This is one gift horse which, contrary to traditional saying, must be
inspected thoroughly in the mouth. Primary from all of us must be a plea
to the MKO Abiola family not to misconstrue the protests against the
naming of the University of Lagos after their heroic patriarch.
Issues
must be separated and understood in their appropriate contexts. The
family will acknowledge that, among the loudest opposing voices to
Jonathan’s gift horse, are those who have clamoured tirelessly that MKO
Abiola, the Nigerian nation’s president-elect, be honoured nationally,
and in a befitting manner.
Next is my confession to considerable
shock that President Goodluck Jonathan did not even think it fit to
consult or inform the administrators of the university, including
Council and Senate, of his intention to re-name their university for any
reason, however laudable. This arbitrariness, this act of disrespect,
was a barely tolerated aberration of military governance. It is totally
deplorable in what is supposed to be a civilian order.
After that
comes the bad-mouthing of MKO Abiola and the Nigerian electorate by
President Jonathan who referred to MKO as the “presumed winner” of a
historic election. While applauding the president for finally taking the
bull by the horn and rendering honour unto whom honour is due, the
particularities of this gesture have made it dubious, suspect, and
tainted.
You do not honour someone while detracting from his or
her record of achievement. MKO Abiola was not a presumed winner, but the
President-elect of a nation, and thus universally acknowledged.
It
is sad, very sad, that after his predecessor who, for eight full years
of presidency, could not even bear to utter the name of a man who made
his own incumbency possible, along comes someone who takes back with the
left hand what the right has offered.
However, there is hope.
Legalists have claimed that there is a legal flaw to the entire process.
The university, solidly backed by other tertiary institutions
nation-wide, should immediately proceed to the courts of law and demand a
‘stay of execution’. That should give President Jonathan time to
re-consider and perhaps shift his focus to the nation’s capital for
institutions begging for rituals of re-naming.
After all, it is
on record that the House of Assembly did once resolve that the Abuja
stadium be named after the man already bestowed the unique title of
“Pillar of African Sports”.
He deserved that, and a lot more.
What he did not deserve is to be, albeit posthumously, the centre of a
fully avoidable acrimony, one that has now resulted in the shutting down
of one of the institutions of learning to whose cause, the cause of
learning, President-elect MKO Abiola also made unparalleled private
contributions.
Let me end by stressing that my position remains
the same as it was when the University of Ife was re-named Obafemi
Awolowo University.
Wole Soyinka
No comments:
Post a Comment