria: Understanding and Managing the Challenges.” This article, he claims, was copied verbatim by the defendants and published as their own work in the JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT VOLUME 6 NO 1, JUNE, 2008, under the heading, “Corruption and Economic Growth: A Survey of Three Institutions In Nigeria,” without properly acknowledging him as the original author.  

Although in a letter entitled “Alleged Case of Plagiarism” dated January 21, 2012, the first defendant (Prof Steve O. Tamuno) on behalf of himself and the second defendant (Prof Needorn Richard Sorle) apologized to Prof Dike for copying his work without properly acknowledging him, the plaintiff was not satisfied with that apology as the defendants had failed to retract the same article from the internet as demanded by him.  Moreover, the plaintiff avers that his credibility has been called to serious question as his articles are no longer regarded highly by readers since their discovery that the very opinions he expressed have also been rendered verbatim ad literatim in the work of another person. Due to this incident, he claims, readers who had held him high esteem before now are beginning to doubt whether he is indeed the author of articles ascribed to him. This has caused him undue embarrassment, pain and stress.

University of Port Harcourt

He is therefore asking the court to declare that Profs Steve O. Tamuno and Needorn Richard Sorle plagiarized his work and breached his copyrights.

He also wants a perpetual injunction restraining the defendants from citing the publication in the JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (Volume 6 No. 1, JUNE, 2008) entitled “CORRUPTION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: A SURVEY OF THREE INSTITUTIONS” as their original work.

He is equally asking for an order mandating the defendants to retract immediately the said article from the public and the University of Port Harcourt website.

He also wants the court to mandate the defendants to send him a written apology which must also be published in at least one national newspaper and in addition pay him the sum of N27 million as damages and the cost of the suit.

It will be recalled that on Monday April 23, 2012, a Federal High Court in Abuja, had given orders that the CBN governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, be served with a writ of summons filed by Prof Dike who had alleged that Sanusi had breached his copyright by copying his work without acknowledging him in two convocation lectures he (Sanusi) had given at the Igbinedion University, Okada, and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi.

Professor Ruqqayatu Rufai,
Nigeria's Education Minister

Commenting on these cases, a Lagos-based public affairs analyst said that since the matters are still in court, he would reserve his comments until rulings are given. He, however, sees what is happening as “a very positive and heartwarming development which would certainly trigger some reactions that would aid the process of sanitizing the nation’s intellectual community. People would now be more careful.  Dike is pursuing these two cases, involving Sanusi and the two UNIPORT professors, because the materials he is alleging were copied from his work can be accessed on the internet; you can then imagine what happens with the countless books that university teachers and many other people are churning out each day, and at every corner of Nigeria for our children and the unsuspecting public to read. It is a sad development. The media should keep these cases in the limelight; I am particularly interested in how they would be resolved. This is a healthy development, with far-reaching implications for the nation’s educational system.” 

RELATED POST

Dike Sues Nigerian CBN Governor Sanusi For Plagiarism

AZAPO Asks Mandela To Apologise For Selling Out Black People's Struggle

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"Many of his friends did not get an opportunity to apologise before they died, and he must consider himself lucky and use the opportunity for his soul to rest peacefully before it is too late" - AZAPO

"This is a case of insensitivity  at its worst" - the Sowetan newspaper in an editorial . 
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Nelson Mandela


Apparently seeking to draw attention to itself, an obscure group that identifies itself as the youth league of the Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO) has early this week called on former South African president and world statesmen, Mr. Nelson Mandela, to apologise to the South African people "before he dies" for "selling out black people's struggle."

In statement, the president of the league, Mr. Amukelani Ngobeni, said that if Mandela dies without rendering the apology, he would be denied eternal peace. According to him, Mandela and his fellow anti-Apartheid activists had sold "out black people's struggle through the secret talks [they had undertaken] with the apartheid government."

Sowetan newspaper reported yesterday that Mr. Ngobeni had alleged that "Mandela entered into secret talks and agreed on a compromised constitution which today makes it very difficult, or almost impossible, for government to deliver in its duties to service the citizens."

