Our beloved Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, the founding President of our democratic nation has departed.
He passed on peacefully in the company of his family around 20h50 on the 5th of December 2013.
He is now resting. He is now at peace.
Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father.
Although we knew that this day would come, nothing can diminish our sense of a profound and enduring loss.
His tireless struggle for freedom earned him the respect of the world.
His humility, his compassion, and his humanity earned him their love. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Mandela family. To them we owe a debt of gratitude.
They have sacrificed much and endured much so that our people could be free.
Our thoughts are with his wife Mrs Graca Machel, his former wife Ms Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, with his children, his grand-children, his great grand-children and the entire family.
Our thoughts are with his friends, comrades and colleagues who fought alongside Madiba over the course of a lifetime of struggle.
Our thoughts are with the South African people who today mourn the loss of the one person who, more than any other, came to embody their sense of a common nationhood.
Our thoughts are with the millions of people across the world who embraced Madiba as their own, and who saw his cause as their cause.
This is the moment of our deepest sorrow.
Our nation has lost its greatest son.
Yet, what made Nelson Mandela great was precisely what made him human. We saw in him what we seek in ourselves.
And in him we saw so much of ourselves.
Fellow South Africans,
Nelson Mandela brought us together, and it is together that we will bid him farewell.
Our beloved Madiba will be accorded a State Funeral.
I have ordered that all flags of the Republic of South Africa be lowered to half-mast from tomorrow, 6 December, and to remain at half-mast until after the funeral.
As we gather to pay our last respects, let us conduct ourselves with the dignity and respect that Madiba personified.
Let us be mindful of his wishes and the wishes of his family.
As we gather, wherever we are in the country and wherever we are in the world, let us recall the values for which Madiba fought.
Let us reaffirm his vision of a society in which none is exploited, oppressed or dispossessed by another.
Let us commit ourselves to strive together – sparing neither strength nor courage – to build a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa.
Let us express, each in our own way, the deep gratitude we feel for a life spent in service of the people of this country and in the cause of humanity.
This is indeed the moment of our deepest sorrow.
Yet it must also be the moment of our greatest determination.
A determination to live as Madiba has lived, to strive as Madiba has strived and to not rest until we have realised his vision of a truly united South Africa, a peaceful and prosperous Africa, and a better world.
Along with grief, anger will be the dominant emotion when Professor Festus Iyayi is buried this week in his hometown, Ugbegun in Edo State. The two feelings have mixed, predictably with unsavoury outcomes, since the former president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, died on 12 November in an auto accident on the Lokoja-Abuja Expressway.
Iyayi was travelling to Kano in the company of three other ASUU members for a meeting on the ongoing strike by members of the union when a police escort van in the convoy of the Governor Idris Wada of Kogi State rammed into the bus the university teachers were travelling. Iyayi died instantly, while three his colleagues were seriously injured.
Wada, who was severely injured in an accident involving his convoy last year, was widely criticised by ASUU and the wider public for his failure to learn from his own experience and for allegedly failing to stop to assist the victims.
Mrs Joy Ifije, the widow who was insulted by Governor Adams Oshiomole is now a special assistant to the Governor according to NGtrends. I am unable to verify this. She is the perfect story of a supposed curse turned into an unbelievable out pouring of blessings. Ever since that day, her life has literally turned around, as she’s been offered support from all sides. In the photograph above, she can be seen with her children holding what appears to be a letter of appointment. It was also reported that She rejected a N250,000 gift from the Edo state chapter of the PDP. She however accepted N2million gift from Governor Oshiomole of APC.
What more can I write, except to pray that ….may those that laugh at you end up blessing you in Jesus name…..”can I hear a loud AMEN!”
Nobel laureate, Professor. Wole Soyinka, is not somebody you meet every time, not to talk of interviewing. But at one of the programmes of the just concluded Ake Art and Books Festival held at June 12 Cultural centre, Kuto, Abeokuta, tagged In the Shadow of memory: An audience with Wole Soyinka, afforded four undergraduates the opportunity to meet him and ask questions on his muse, activism, religious views, the Pyrates Confraternity and others. Vanguard Art was there too. Excerpts:
What kept you going during your 22- month incarceration during the Civil War and how were you able to write under such condition?
It took a while before I was able to smuggle in books. That was at a later stage, after I managed to corrupt my jailer. At the beginning I wrote on the ink pad, sheets of cigarette packs and at some stage, toilet paper. I didn’t eat much so I didn’t need too much toilet paper (laughs), so I wrote on them. Later on I was able to smuggle in some books; I was able to read and write in between the lines with the ink I had manufactured. That way I kept my sanity.
Did winning the Nobel Prize influence your writing?
