By Bisi Lawrence
The idea of a change in the  length of the tenure of the President, the Governors and the respective Legislature has been mooted on various occasions in the past.

Since it was usually raised by those who would directly benefit by such a change, it has normally been dismissed as a self-serving gambit for personal interest. It can no longer be so slightly dismissed, now that it has been raised publicly by President Goodluck Jonathan himself with a view to installing it as a constitutional provision. Yet it lacks merit.

The proposal adduced no empirical evaluation to contrast the status quo in support of the assumptions on which it is based.

A President is not expected to stay in office until his entire proposals are completed. The government of a nation is a continuing project that cannot be carved into tenures. Even the six-year single term proposed by the president has to contain projects that will not be tailored to exactly the length of that term, but that will extend further into the next tenure.

It is also not acceptable that a two four-year tenure could invariably affect the attitude of an incumbent in his zeal to perform. If he would perform less in his second term because he had no opportunity of returning to office, he would equally be affected toward the end of a single term, no matter how long the tenure. A second term holds the attraction that would rather make him want to achieve some merit in the first that could pave the way for a repeat tenure.

One may however need to wonder at the timing of Jonathan’s proposal, for it is curious that it is at the front burner of his concerns in office. Beside the Boko Haram problems, the Niger Delta problems, the Islamic Banking problems, the minimum wages problems, the perennial corruption problems, and the waves of other problems in health delivery, educational advancement, road construction, and so on, the issue of presidential tenure can appear as no more than an unwarranted distraction.

His express intention of not benefiting from the proposal is rather droll, to say the least. He may not believe, perhaps, that not everybody would pray for that, anyway. And haven’t we heard something like that before?

seventy-seven, not out

I had the good fortune of being present on the occasion of the Nobel Prize for Literature’s Award to Professor Wole Soyinka. The title of his lecture (the Nobel Lecture for the year, always given by the literature laureate) was, “The Past Must Address the Present .” of course, it was brilliant as could be expected, and at the end the Secretary of the Nobel Prize Award Committee, extolled the presentation expanding the theme with the quip, “..and this present must address the future.” It seems prophetic.

Professor Soyinka’s presence continues to address his environment on all fronts. I leave the
rest to one of those whose past has been affected by the professor, even until, the present. He writes:

Seventy seven years ago, when Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka was born in Ake, neither his father Canon SA Soyinka, nor his mother Grace Eniola would have clearly foreseen that the great path of attainment their son would work for, and, walk on will lead all the way to the laurel of a Nobel prize for Literature.

And the boy from Ake, in making history 25 years ago, as the first African to receive a Nobel prize in literature, concluded his banquet speech poeticizing that” …lyric face of that demiurge will triumph in our time, snaring for all time that elusive bird – “peace on our planet earth.” Yet, the icon that he has become has emerged from the many battles, consciously inconsiderate of personal safety, resolutely oblivious to the “peace”, the peace of the graveyard, the peace of the man who keeps silent in the face tyranny.

While the intensity of his sophisticated lyrics and the superlative elegance of his prose may have brought forth the accolade of the Nobel court, it is his stand against tyranny, his unrelenting fight against injustice, and speaking out against corruption which has made Prof. Wole Soyinka the man who may live everlasting in the chronicles of the unrelenting warriors for social justice and democracy.

From the cradle of Ake to the citadel of Ibadan; from the academic corridors of  Leeds to prison walls within this country, it was the Lion growing to bestride his times, a warrior and a poet, inspiring hearts and minds and winning laurels with his cerebral prowess, while daring tyrants and the tyranny of misgovernment and corruption.

As listed on the Nobel prize website, he wrote his first plays during his time in London, “The Swamp Dwellers” and “The Lion and the Jewel” (a light comedy), which were performed at Ibadan in 1958 and 1959, and were published in 1963.

Soyinka has written two novels, “The Interpreters” (1965), narratively, a complicated work which has been compared to Joyce’s and Faulkner’s, in which six Nigerian intellectuals discuss and interpret their African experiences, and “Season of Anomy” (1973) which is based on the writer’s thoughts during his imprisonment, and which confronts the Orpheus and Euridice myth with the mythology of the Yoruba.

Purely autobiographical are “The Man Died: Prison Notes”, (1972), and the account of his childhood, “Ake” (1981), in which the parents’ warmth and interest in their son are prominent. Literary essays are collected in, among others, “Myth, Literature and the African World” (1975).

Soyinka’s poems, which show a close connection to his plays, are collected in “Idanre, and Other Poems”, (1967), “Poems from Prison”, (1969), “A Shuttle in the Crypt”, (1972), the long poem “Ogun Abibiman”, (1976), and “Mandela’s Earth and Other Poems”, (1988).

In 1986, when Soyinka was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, the motivation for the prize, as  expressed by the Nobel Prize committee was to capture a synthesis of his literary work and his crossing with the humanistic ideals of a writer “who, in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones, fashions the drama of existence.”

Professor Soyinka has received many other awards and honours in his eventful life of service to the community of man. They include: Honorary Ph.D from University of Leeds in 1973. He was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1983. And in the same 1986 that he received the Nobel Prize for. Literature, he was made a Fellow, Society for the Humanities, Cornell University, and was also awarded Nigeria’s third highest honour, Commander of the Federal Republic, CFR.

In 1990, he was given the Benson Medal from Royal Society of Literature and in 1993 was given an honorary doctorate by Harvard University. In 2004 he was the Reith Lecturer for BBC Radio 4, discussing “A Climate of Fear”. 2005 he got an honorary doctorate degree from Princeton University. In 2009 he was given the Academy of achievement Golden Plate Award

Prof Wole Soyinka’s numerous laurels for professional excellence shine greater with the respect and reverence he is accorded for his battles of conscience. His refusal to retire into the sumptuous comfort of fame, remark a tendency of humanistic ideals and an unrelenting interest in the well being of his fellow citizens.

But it is a quest he started with six other University undergraduates in 1952, that proffers the title of progenitor for us and the generations to follow, and provides the opportunity to celebrate, click our glasses and say but for him, we would not be. They formed the Pyrates Confraternity due to the overbearing shackles of post colonial pseudo oppression that prevailed on campus at the time.

As a founder of the Pyrates Confraternity, he created a platform for others of like minds to fight for the existence of social justice with the ultimate aim of seeing that humanity remains at the centre of thought and action. The journey has been a long and consistent one but reaching the harbour of a just society remains the goal.

And so with the berthing at a double major milestone of 25 years of winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the attainment of your 77th  birthday, Capoon, activist, Literati, wine connoisseur, hunter, father, husband, friend and brother, we shout a big “Ahoy!” to you in celebration of your life, with the wish that you see many more years; and we show our gratitude that your past continues to address our present.
Oscar Egwuonwu
Pyrates’ Cap’n
National Association of  Seadogs.

Time out.