Nelson Mandela With Michelle Obama

 "Many of his [Mandela's] friends did not get an opportunity to apologise before they died, and he must consider himself lucky and use the opportunity for his soul to rest peacefully before it is too late", Mr. Ngobeni said.

According to him: "Mandela and his friends were excited and could not wait to occupy the global political space at the expense of the struggle for complete political, social and economic emancipation." He added that he and his organisation were closely monitoring information and developments about Mandela's state of health. 

Reacting to Mr. Ngobeni's assertions, Sello Hatang, spokesman to the Nelson Mandela Foundation, said that Mandela had always insisted that "that he was always acting as part of the collective." He would rather the African National Congress (ANC) react to Ngobeni's allegations.  The ANC spokesman,  Keith Khoza, however, has said that his party would not dignify Mr. Ngobeni's statement with any comment, according to the Sowetan.


In an editorial which appeared today, the Sowetan described Mr. Ngobeni's outburst as an unambiguous advertisement of "of insensitivity  at its worst."  The paper advised him to offer without delay an unreserved  apology to Nelson Mandela for his atrocious comments. The editorial is reproduced below: 


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Nobel Prize Amounts Reduced

The Board of Directors of the Nobel Foundation announced in Stockholm on Monday a 20% reduction in the amounts given to Nobel Prize winners.  Consequently, the 2012 Nobel Prize winners will each go home with 8.0 million Swedish Kronor (equivalent to USD 1.1 million based on the current exchange rate instead of the SEK 10 million or $1.4 million previous winners had received). This is the first time the value of the prize has been reduced since the 63 years it has existed. 

There will also be a drastic reduction in the size and nature of the Nobel Prize annual banquet. In a statement in Stockholm on Monday June 11, 2012 after its meeting, the Nobel Foundation said it regards the measures it is taking as necessary “in order to avoid an undermining of its capital in a long-term perspective.”  
The Foundation's statement is reproduced in full below:

The Nobel Foundation 

Nobelprize.org

---------------------------------

Press Release

June 11, 2012

The Size of the Nobel Prize Is Being Reduced to Safeguard Long-Term Capital

At its meeting on June 11, 2012, the Board of Directors of the Nobel Foundation set the amount of the 2012 Nobel Prizes at SEK 8.0 million per prize, at today's exchange rate equivalent to USD 1.1 million. This implies a lowering of the prize sum by 20 per cent. The Nobel Foundation regards this as a necessary measure in order to avoid an undermining of its capital in a long-term perspective.

One of the most important tasks of the Nobel Foundation is to safeguard the economic base of the Nobel Prize. The capital left behind by Alfred Nobel must therefore be managed in such a way that it will be possible to award the Nobel Prize in perpetuity, while guaranteeing the independence of the prize-awarding institutions.

(L-R) Queen Silvia of Sweden, Princess Madeleine
of Sweden, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, Prince
 Carl Philip of Sweden and Crown Princess Victoria
of Sweden during the Nobel Foundation Prize 2008
Awards Ceremony at the Concert Hall  on December
10, 2008 in Stockholm, Sweden. ( Source: Pascal Le
Segretain/Getty Images Europe)

The decision to lower the prize sum, from SEK 10.0 to 8.0 million, is related to the assessment that the Board of Directors makes today of the potential for achieving a good inflation-adjusted return on the Nobel Foundation's capital during the next several years. Another part of the picture is that during the past decade, the average return on the Foundation's capital has fallen short of the overall sum of all Nobel Prizes and operating expenses. The costs of the Nobel Foundation's central administration and the Nobel festivities are therefore being reviewed.

"The Nobel Foundation is responsible for ensuring that the prize sum can be maintained at a high level in the long term. We have made the assessment that it is important to implement necessary measures in good time," says Lars Heikensten, Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation.