I don’t think that winning the Nobel Prize affected my writing in any way. When I say that, I don’t mean it’s normal. For instance, somebody after he won the Nobel decided he’s not going to write anymore. It disturbed me in the beginning for the simple reason that you have to respond to all kinds of invitations. It was a nuisance at the beginning but I learnt to manage it and subsequently, I got used to writing more in (air)planes than I normally do in my sanctuary. So all it did was that it affected me in terms of my working methods but I don’t think for a moment it affected the intensity of what I wrote.
In the 1994 fight against military rule, how did you survive?
I had to take a most unusual route to exile which I felt was most undignifying. It wasn’t the first time I would ride on a motorcycle, as a rider and as a passenger but in this particular instance, I had to go through the bush, being lashed by branches at night. I felt that it wasn’t something that should be happening at my age during that period.
Having said that, … many people don’t understand my relationship with the military. The first thing that happens is that military rulers actually have no tails between their legs. (Normal just one head, two arms ) and many of them do think. And I should say some of them are even writers.
I have had a very easy relationship with the military from my student days and as some of you know from my biography I actually enrolled in the university’s officer corps because I thought it would be possible to go to South Africa and liberate South Africa so I never had any problem with the military. The problem is when they try to go outside their role and not only go outside their role as if they are gods and even goddesses because some female officers behave worse to civilians than male officers. Others retain their humanity. And don’t forget that this was a period when military rule was a way of life. Civilians would come out depending on who got in, have their expectations and hope. People would come out and applaud … but the moment they say, as happened with Buhari for instance, the moment they say we don’t even want anybody to discuss return to civilian rule, they become enemy number one, straight away I engage them. There are others who say we are just here to correct some anomalies and we will return to civilian rule by so so date and when that date is approaching, they find an excuse to delay. They say we haven’t got rid of all the money bags, give us a little more time. I get suspicious and all collaborations stops.
The continent and even the outside world accepted that military rule is a corrective arm of humanity. Well, I’m sorry but in most cases they very badly let us down. So it’s been a roller coaster kind of a relation but the moment there is a sadistic regime like Sani Abacha’s, the man whose record was known even when he was in the Army, then you know from the very beginning it’s war.
A youth actually posed the question that it may be time to invite the military back, may not have the worst memories of military rule.
A message for the youths to remind them why that’s not a good idea. Listen, if you want to have the military back, military rule or dictatorial rule of any kind, it’s really re-colonisation. That’s the first thing to remember. Military rule, dictatorship in any form, deserves no sense of moral superiority. Two, external colonial rule. You are denied of your volition, you are deprived of your civic dignity. One way or the other, you are under colonial rule. Yes, there was a time when indeed the civilians were exceedingly dictatorial, which means you have to treat the civilian government as no better than a dictatorial rule. What we have learnt from our experimentation with military rule is that they are just as corrupt, incontinent, unreliable, treacherous towards civilian existence as the very worst civilian rule.
Enlighten us on the Confraternity you set up while in school, its mission and vision. How has the society taken it?
This is a question I am always very delighted to be asked; can’t believe that the media conflates two words: cultism and fraternity.
College fraternity is a time honoured tradition. It exists virtually all over the world where there are tertiary institutions. In Germany, in Britain, college fraternity is a time honoured tradition… Many presidents of the United States belonged to fraternities in their universities and many of them attend reunions where they come with their wife and children and donate to their alma mater. They are part and parcel of university culture.
When the Pyrates were formed, I was one of the founding members, fraternities for at least two decades, didn’t have one negative word against them. But of course, society being what it is, fraternities became corrupted. They turned fraternities to somewhere where you can exercise macho instincts and bully the rest of society. Of course they were thrown out or else they were never admitted in the first instance which was our idea of the original fraternity. So they went out and set up their own organisations which were also called fraternities but which soon showed exactly what they were.
The Bucanneers, that was the first to break out. The Eiye Society, The Vikings and even today you have Daughters of Jezebel. The women who one acknowledges for gender struggles, equality and all that, unfortunately, this is one area which they never should have attempted to be equal. Daughters of Jezebel in some of the colleges today are the most vicious; more vicious than their male counterparts.
Then outside society, which also includes politicians, who wanted to recruit students into their own absolute decadent conduct began to seduce with money, cars. These ‘fraternities’ turned them to outright killers, glorified thugs. So instead of having youth divisions of political parties in the tertiary institutions, what evolved were thug societies. So the ‘fraternities’ became killers, they became corrupt, gang rapists, acid throwers etc and I can say categorically that you can never find a member of the original Pyrates Confraternity in these criminal and anti social activities. To mention — the Ife killings and how the culprits were flown abroad by their parents, children of the elites. They are the ones with total immunity, privileged — those who are supposed to be rotting in jail.
