This is one gift horse which, contrary to traditional saying, must be inspected thoroughly in the mouth.
Primary from all of us must be a plea to the MKO
Abiola family not to misconstrue the protests against the naming of the
University of Lagos after their heroic patriarch.
Issues must be separated and understood in their
appropriate contexts. The family will acknowledge that, among the
loudest opposing voices to Jonathan’s gift horse, are those who have
clamoured tirelessly that MKO Abiola, the Nigerian nation’s
president-elect, be honoured nationally, and in a befitting manner.
Next is my confession to considerable shock that
President Goodluck Jonathan did not even think it fit to consult or
inform the administrators of the university, including Council and
Senate, of his intention to re-name their university for any reason,
however laudable. This arbitrariness, this act of disrespect, was a
barely tolerated aberration of military governance. It is totally
deplorable in what is supposed to be a civilian order.
After that comes the bad-mouthing of MKO Abiola and
the Nigerian electorate by President Jonathan who referred to MKO as the
“presumed winner” of a historic election. While applauding the
president for finally taking the bull by the horn and rendering honour
unto whom honour is due, the particularities of this gesture have made
it dubious, suspect, and tainted.
You do not honour someone while detracting from his
or her record of achievement. MKO Abiola was not a presumed winner, but
the President-elect of a nation, and thus universally acknowledged.
It is sad, very sad, that after his predecessor who,
for eight full years of presidency, could not even bear to utter the
name of a man who made his own incumbency possible, along comes someone
who takes back with the left hand what the right has offered.
However, there is hope. Legalists have claimed that
there is a legal flaw to the entire process. The university, solidly
backed by other tertiary institutions nation-wide, should immediately
proceed to the courts of law and demand a ‘stay of execution’. That
should give President Jonathan time to re-consider and perhaps shift his
focus to the nation’s capital for institutions begging for rituals of
re-naming.
After all, it is on record that the House of Assembly
did once resolve that the Abuja stadium be named after the man already
bestowed the unique title of “Pillar of African Sports”.
He deserved that, and a lot more. What he did not
deserve is to be, albeit posthumously, the centre of a fully avoidable
acrimony, one that has now resulted in the shutting down one of the
institutions of learning to whose cause, the cause of learning,
President-elect MKO Abiola also made unparalleled private contributions.
Let me end by stressing that my position remains the
same as it was when the University of Ife was re-named Obafemi Awolowo
University.
Wole Soyinka
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