Soyinka Distances Self From Pyrates Confraternity’s Mockery Of Tinubu

Wole Soyinka

Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka has distanced himself from the action of members of the Pyrates Confraternity who ridiculed the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Tinubu during a rally.

The National Association of Seadogs, popularly known as the Pyrates Confraternity, is a confraternity organisation that is nominally university-based. Soyinka is reported to have been one of the founders.

The confraternity, in a viral video, used the words of Tinubu ‘Emi lo kan’ in mocking him. They sang in Pidgin English, “Hand dey shake, leg dey shake, Baba wey no well e dey shout ‘Emi lo kan.'”

Reacting to the video, Soyinka said in a statement on Monday that he had nothing to do with it as he was taught from childhood not to mock people with challenges.

“My attention has been drawn to a video clip making internet rounds, of a dancing and chanting group, in red and white costume, purportedly members of the Pyrates Confraternity. The display acidly targets a presidential candidate in the awaited 2023 elections,” the 88-year-old said.

“Since the whole world knows of my connection with that fraternity, it is essential that I state in clear, unambiguous terms, that I am not involved in that public performance, nor in any way associated with the sentiments expressed in the songs.

“Like any other civic group, the Pyrates Confraternity is entitled to its freedom of expression, individually or collectively. So also, is Wole Soyinka in his own person. I do not interfere in, nor do I attempt dictate the partisan political choices of the Confraternity. I remain unaware that the association ever engages in a collective statement of sponsorship or repudiation of any candidate. This is clearly a new and bizarre development, fraught with unpredictable consequences.

“In addition, let me make the following cultural affirmation. I have listened to the lyrics of the chant intently and I am frankly appalled. I find it distasteful. I belong to a culture where we do not mock physical afflictions or disabilities. Very much the contrary. The Yoruba religion indeed designate a deity, Obatala, as the divine protector of the afflicted, no matter the nature of such affliction. This sensibility is engrained in us from childhood and remains with us all our lives. It operates on the principle of mortal frailty to which all humanity remains vulnerable.”

Soyinka added, “One of my favourite authors, about whom, by a coincidence, I had cause to write quite recently, was CLR James, author of The Black Jacobins, Beyond A Boundary etc. etc. I called him my ideological uncle. He suffered from Parkinson’s Disease, but remained alert, lucid and combative for decades after the onset of the disease. We interacted politically at the Tanzanian pan-African Congress, the Dakar Festival of Negro Arts and a number of other cultural and political fora. We met frequently in his lifetime, dined together in restaurants, despite his challenge. it would be unthinkable, and a desecration of his memory to be part of any activity that mocked his affliction.”