Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Ayo Olukotun: Messianic Oration and the Narration of the Nation

I think what TF, our 'Intellectual Majesty' has written is another masterpiece. 

I congratulate him and Prof. Ayo Olukotun. I read his column very often in the Punch and here in this blog. It is always conscience pricking and intellectually motivating. Sometimes I get worried because if it had been in the days of the Military he would have been 'invited for a chat' as it was done to uncle Tai Solarin, a man respected by all and sundry. 

I do not cease to admire the courage and the power of the pen of Ayo. May we continue to have such me and women who will be recognized for their intellectual honesty. 

To our TF, you will live long for us because you know where the shoe pinches. 

Segun Ogungbemi Ph.D

Professor of Philosophy

Adekunle Ajasin University

Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State

Nigeria

Cellphone: 08033041371

                   08024670952

On Sep 5, 2014, at 2:23 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com> wrote:

Professor Falola that was a real oration o! Thank God it's not somebody's funeral! (More beef for Bangura's forthcoming buk on Toyin Falola & the Black Intellectual Renaissance

What a relief it is to know that through his award-winning weekly column in PUNCH newspaper, as a conscientious  public intellectual Professor Ayo Olukotun fulfils the vital function of eye-opener of the Naija nation and "is seen by his admirers from all segments of Nigerian society as a modern-day Tai Solarin of Mayflower College fame, whose "Thinking With You" column in Daily Times and Sunday Times newspapers of Kakawa Street in Lagos also screamed against societal decay, corruption and indiscipline! What a perfect reincarnation!"

For years I postponed nominating Tai Solarin for the Alternative Nobel Prize – until it was too late.  But in addition to pungent social criticism our current prospective nominee is also fruitfully engaged in bringing up the younger generation and I imagine it would be equally good if he & we could successfully bring at least some of the miscreant politicians and others of their ilk, to Justice...

"Nigeria is gripped by despondency and failure, but Olukotun stands back and reflects on all of its various dimensions, the peace that is constantly interrupted by spasms of violence from the northeast corner to the nights of darkness in the southwest, to the flames and clouds of flared gas in the Niger Delta, and to the lethal moments in Abuja where a bomb can be planted in the bus that one is about to board." (Prof Toyin Falola)

No wonder William Wordsworth could have written,

"We Poets in our youth begin in gladness;

But thereof come in the end despondency and madness."

(Resolution and Independence)

 

 One only has to review the gladness ("free at last") and dreams we all shared at the beginning of the African Independence era and compare those dreams and that gladness with the current despondency and pray that the Almighty spare us the madness...

That these twenty meter high "flames and clouds of flared gas in the Niger Delta" is still going on is a great surprise, since we are talking about trillions of dollars worth of valuable gas that could be stored and marketed but instead has been lost and is being lost to Nigeria's Federal treasury since the non-stop, day-night flaring of this valuable gas started over forty years ago. It's madness !

One thinks of the cards that Russia is holding in supplying not only  Ukraine but also Germany and other European communities with their valuable gas  - and wondering why Nigeria still prefers to flare  this valuable commodity!

One thinks of all the hysteria about the newly discovered offshore gas in Israel and feels even more despondent about the trillions of dollars worth of gas already lost and what more is being lost at the very moment through flaring into the Niger Delta environment...

Re – "Ebola-level affliction of mis-governance." (Falola)  - Coincidentally I received this e-mail this morning and I quote it because it cast a dark shadow over this phenomenon. It reads,

"Hello Contriman!

Thank you for the updating.
Personally, the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa is the result of the cultural corruption that has been going on in the past 50 years.

The same applies to Nigeria with Boko Haram, the killings/massacre in Kenya, the war in Mali, Ivory Coast, Congo, Rwanda, CAR, and Ukraine in Europe etc.
Russia is bound to explode in the near future and Western Europe must be to ready to  accept mass exodus of refugees from that country

The law of social function says that "there is always a price to pay for systematic stealing of State funds. But unfortunately the innocent masses always bear the cost".... (And then he gets a little personal)....

Sitting here quietly in my den and not disturbing anybody,

We Sweden

 

 

On Friday, 5 September 2014 10:06:22 UTC+2, Toyin Falola wrote:

...

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