By Festus Adedayo
The youth who refused to vacate his seat for Soyinka apparently belongs to this commune of a de-historicized Nigeria. They hold culture with disdain, cannot connect with proverbs while the mores of their society sound like alien vibes in their ears. These youth don’t have heroes or historical mentors and have become captives of the unenduring preachments of modernity.
I remember sometime in 2006 when I met Chief Ebenezer Babatope at the front of the Lion Building, Government House, Enugu. I went on all fours, to the cultural consternation of all Igbo people gathered. I could connect with prostration as a totem of my Yoruba culture and I gladly venerated it in that strange land. Today’s youth are bereft of even a scintilla of such demonstration.
This is why we must erect the crucifix for the government that invited nocturnes upon us at dawn and give kudos to the one that is seeking to return sunlight to our dark grooves. We must, however, warn of the danger of government reneging on this path or a haphazard implementation of the policy. This policy must not be killed by the artillery fire of politics and political party-ism. It is a Nigerian project, the success or failure of which will ripple on our tomorrow, individually and collectively, including the tomorrow of those who thought they had carved a hidden sacristy for their own children in Harvard, Hopkins or Cambridge.
The calamity ahead, with this crop of a-historical children, can be best illustrated by the narratives of an oral poetry, which tells the story of a man who left for Ede, leaving his abode (eede) in chaos; when he returns from his trip to Ede, he will surely return to the filthy embrace and shambles of his abode.
Dr. Festus Adedayo is a journalist and renowned columnist.