Cultists drink unbelievable potions. The only negative thing I can confidently tell you about Pyrates Confraternity, sometimes they get drunk (laughter). But they don’t molest you when they are drunk. They get drunk when they are ‘sailing’, they fall asleep totally drunk until the sun beats them where they are lying in the open.
You use a lot of Yoruba mythology in your works, has there been any negative reaction to the cultural aspect of your work?
This is a result of Western or Eastern orientations. Christians or Muslims think that they have the ultimate key to the kingdom of heaven and that if you don’t follow either scriptures, you are forever damaged.
This is my world, my created environment; the myths of my society. Christians and Muslims must accept this, that they also exist in mythical worlds but the thing is that they would not accept. Who would tell me that the angels and the saints of either Islam or Christianity are not mythological figures? Prove to me that they are not before you ask me to prove to you that mine are not decent, respectable and even creatively enabling mythological figures. So let all of us stick to our mythology. Don’t try and denigrate mine because if you do then I will denigrate yours. My myth does not require me to turn the other cheek and stop claiming knowledge of absolute truth. Stop saying there is only one way, path to the god-head. All religions are equal.
Liquor and collarless shirt
I’m against liquor; completely against liquor. Wine is not liquor (Laughter from audience). Even a good brandy is not liquor; single malt whiskey is not liquor, palm wine is not liquor. All the rest is liquor. Right from when I was a child — I started reading from an unbelievably early age — and it’s the same with medicine. I discovered very early, today people are talking about traditional medicine, acupuncture, since I was little I knew the medicinal values of palm wine (component of red wine), What the doctors are talking about I knew since I was three, intuitively. I recommend red wine for everybody.
Anything that is not liquor, I think hurts the productive system. Wine is excellent…what corrodes the body for me is water. I can’t imagine anybody being creative with orange juice, pineapple juice and all that. I can’t imagine it. It’s very difficult.
Collarless shirt
I think it was as a result of my abandonment of ties. I felt restricted by ties. Why on earth should somebody put a rope around my neck and at the same time they don’t like being hanged. Does it make sense to you?
Once I abandoned ties, the next thing was what was that tie doing around my neck. Nothing mysterious about it; straightforward practicality.
“Never have sex with a girl unless she’s sent you a text that proves the sexual relationship is consensual”
“Make no mistake, no woman — no matter how much she parties — is asking to be raped. But too often when heavy drinking is involved, the meaning of consent can be misconstrued on both sides.”
Controversial: Roxanne Jones says to avoid any doubt, young men and women should text consent before sexual encounters.
This is the world we live in. Its the ‘quick-fix’ generation where everything is expected not to go through due process of intelligence and diligence of waiting. Delayed gratification is no longer acceptable. You want it. You get it irrespective of how you get it, however, it must be quick. Just get it. Sex in this generation is not revered. Its no longer respected. Seeing ladies breasts that you rightfully ought not to see no longer raises the much anticipated excitement. Its all in your face now. Its as common as mosquitoes in Nigeria. This is why it has become increasingly difficult for rape cases to be judged, not that I will ever condone any thing to do with rape. Rape is rape and it is a violation and must be punished. However, when ladies go out and dress scantily in the name of being sexy, it is a recipe for disaster. There are already enough men out there that have problems with their sanity, why tickle it with an exposure of that part of the flesh that should be sacred. Its a mad world out there. As for Roxanne’s advice, which to many, may come across as absurd, it is what it is. This is how she knows how to protect her son. Enough said. In Nigeria, we will say “it-is-well”.
Columnist and mother Roxanne Jones has written a controversial piece forCNNdetailing how she told her son to get a ‘text message of consent’ from a girl before he has sex with her.
Jones, also the founding editor of ESPN magazine, wrote yesterday she sent her college-age son off with a ‘duffel bag full of 300 condoms’ and told him to watch out for party girls – ‘stupid party girls’ to be exact who she calls ‘trouble’.
Jones then goes on to cite the number of alcohol-related sexual assaults in students – 97,000 each year – to back up her evidence.
‘It seems nearly every week, we hear news stories about sexual encounters at parties where everyone is drinking,’ she writes.
‘And a young woman says she was raped, and a young man insists the encounter was consensual.’
She did not however point out that only two per cent of reported rapes are discovered to be false accusations.
Jones also advises to follow the liaison up with some reminiscing sexts: ‘And it’s a good idea to even follow up any sexual encounter with a tasteful text message saying how you both enjoyed being with one another – even you never plan on hooking up again.’
Jones is careful to point out that ‘no woman — no matter how much she parties — is asking to be raped’ but adds ‘But too often when heavy drinking is involved, the meaning of consent can be misconstrued on both sides.’
Twitter exploded with both support and outrage – mainly the latter – at the piece – and even a CNN anchor expressed doubts.
