A community with worthy elders never comes to ruin – Yoruba proverb

When do elders morph from leaders to dealers?

The latest foxtrot on the Rivers crisis, by the South-South Elders and Stakeholders, a group led by Pa Edwin Clark, Ijaw leader and presidential godfather, might just offer a clue.

The Clark-led elders, on July 24, told Governor Chibuike Amaechi to stop blaming President Goodluck Jonathan and Patience, his ever-meddling wife, for the contrived Rivers crisis; told the governor to shape in or shape out; told the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to kick out the governor to serve as warning to other power renegades; pooh-poohed the four northern governors that went on a solidarity visit to Amaechi as cynical meddlers; and branded Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, as an arch-hypocrite who wept more than the bereaved at the legislative banditry of the Rivers G-5, while he kept mute in earlier legislative outlawry in Oyo (where Governor Rashidi Ladoja was illegally impeached) and Soyinka’s native Ogun State (when Governor Gbenga Daniel inspired legislative lawlessness in his gubernatorial dying days).

Indeed, they practically did a pun on the famous author of The Man Died and his work: that the man died in the Nobel Laureate for his alleged quiet at constitutional outrages in Oyo and Ogun states; while jerking awake at the repeat of the same crime in their Rivers!

But, of course, Clark and his “elders”, in their release, never bothered with the rigour of reason. All they barked, conceited folks, was the language of power, boasting neither wisdom nor reason.

The whole thing was some dumb smartie’s response to the five northern governors’ “Save Democracy tour” to former President Olusegun Obasanjo (Jonathan’s estranged godfather), Gen. Ibrahim Babangida and Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, three former soldiers ironically pitched to help save democracy under Jonathan’s reckless assault!

But again, the Clark gambit was a classic from the brilliant dullness of the Jonathan court: no tactics, no strategy, just stark power blundering and bumbling!

Even then, if the so-called elders wilfully lost a bit of their wisdom in anticipation of some power gravy, can’t their young Turks at least work hard to safeguard the integrity of their claims?

The Clark group made the fantastic claim that Soyinka kept mute during the legislative anomie in Oyo and Ogun states. But this claim is either criminal forgetfulness or plain mischief.

On the Ladoja illegal impeachment, Soyinka called for Obasanjo’s impeachment, linking the Oyo legislative crisis to his complicity – just as Jonathan’s link to the present Rivers affront is crystal clear.

“Obasanjo has acted sufficiently against the constitution to warrant his impeachment,” Soyinka declared on 20 January 2006. “There is more than enough evidence to warrant his impeachment”.

That was even a case of 18 (a simple majority) removing the governor in a 32-member legislature, which nevertheless fell short of the constitutionally required two-thirds majority: not a case of Rivers’ “simple minority” of five versus 27! AFP, with Nigerian newspapers, reported the Soyinka stand.http://omojuwa.com/2013/07/of-leaders-and-dealers-soyinka-vs-clark-by-olakunle-abimbola/

WS vs Clark. Can smbdy pls define Elder 4 me?

If the author's name is Olakunle Abimbola, how could he possibly express an objective opinion that exposes the ignoble laureate - their tribal hero - for the embarrassment and two-faced fraud that he is? Not holding brief for Clark, but at the very least, the ignoble laureate is as much (if not more) a "dealer" as Clark is. Neither is a leader in the true sense.

Wole soyinka for NL hall of shame

@pro wat maks WS 'Ingnoble? @home, why is he in 'ur' hall of shame? @both explain