Re Cornelius Ojo's "Wole Soyinka's 'Domestic Appendage' Revisited" Thisday Newspaper,7th August,2013

Reading through Mr. Ojo's view of Professor Wole Soyinka's abusive tirades against people, I appreciated the courage and industry put into the work by the writer. I was largely concurring with his opinion on WS's regular attack on his 'intellectual juniors' with reckless abandon. It takes sheer guts to direct such criticism at someone of the Prof's standing!

However, at the point where he veered off to address the "domestic appendage" and "sheppopotanus" issues, Mr. Ojo in my opinion made a total mess of the entire work like my one year old German Shepherd Dog who would head straight for the mud, soon after a thorough bath, when he began to hinge his argument on the gender and 'motherliness' of madam Patience Jonathan. No doubt it is adorable to give respect to women, but it stands more to wisdom that nobody deserves to be pelted with a WS type of insult, irrespective of gender. The point remains that (and in line with the principles of gender equality), if those words were wrong for a woman, there surely is no reason why it should be less so to a man. His recourse to gender as the fulcrum of his debate clearly smacks of an appeal to emotion, based on the extra sensitivity of gender issues especially when a woman is quickly portrayed as the victim like he laboured to do.

Granted, women deserve more protection, but it must be stated just now that if WS was wrong to have insulted Patience Jonathan, he would also be adjudged wrong to insult any other government functionary in the same style, regardless of gender of the 'insultee'.

He tried to make analogies with James Cameron's "Calm down dear" remark in parliament and the lousy, slack-jawed US mayor who flippantly interrupted the Malaysian president to say that "Malaysian women only go to universities to find husband" Those analogies certainly are non sequitor! They are both of bipolar extremes and do not follow. In WS's case, his "domestic appendage" and "sheppopotamus" jibes were provoked and retaliatory, the examples cited by him were based on the apparently sexist minds the two men against innocent and absolutely defenseless women.

As to his claim about WS showing no respect for women, his domestic appendage statement was obviously directed at the unconstitutional office of the first lady and not the woman Patience Jonathan per se. He never said she was a domestic appendage to her husband GEJ, but that her OFFICE is a domestic appendage to that of the Presidency owing to its unconstitutionality. Let's ask ourselves one question, if and when a woman becomes the President, or Governor of a state and her husband chooses to exercise his role as the 'first Gentlemen' would reference to his office as a domestic appendage still amount to an insult? If not, what happens to the much preached gender equality? If in the affirmative, then Mr. Cornelius's argument becomes totally baseless and akin to an idle rant. The truth of that statement is unimpeachable and hearing it from WS was nothing more than putting the ideas of every Nigerian with a basic knowledge of constitutional law in mind. His comparison with the Yerima child bride issue was plainly the height of  his failure to properly appreciate the job he set out to do in his caption. He clearly behaved like the proverbial hare who got off the block first but hardly made it to the finish line. Furthermore, the mere fact that William Regan's first lady became what he described does not mean that we MUST of necessity tow that part or make our first lady an unruly horse or a pseudo-President.

He slamed the final nail on the coffin when he attempted to take a drift into the Ameachi issue, thus leaving the realm of his write up into the justification of PJ's position. Hear him;

               Ordinarilly,It is politically unwise for a governor to tango with the wife of the president, more so when the woman is an indigene of your state.It is most illogical. A political savvy Governor would see that as an asset to him and his government rather than war-war with her"

No doubt his ideas sound plausible, but  it is fraught with inapplicability to the current Jonathan/Amaechi saga.Its senselessness lies in the fact that it was already politically impossible for Ameachi to 'see PJ as an “asset”, in the heat of a steaming brawl with her husband. Common!

Without wanting to hold brief for Ameachi, because I couldn't care less what becomes of the tussle, the simple question is, with GEJ and Ameachi already at logger heads, how possible would it have been for Ameachi to go on an ego massaging spree on PJ in a bid to avoid her contribution to the war against her husband’s enemy.To me, almost herculean, impossible to say the least!

Finally, he capped his anti WS campaign by highlighting some 'ACN' state activities and happenings! No doubt they ought to be frowned at due to misuse of public funds, but why Tinubu's Lagos and Ekiti alone? ACN held states! What happened to insecurity and terrorism in the North, pipeline vandalisation and oil bunkery in PDP  Southern states, kidnapping in the East and general unemployment, poverty and the corruption drowning the Nation?

Ps: Dear Cornelius, if you strongly feel the urge to defend PJ or attack WS, it shouldn't be done without recourse to objectivity and logical arguments rather than plunging head long into the deep sea bed of emotions and sentiments.

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