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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