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Prof. Wole Soyinka On Nigeria’s First Lady N4 Billion Mission House “A Mind-boggling Fiscal Misappropriation”

wole soyinka first lady mission house

Feb 15, 2013 – Prof Wole Soyinka Blasts Leaders On Nigeria’s First Lady N4 Billion Mission House “A Mind-boggling Fiscal Misappropriation”

Professor Wole Soyinka few hours ago took a swipe at the Nigerian First Lady Patience Jonathan over her proposed N4 Billion Mission House budget allocation.

Prof Wole Soyinka registered his outrage in the form of a Valentine’s Day message addressed to Dame Patience Jonathan.

Read Wole Soyinka’s letter below

A St. Valentine’s Day Card on the Occasion of Women’s March Against Connubial Corruption.

A Valentine Day Message should be brief, so I must plead for understanding for this departure from the norm. In any case, I deplore the slavish adoption of foreign saints of whatever shade, color, or religious persuasion. However, the coincidence of dates for women’s intervention in yet another egregious conspiracy to drain the Nigerian treasury, mounted in the name of a high-flying member of your gender,
strikes me as a call to break the mould and submit myself to the call of Saint Valentine.

A Yoruba proverb goes thus: Ti a ba ma a j’opolo, ka je eyi to l’eyin. (If one must eat a toad, then go for an egg-bloated one). If I must send a Valentine card for the first time in my life, then let me do so on a grand scale. I have therefore elected not to lend my affection to any one individual, but the entire bevy of First Ladies of the African continent – and that includes First Male Spouses. What, after all, is to stop these male consorts from developing ‘pet projects’ and setting up Missions? Even if they number no more than one or two, there is a saying that goes: What is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander.

A mind-boggling fiscal misappropriation – Four Billion Naira, no less! – is being attempted in your names – openly, in an attempt to institutionalize an illegality through a debasement of the democratic process. It is no longer secretive but in-your-face, and damn public opinion!  Your names have been invoked as the ultimate beneficiaries, and thus, you are vicariously implicated. In the name of St.

Valentine and the love I bear for you all, please dissociate yourself from this display of shameless avarice. I shall not go so far as to ask you to denounce what you probably know nothing about, but if you ever get to hear of it, distance yourselves from the gross impropriety. I implore you in the name of all local equivalents of St. Valentine: continue to serve humanity within and outside your borders, but without self-interest. Assist this nation in crushing the increasing acquisitive impudence of individuals and institutions that do not exist in our constitution, yet insist on fattening on national resources.

The enthronement of vulgar preening and opportunistic consumption is complicating the battle of a principled minority on critical social issues. It gets in the way of sanitizing society, and has become an expensive distraction. When you visit in your personal and/or professional capacities, or as consorts to your spouses, we would love to love you, respect and honor you. It will be painful to watch you dodging a rain of rotten eggs and tomatoes in place of flower petals and bouquets.

There is no such thing as an African First Ladies Mission in the Nigerian appropriation list. Any claim remotely like it is the conspiracy of sycophants, jobbers, masters of impunity, a desperate clique that unfurls a continental umbrella as cover for private aggrandizement. Please, do not be a part of it. The people of this nation are fast losing patience.

Yours in unstinting love, this St. Valentine’s Day of Two Thousand and Thirteen, Wole SOYINKA (A Public Service Retiree)

17 Comments

17 Comments

  1. Henry

    February 15, 2013 at 6:00 PM

    Yes…i just hate the fact that Nigeria’s treasury is loot by these people who call themselves ‘First ladies’.This is unconstitutional; to think that our so called leader is the sole instigator is redoubtable to hear.Sorry for Nigeria.

