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Monday, July 28, 2014

BLACK LOVE-SOYINKA'S 3RD WIFE TELLS THEIR LOVE STORY! -FROM CITY PEOPLE MAGAZINE

FROM CITY PEOPLE MAGAZINE




“How I Met & Fell In Love With Wole Soyinka” – Wife, Folake Reveals

Not many people know who Prof. Wole Soyinka’s wife is. Not many know their love story. A few weeks ago, Folake Soyinka opened up to The News magazine on her love story, revealing how they first met at University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) whilst she was a student. Excerpts:
How would you describe Prof Wole Soyinka as a husband, father and a husband being?
He is the best human being you can think of. He is very concerned about other people and their suffering even to his own detriment sometimes. H e is just a warm person. Looking at him, you may not know this, but that is who he is. He is someone you would want as a friend. He is very loyal. He is the best friend you can ask for. On National Public Radio –NPR – I listen every morning to a popular programme called Story Corp. One day, they featured a couple that had been married for 70 years, being interviewed by their great grandchildren. They asked the couple why their marriage had lasted so long and both replied that they never fell out of love at the same time.
When one was tired the other was still holding on and I said to myself, “that just describes my marriage.” When he was tired I held on and when I was tired he held on. And now, none of us is tired. We’re still holding on.As a father, I think his children can answer that better but I can tell you that it is difficult to be his child because of his nature. He is not home very often. For a wife, you pretty much have an inkling into what you are getting when you marry someone like him, but a child does not. It’s something you’re into. He recognizes it and alludes to it in is dedication in his book, You Must Set Forth at Dawn” where he wrote. “To my stoically resigned children. “No one likes to share those they love, but they have to share their father with the world. It is difficult for them all.
With my own boys, right from the beginning, I shared with them an advice my sister-in-law, Dr. Folabo Soyinka-Ajayi, gave me when I was newly married. She said her brother “loved their mother a lot but she was never able to own him, not that she didn’t try. She said no one can own him, not is siblings, his wife or his children, he is a world citizen.” I explained that to my boys as soon as they began to notice their father’s absence when other kids had theirs. It is something you understand more as you grow older, even then, it is difficult to accept. I think they grew to understand this, and they feel loved and they got used to him, so that helps. I also think that he relates better with older children. Now, I watch him sit and talk with some of his children who are all now older, and marvel at how the relationships have transformed. It is nice to see. That is him as a father. Professor Soyinka is a great provider as well; you are not going to get the Lamborghini or Bentley Continental GT, but you will get your school fees and it won’t be late. He is very responsible.
Do you sometimes feel that you are in competition with quite a number of other women who want is attention?
No, right from the beginning, I knew he liked me as a person. I am not talking about love now, even though, I knew he loved me. We are great friends and we laugh together a lot. I knew that he wouldn’t deliberately hurt or humiliate me. I also know that there is nothing you can do to stop two consenting adults. Women are always around under all kinds of guises but I have never felt in competition with anyone. Sometimes it intrudes on our lives, but no competition.
How did your love affair start?
As I said, I knew he always liked me from when I was in the University of Ife but I was young and he was so accomplished, so I was kind of worried. After I left Ife and went to do my National Service –NYSC in Kaduna, Dr. Biodun Jeyifo came to visit me and said Kongi had been looking for me. After the service year, Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi who was at The Guardian got me a job there and one day, he stopped by. The rest of the story is in the public domain with all kinds of unbelievable variations. You also know it. Everybody was part of that story.
What was the period of courtship like?
It was interesting. I was working at The Guardian at that time, he was slowly moving out of Ife. He was exploring where to build a house between Ibadan and Abeokuta. In the end, he chose Abeokuta. Prior to building our house, he lived in Idi-Aba area of Abeokuta. So, for most of our courtship, we lived there and we continued living there after we were married. I worked Monday through Friday and most weekends when I wasn’t working I was in Abeokuta. He would sometimes visit me in Lagos and we spent time together there. Oftentimes, he was busy as I was. Mr. Lade Bonuola, the editor of The Guardian then kept all of us, his reporters, one our toes. We saw each other often but we couldn’t do everyday things that people do because of who he is, but it was nice, very nice. I look back fondly to those days.
When he eventually proposed that he wanted to marry you, was there any objection from anywhere?
I think there were objections from everywhere except from my sisters and brother who were happy if I was. I also had the support of his siblings here. My parents along with most of my relatives objected, not because of anything, they just felt he was too famous and too accomplished. They worried about that. But within a few months after we were married, my parents had changed their minds and they loved him until they both passed away. His close friends didn’t have a problem with it but almost everyone had an opinion. Then came the Nobel Prize in 1986 and that derailed everything for a couple of years. More than a quarter of a century later, those opinions didn’t count, we’re still trudging along. I have enjoyed tremendous love because of him.