Professor Wole Soyinka, Nobel Prize Winner 

The various organisations in the Nobel sphere also jointly manage large assets connected to the Nobel Prize as a trademark. This includes not only the Nobel Foundation and the prize-awarding institutions, but also the organisations that disseminate information about the Nobel Prize and the achievements of the Laureates, such as Nobel Media and the Nobel Museum in Stockholm and the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo.

Since the Nobel Foundation's capital must be used primarily to pay for the work of the Nobel committees and the prize sum itself, these information activities are essentially externally financed, for example via grants from central or local government authorities, corporate sponsors, private donors, foundations or philanthropic entities.




Nadine Gordmer, Another Nobel Prize Winner
The same is true of the investment in a Nobel Prize Center on the Blasieholmen peninsula in central Stockholm which was announced earlier. The equity of the Nobel Foundation will not be used either for the building or for the operation of a future Center.

"The Nobel Prize Center will become an important base in our long-term efforts to preserve the stature of the Nobel Prize and disseminate the message of the Nobel Prize to a global audience," says Lars Heikensten, Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation.



           

60% Of EU Citizens Support Stronger Tobacco Control Measures - New Survey

European Commission - Press Release

World No Tobacco Day 2012:
EU-wide Survey Shows That A Majority Of EU Citizens Supports Stronger Tobacco Control Measures

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Brussels, 30 May 2012 - On the eve of World No Tobacco Day, the European Commission publishes an EU study on attitudes towards tobacco. On average, 60% of citizens support measures to make tobacco less visible and attractive, such as keeping tobacco products out of sight in shops or curbing the use of attractive flavours and colours. At the same time, other figures give cause for concern: 28% of EU citizens aged 15 and over smoke, and 70% of the smokers and ex-smokers took up the habit before the age of 18.

Burning Away Their Lives!
Tobacco Is The Single Largest Cause Of Avoidable
Death In The EU. It Accounts For Around 700.000
Premature Deaths Each Year In The EU.

European Commissioner in charge of Health & Consumer Policy, John Dalli, said: "I am deeply concerned about the fact that most Europeans start smoking in their early youth, before their 18th birthday.This is why, as I stressed at a meeting today with Dr. Nikogosian, Head of the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control's Secretariat, I am committed to ensuring that Europe lives up to its international commitments on regulating tobacco products, including reducing cigarettes' appeal to young people. It is in this spirit that the European Commission is currently shaping a proposal to revise the Tobacco Products Directive".

Commenting on some positive results of the survey, Commissioner Dalli added "I am encouraged by citizens' broad support for stronger tobacco control measures. It is also reassuring to see a substantial fall in the proportion of people exposed to tobacco smoke. This shows that strict regulations on smoking in public places and awareness raising action about the advantages of not smoking – such as the EU's "Ex-Smokers are unstoppable" campaign – are delivering results".

Findings from the EU survey on attitudes of Europeans towards tobacco include :

• The number of cigarettes smoked on a daily basis is 14.2, which represents a slight decrease from the previous (2009) survey (14.4 cigarettes/day)
• Half of the EU population has never smoked : the prevalence has not evolved in the past three years
• 61% of current smokers have already tried to quit smoking, including 1 in 5 in the year prior to the survey
• Although there has been a 17% fall in the proportion of people exposed to tobacco smoke in restaurants and bars, 14% of EU citizens still reported that they were exposed to smoking in restaurants and 28% inside cafés and bars in the last 6 months.
• 73% of EU citizens are in favour of introducing security features to curb illicit trade of cigarettes, even if it makes them more expensive. 
• 33% of smokers and ex-smokers in the EU say health warnings on tobacco packs have/have had an impact on their attitudes and behaviour towards smoking.

[VIDEO]

Slow Painful Death Of Bryan Curtis,  

A Smoker

Background

Tobacco is the single largest cause of avoidable death in the EU. It accounts for around 700.000 premature deaths each year in the EU.

In order to reduce tobacco consumption throughout the European Union, the Commission continues to pursue a comprehensive tobacco control policy.

