By Ndubuisi Martins Aniemeka

I love to write articles and criticise what is sloppy; this is not just a hobby but a vocation. As much as I want to write, I sieve my ideas and try to convey my thoughts, and not my thoughts carrying the medium, the discordant, miscued fodder of an ill-conceived idea, that may simply read idiotic.

If the highly regarded Wole Soyinka, a name that is legendary, is the latest object of attack by Aso Rock, then, no matter what, any person who must ventilate anything in the neighbourhood of sanity must not take to the Garbaic microphone.

Garba Shehu has a tough job to defend his Principal, but should he not do that with some simple logic, whether he needs to borrow or steal it? Take style and marry it with sense.

Wole Soyinka may apparently not be a Professor of Medicine in spite of his book that verges on some of these ‘madmen and specialists’ that, if confronted with the simplest logic, abandon the issue and attack the person.

Wasn’t it a shame that Garba Shehu made references to lockdowns in the world without a simple check on how all that happened where the COVID-19 struggles tragically hit them?

ALSO READ: APC Crisis: Ex-presidential aspirant, Adamu Garba urges respect for constitution

Soyinka, beyond being a living god in world literature, (maybe Garba knows less about Prof. Wole Soyinka) fought tyranny in military regime in Nigeria, and if it was too hard for Shehu to understand, Soyinka was guarding against potential tyranny.

How can pointing out something wrong fetch WS the under-weighted punch from Shehu?

President Buhari, in the long run, got National Assembly to approve the lockdown. Shehu became, quickly, that passing figure, not exactly life as in many literati will think of the media aide, who, to borrow William Shakespeare’s tangential idiom, in this case, becomes “all noise and fury, signifying nothing.”

Only a few are ignorant of the core principles and pragmatic uses of literature; especially its force that’s far greater than anything.

That’s why Shehu wants a play on coronavirus. Yes, Professor Wole Soyinka, perhaps, or another writer will write a play on Coronavirus. But the villain should be Garba Shehu, a man who has a thought-driven medium, no apparent effective message other than lightweight sarcasm. Next time, Mr. Shehu, keep your thoughts in check.

I think many potential media aides should avoid the Garbaic effect if they’d come close to thinking of them as people who employ reason more than emotion. Writing and being presidential spokesman should not be for everybody.

And this is another poor act from Shehu; this time he attacks a sage, Wole Soyinka, who perhaps is the best cultural and intellectual export of a nation bedevilled by age-long political challenges, not particularly noting that the first Black African Laureate has demonstrated his undying love and patriotism for the country.

This is not to mention that he, Soyinka, has suffered enormous physical, psychological and social debasements, speaking to power.

Ndubuisi Martins Aniemeka, a poet, critic and teacher, wrote in from Ibadan, Oyo State.

Vanguard