We need to revisit history
Wole Soyinka, became FRSC chairman under the IBB regime. The same regime believed by many to be responsible for the death of Dele Giwa, a death which shook the nation and which happened around the same time the Prof received the Noble prize.
The IBB regime actually made a sports of compromising some seemingly uncompromising people back then.
Wole Soyinka became FRSC chairman, and there after started speaking like some one who ate hot yam whenever IBB was criticized.
Another person that came to mind during the IBB regime was Tai Solarin, who was made chairman of people's Bank after criticized the IBB regime non-stop.
The bank went under, and with it went Tai Solarin voice of activism until he died----
During the Abacha regime, there was Olu Onagoruwa Lateef Jakande, Ebenezer Babatope and many other names that memory cannot afford me.
These men, possibly because of the more drastic method of Abacha regime, were to lose their reputations such more definitively than the IBB boys" Soyinka and Solarin.
Also, while IBB was taking Nigeria on a trip to nowhere, Abacha sat atop The electoral mandate of MKO, believed widely to have won the June 12 1993 Elections.
So defining was the Abacha regime, that the Democrats" who served under him, never got their reputations back.
Lateef Jakande, believed to be the undisputed successor of the revered Obafemi Awolowo because of his exemplary leadership of Lagos State as governor (he was nicknamed Baba Kekere, in reference to Awolowo who was Baba) was yanked out of reckoning because his ascent to serve Abacha legitimized the dictators hold on power.
I mentioned all these names because these were names at the forefront of the pro-democracy movement.
In fairness, there were consistent people like Gani Fawehinni, Abraham Adesanya and Adekunle Ajasin.
The point of my write up however, is we have allowed the passage of time to muddle up our memories, and made mere mortals to be untouchable they are today.
We have placed them above mistake and that is a fatally flawed position to take.
If Lateef Jakande (Baba Kekere) despite all his near super human achievement for Lagos State as governor, was cancelled" by the very body that revered him, who is Wole Soyinka, a glorified gbewudani in whose name eighty-two million naira (N82,000,000) was once spent for ordinary lunch.
While it is good to accept individuals as role models (Wole Soyinka will never be my role model as I have studied him intensely as one who only needs to hear the right music to succumb) I sincerely advise against drifting mortals.
A sign of intellectual maturity is identifying points where you can confidently say your mentor, role model or idols is wrong.
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