“Never have sex with a girl unless she’s sent you a text that proves the sexual relationship is consensual”
“Make no mistake, no woman — no matter how much she parties — is asking to be raped. But too often when heavy drinking is involved, the meaning of consent can be misconstrued on both sides.”
Controversial: Roxanne Jones says to avoid any doubt, young men and women should text consent before sexual encounters.
This is the world we live in. Its the ‘quick-fix’ generation where everything is expected not to go through due process of intelligence and diligence of waiting. Delayed gratification is no longer acceptable. You want it. You get it irrespective of how you get it, however, it must be quick. Just get it. Sex in this generation is not revered. Its no longer respected. Seeing ladies breasts that you rightfully ought not to see no longer raises the much anticipated excitement. Its all in your face now. Its as common as mosquitoes in Nigeria. This is why it has become increasingly difficult for rape cases to be judged, not that I will ever condone any thing to do with rape. Rape is rape and it is a violation and must be punished. However, when ladies go out and dress scantily in the name of being sexy, it is a recipe for disaster. There are already enough men out there that have problems with their sanity, why tickle it with an exposure of that part of the flesh that should be sacred. Its a mad world out there. As for Roxanne’s advice, which to many, may come across as absurd, it is what it is. This is how she knows how to protect her son. Enough said. In Nigeria, we will say “it-is-well”.
Columnist and mother Roxanne Jones has written a controversial piece forCNNdetailing how she told her son to get a ‘text message of consent’ from a girl before he has sex with her.
Jones, also the founding editor of ESPN magazine, wrote yesterday she sent her college-age son off with a ‘duffel bag full of 300 condoms’ and told him to watch out for party girls – ‘stupid party girls’ to be exact who she calls ‘trouble’.
Jones then goes on to cite the number of alcohol-related sexual assaults in students – 97,000 each year – to back up her evidence.
‘It seems nearly every week, we hear news stories about sexual encounters at parties where everyone is drinking,’ she writes.
‘And a young woman says she was raped, and a young man insists the encounter was consensual.’
She did not however point out that only two per cent of reported rapes are discovered to be false accusations.
Jones also advises to follow the liaison up with some reminiscing sexts: ‘And it’s a good idea to even follow up any sexual encounter with a tasteful text message saying how you both enjoyed being with one another – even you never plan on hooking up again.’
Jones is careful to point out that ‘no woman — no matter how much she parties — is asking to be raped’ but adds ‘But too often when heavy drinking is involved, the meaning of consent can be misconstrued on both sides.’
Twitter exploded with both support and outrage – mainly the latter – at the piece – and even a CNN anchor expressed doubts.
Special Assistant on Media to the Minister of Aviation, Mr Joe Obi in a statement made available to Channels Television, has confirmed that flights into Abuja have been temporarily suspended to facilitate evacuation efforts to clear the runway.
This, according to Obi, is due to a Saudi Arabian B747 cargo aircraft which veered off after landing in Abuja last night at the maneuvering area of the runway and ran into a maintenance area and stopped.
Normal operations will resume immediately the aircraft is removed.
The statement adds that it must be noted that the incident is not a plane crash as the Federal Ministry of Aviation regrets all inconveniences this incident must have caused air travelers and airport users.
The statement further adds that concerted effort is being intensified to remove the obstacle and restore normalcy while the public will be updated as progress is made towards restoring normal operations at the airport.
Another statement by the Group Corporate Communications Manager of Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, Mr Yakubu Datti, said no casualty was recorded while plans are underway to move the air craft away following a preliminary assessment visit by AIPB, NCAA, FAAN and other relevant agencies.
Speculations were rife on Wednesday that the trip of President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, Patience, to Germany which the Presidency described as “a private visit” might be on health grounds.
The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, had on Tuesday issued a statement indicating that Jonathan would leave Abuja for Germany en-route to Paris, France to participate in the Summit on Peace and Security in Africa.
Abati said the President would stop over in Germany for a private visit on his way to Paris and return to Abuja at the conclusion of the summit on Saturday.
The announcement of the “private visit” coming a few weeks after he fell sick in London, fuelled speculation that Jonathan might have decided to visit the same German hospital where his wife sought medical attention for about seven weeks last year.
Since he was accompanied by Patience, speculations were also rife that she might use the opportunity of the visit to undergo a medical check-up.
The fears were further confirmed on Wednesday when it was discovered that many of the President’s close aides, who usually accompany him on foreign trips, did not travel with him.
Our correspondent learnt that some of them might join the President in Paris later in the week.
The social media were on Wednesday awash with reports of the motive of President’s German trip.
An online news site, SaharaReporters, reported that Jonathan and his wife checked into a hospital in Germany on Wednesday.
If you were unable to get a ticket this year, or you are outside London and want to join us on the day – we will be live streaming the entire event live on our website http://www.tedxeuston.com or you can go directly to the link below.
Jide Salu’s Diary 