    • Dany

      February 15, 2013 at 7:32 PM

      Can,t fathom Niger,s probs at all. So appauling to hear all these. Waste of movement by d 1st lady

  2. TIMIBOY

    February 15, 2013 at 7:00 PM

    THIS IS FUNNY…. THE MONEY ALLOCATED FOR THIS MISSION HOUSE CAN CREATE MORE THAN 100,000 JOBS FOR NIGERIAN YOUTHS, BUT INSTEAD THEY PREFER SOME MISSION HOUSE…. THIS IS MADNESS, EVEN THEIR SO-CALLED ROLE MODELS THAT’S THE U.S.A DO NOT ALLOCATE SUCH USELESS AND IR-REASONABLE FUND…

  3. Emmanuel

    February 15, 2013 at 7:30 PM

    How sure are you that our so called first lady can read this writeup let alone understanding it?

    • kennyrosie

      February 17, 2013 at 4:11 PM

      Trust me she will never understand this constructively and intellectually writeup.

  4. Henry

    February 15, 2013 at 8:29 PM

    U pple should plz leave our 1st lady**u cant stop hr 4rm usin dat moni(4billion) u can only stop hr 4rm buildin d mission houz bt dat moni if she want 2 carry it she wil stil carry so y ar u pple debatin ova nonsense

    • Yanky

      February 17, 2013 at 9:44 AM

      This is intellectual discuss and if you can speak simple english it high time you went back to school and learn some basics.

  5. hafiz kabir

    February 15, 2013 at 10:04 PM

    exactly .with this money. 100,000 jobs can be created for nigerians .not this bulll sh””””t mission house ..based on my philosophic analysis .they dont care about the existence of human philosophy …

  6. captaim

    February 15, 2013 at 10:57 PM

    As our noble prof. Said ”Nigerians are fast losing patience” so it is. I tell u, a day shall come whe u will know ur fate!!!

  7. Young prince

    February 16, 2013 at 9:09 AM

    Y won’t there b crises evry were…y won’t therr b institutional legallise crimes evry were…Evry day we pray for total eradication if dz crimes bt still no head….y won’t d boko harams continue killin n kidnappin,bcos dey knw there’s unwanted money for unwanted expenditure…may God hv mercy on us….as a country,as a nation we nid to stand up n put an end to all dz ungodly mess…..for hw long or hw mny yrs is she goin to live in dat house……vanity upon vanity all is incured wrath of death..

  8. vincent okolo

    February 16, 2013 at 4:09 PM

    God hv mercy on us

  9. Gozie

    February 16, 2013 at 5:49 PM

    Its so shameful to hear and will be very painful to bear by more than those 100,000 unemployed youth out there. I am diappointed in the selfish people who called themselves our leaders.

  10. Modest

    February 17, 2013 at 2:46 AM

    One thing i kno is dat dis ppl r not reading all wat we r sayn bt notwitstandn we must keep on sayn it, for sure one day God go hear our cry.

  11. Eyam Victor

    February 17, 2013 at 7:26 AM

    I do hope dat unda d earth there is time for every thing. Not even those of us writing against others can effect good leadership if given the opportunity. We boast, blaspheme, curse, instigate, moderate and beautify our tones and language as if we are saints and ve magic to surmount d issues but nay, given d saddle we will turn tigers and act as if we neva stood on other side of d divide. So let us be while we wait 4 Gods intervention.

  12. Kenny

    February 17, 2013 at 10:34 AM

    God have mercy

  13. kennyrosie

    February 17, 2013 at 4:32 PM

    In the Western countries, there is nothing like appropriation or budget for the office of the first lady. It is only in Nigeria or Africa such things eventually happen and continue to happen. Nigerians should wake up and take their government before it is too late, it happens in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and many other countries and it can happen in Nigeria too. Take your country back from looters, sycophants, greedy, vile and murderers. Unless there is mass revolution, Nigeria will never regain its loss glory.

  14. Sulejmanny

    June 6, 2013 at 2:58 PM

    am very api to read dis,but am afraid and sad because all dis grammar doesn’t disturb and affect her from lavishing dis moni…naija sha.

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