Prof Mazrui`s attack on Wole Soyinka(DR. JEKYLL AND MR. SOYINKA)

I do go to Nigeria to lecture almost every year. It may surprise you to know that the people who invite me are not “Muslim fundamentalists.” In 1999 my lecture was sponsored by General Olusegun Obasanjo (President-elect) and his political party. My co-lecturer on the same platform was the late President Julius K. Nyerere. To the best of my memory neither Nyerere nor myself referred to Islam. If we did it was part of a concern for religious reconciliation.

In 1998 my main host in Nigeria was the Institute of Governance and Social Research in Jos headed by Professor Jonah Isawa Elaigwu. My lecture was also sponsored by the University of Jos. Again my presentation had almost nothing to do with Islam nor were my Nigerian hosts Muslims.

In the year 2000 I am expected in Nigeria three times. On the first occasion my host will be bankers, entrepreneurs, and insurers, almost none of whom are interested in a lecture on Islamic fundamentalism. They have asked me to lecture on a developmental subject.

On my second Nigerian visit my hosts are explicitly interested in my Black civilizational credentials as contrasted with my Islamic civilizational credentials. My agenda is “Black Civilization in the New Millennium”.

My third probable visit to Nigeria in the year 2000 is likely to focus on the theme “Comparative Civil-Military Relations: African and Latin American.” This will be a conference rather than a lecture. On this occasion my Institute is likely to be a co-sponsor of the conference.

What does all this information tell us? My relations with Nigeria are not, repeat not, sectarian. The relations have continued to involve all ethnic and religious groups. These Nigerian brothers and sisters have been prepared to raise my airfares and hotel accommodation costing thousands of dollars time and time again, just to hear me. Would they have done so if my message was divisive and sectarian?

You say to me: “Please do not dye your mourning weeds deeper than the indigo of the bereaved”! Were you not the man I invited to East Africa in 1972, gave you a platform in Nairobi from which to speak, introduced you to a Ugandan living in Uganda as your Chair for your lecture?

You knew that Idi Amin killed people on the basis of guilt by association. You insensitively and cruelly endangered the life of your chairman by denouncing Idi Amin while the Ugandan (going back to Uganda) presided.

From the audience I was so scared for your chairman (Tony Gingyera-Pinycwa) that I sent him a note urging him to vacate the Chair while you were still speaking – and offering to occupy the Chair myself. I was appalled that I had exposed Tony to an insensitive Wole Soyinka by asking Tony to chair your Lecture and endangering Tony’s life! If you were so brave why did you not go to denounce Idi Amin in Kampala, Uganda, instead of risking the lives of Ugandans from Nairobi, Kenya?

Tony Gingyera-Pinycwa was a brave man. He rejected my offer to replace him as Chair, while Soyinka played the anti-Amin card at the risk of somebody else’s life. Tony survived Idi Amin – but it was no thanks to Mr. Wole Soyinka!! On that occasion who was dyeing his mourning weeds deeper than the indigo of the bereaved?

You address me as someone totally alien to Nigeria. Let me educate you about my credentials. I have biological sons who are Nigerians. I have a wife who is a Nigerian. I have a mother (or mother-in-law) who has lived with us in America who is Nigerian, and who is back in Jos. I have my wife’s siblings (male and female) who are Nigerians and live in Nigeria. I have their children (my Nigerian nephews and nieces) who are in Nigeria.

Maybe you have not heard that families are created by marriage as well as blood. My family relationships with Nigeria have been created by both marriage and blood. Do not lecture me about my not “dying my mourning weeds deeper than the indigo of the bereaved.” I am the bereaved!

There is a saying in Kiswahili: “Asiejua shehttp://igcs.binghamton.edu/igcs_site/dirton3.htm#IVmegi yake hamjui ndugu yake.” (He who does not know his in-law does not really know his sibling).

Dear Mr. Soyinka, are you sure you understand family? It is, after all, another phenomenon of collective love – something you have found difficult to grasp. You shrink from loving those who are culturally very dissimilar. No wonder you are alienated from Northern Nigerians