Ruyi's World of Books & Stories

Ralph Tathagata. It is against man's biological and psychosocial nature to tolerate slavery, marginalization, and oppression forever. His spiritual nature also abhors it and will always resist it by any means possible. The subservient nature of certain groups of humans may prove otherwise - essentially, slavery is inimical to human nature and therefore stunts the growth of the evolutionary process. Those who do not understand why young people are willing to lay down their lives because of Biafra should go back to their DNA classes. The resolute attitude of young Biafrans towards freedom may not go down well with many particularly the enemies of freedom and the career criminals who profit from this despicable horror, this colonial miscreation called Nigeria. Deploying armoured cars, occupying and shooting down harmless and peaceful protesters even in their bedrooms will only harden their will. Laying siege to Nnamdi Kanu's ancestral home will not accomplish anything ei...

Wole Soyinka's work as a teacher of his nation and people in the last seven decades can be summed up in one word: transcendence. His entire envisioning of Nigeria – for which he has suffered persecution, deprivation, abuse, insults and other unspeakable forms of punishment – is reducible to transcendence. The tragedy of Nigeria is that there has never been a critical mass huge enough to embrace the intellectual and civic responsibilities of transcendence. Justice, Soyinka says, is the first condition of humanity. Sadly, this is not his most famous ‘quotable quote’ among his compatriots. What many Nigerians learn by rote is that other quote from his book, The Man Died. The two quotes, as indeed the entirety of Soyinka’s work and vision, are rooted in a transcendent view of society and her future. When Soyinka says justice is the first condition of humanity, he does not pause to enter qualifications, caveats, conditions, equivocation, and hesitation. It is a tr...