A wide range of mechanisms, activities, and initiatives including tobacco control legislation, prevention and cessation activities serve to maintain and strengthen the tobacco control policy.

The review of the 2001 Directive on Tobacco Products is on-going and the Commission intends to table its proposal in the second half of 2012. The EU and all Member States have ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) which entered into force in February 2005.

A Council Recommendation on Smoke-Free Environments, adopted in 2009, calls on Member States to adopt and implement laws to protect citizens from exposure to tobacco smoke in enclosed public places, workplaces, and public transport. It also calls for the enhancement of smoke-free laws with supporting measures to protect children, encourage efforts to quit smoking and display pictorial warnings on cigarette packages.

As part of its awareness-raising campaign, the Commission launched its "Ex-smokers are unstoppable" campaign in 2011. The campaign is now entering a new phase, building on the success of its first year. A renewed programme adheres to the original strategy that “Ex-Smokers are Unstoppable” should effect change by shifting the emphasis from the negative health consequences associated with smoking towards the positive benefits of becoming an ‘ex-smoker’, thus motivating men and women across Europe to quit smoking.

For More Information:

Eurobarometer:

http://ec.europa.eu/health/eurobarometers/index_en.htm

Tobacco policy website:

http://ec.europa.eu/health/tobacco/policy/index_en.htm

Ex-smokers are unstoppable campaign:

http://www.exsmokers.eu/

The Ruthless Killer Next Door

World No Tobacco Day 2012 - May 31

The theme for this year's  World No Tobacco Day is:

Tobacco Industry Interference
This year, attention will be focused on the very urgent need to expose and counter the  brazen and increasingly aggressive attempts by tobacco companies to use their blood-stained billions to undermine campaigns and efforts world-wide to reduce and eventually completely halt the consumption of tobacco.

Join The Effort To Cage This Mercilless Killer

You Can Help Save The Tender Victims Of 

This Kind Of Heartlessness

-------------------------

Warning

Tobacco Smokers Are Liable To Die

RELATED POST

Tobacco: The Ruthless Killer Next Door

 

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When Work Beckons...

Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye In Ikeja, Lagos, For An
Assignment  (Press Interview) On March 10, 2012

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Another Day At The Office - May 2012

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When Work Beckons....At Ikeja, March 10, 2012

Ndi-Igbo Germany Celebrates Odumegwu-Ojukwu

The Ikemba, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu

Is Angelina Jolie Starving Herself To Death?

It is, perhaps, time to try and look away from the overflowing praise the western media usually heaps on American millionaire actress and film maker, Angelina Jolie, whom they always glowingly describe as “trim and beautiful” and tell ourselves the simple truth that stares everyone in the face every day, but which only very few would dare to admit, namely, This lady is starving herself to death in order to continue to conform to the “approved” notion of beauty, and remain the darling of the entertainment media!

*Angelina Jolie

But if our eyes are not deceiving us, Angelina Jolly is just all skin and bones. She is badly emaciated. And whoever defined beauty that way must be using a very strange and overly bad dictionary!

*Malnourished?

Now, we are not the only ones saying this.  

As Angelina Jolly grabbed the headlines across the (western) world and soaked in the overwhelming compliments poured on her way due to her “exceptional beauty” after pictures of her appearance at the last Oscar Awards hit the headlines, Dr. Drew appeared on The VIEW—the American Talk and Variety Show, on March 2, 2012, and lamented that Ms. Jolly was “dangerously malnourished.”  

At last, somebody has said the unsayable!   

'She's malnourished… I just see malnutrition… We should not look at that as an ideal of beauty, even though she might be a beautiful woman … Something’s going on here,' Dr. insisted.

What an irony that Ms. Jolly is spending millions of dollars trying to feed underfed, malnourished children across the world, many of who look even healthier than she does. 

It is sad how a millionnaire actress and director is starving herself to death just to look "beautiful." But to many, she is scary skinny! Has she become enorexic? She surely needs some help.