Apart from wines which we all know he loves drinking, what re his favourite foods?
He is not a big eater. Even when he eats, it is always in small quantities. The boys always want to go out to each with him because they usually end up eating his food. He likes salami, pasta, moin-moin cooked in leaves especially the stray part that hides between the folded leaves. He doesn’t eat much and I guess that is why he is so slim.
I understand he is a good cook.
He cooks and he is quite good at it. He even cooked about two days ago. When the boys were really little, one day in California, he called us all to the kitchen and said he wanted to have a family meeting. They were so young I don’t even think they had any concept of what a family meeting was. He lined all three according to their heights and asked me to sit. He said he has something to tell us and he was only going to say it once. He whipped out some cooking utensils, moved them around noisily inside the pot, threw some up, caught them, performed a few tricks and then told us to listen up. He said there were only three people in the world that can cook pasta like he does: one is dead, the other lives in Sicily, Italy, and he is the third one and he is going to cook something the likes of which we had never eaten. He cooked pasta that day and we truly enjoyed it. True dramatist! Now when all else fails, he cooks pasta.
What are the things you notice when he is writing or reading seriously?
We leave him alone. We don’t intrude. I don’t know of many people who love what they do for a living like he does. He doesn’t like the administrative part of it like replying endless emails, but he loves writing. I say to my kids how lucky he is to have found something he loves and then do it for a living. He doesn’t bring in as much money as most people think, but then, that is not his motivation for writing. Even when he arrives home from a different time zone, he would wake up in the morning, go into his study, probably at about seven in the morning and if he can’t sleep, he would go in at 3am and work until mid-day non-stop. So, when the kids are going to school in the morning, they don’t even bother to go into the study too say good morning, they just leave him alone.
When he comes out, does he sometimes share the joy and pleasure of his creation with you?
No, he doesn’t discuss what he is working on with anybody. Sometimes, when he is done with a manuscript and he is sending it to the publishers, that’s when I find out what he’s been working on.
Do you sometimes help him edit?
No, I do not interfere. When he brings cover designs for the book, he may ask me which I prefer and he may or may not accept my choice. That’s the extent of my involvement in his creative work.
When you turned 50 two years ago, he danced with you. Does he love to dance? Between both of you who is a better dancer?
Of course, I am a better dancer and I dance more often. I am sure if you ask him, he would say he is a better dancer and that would not be true. He doesn’t dance often. Sometimes, when we are with Uncle Tunji Oyelana of the Benders, he would go on the microphone and they would start signing and a few hours later, they would be arguing about how a song should go and its interpretation. He sings more than he dances. Recently both of us went to see a play and when we got home he started to mimic the dancers, it was hilarious because it was break dancing.
The late Chief Bola Ige once told me that Wole Soyinka may look stone-faced in public, but he can be incredible moved to tears by the pain of others. How true is that?
It is true what Chief Bola Ige said. He is moved by the sufferings of others even to the extent that it affects us at home. You know for sure when something is bothering him and it bothers him more when he cannot do anything about it. You have no idea how the kidnap of the Chibok girls has affected our lives. It is constantly on his mind. Death also bothers him. Recently, when one of is daughters, Yetade, passed away, he wept. The boys had never seen him cry but this time he was weeping uncontrollably. It was shortly after Christmas, so we were all home when the news came. I think that incident rocked him. They say time heals, but I don’t know how time heals the death of a beloved child.
You both have three sons together, how are they doing?
They are all doing very well. It’s just the two of us at home now that the children have all gone in different directions. The first two have been away for a while. One graduated from Stanford University and is now in medical school, the other went to Colgate University and would like to go to Law School and my last is headed to Harvard University where he will be studying Computer Science and Engineering. Fortunately for us, each of them got a scholarship, so we’ve been truly blessed.

Friday, July 25, 2014

YORUBA LANGUAGE IS DYING!-THIS OMOWE SAYS STOP MIXING YORUBA WITH ENGLISH!-ADALU YORUBA KO DA! -FROM GLOBAL EXCELLENCE MAGAZINE,NIGERIA

YORUBAS! - THIS OMOWE SAYS WE MUST STOP MIXING YORUBA WITH ENGLISH,DESTROYING IT- FROM GLOBAL EXCELLENCE MAGAZINE,NIGERIA

OMOWE MOSES MABAYOJE   FIRST IN DASHIKI

Moses Mabayoje, a Nigerian from Ibadan, Oyo State, is a teacher of Yoruba Language in one of the universities in America. He studied at University of Ibadan to Master’s level and was pursuing his Phd before he left for America. In this Interview with AKIN SOKOYA, Mabayoje speaks on his passion for the Yoruba tradition, his family and many more. Excerpt.

Please, introduce yourself.
My name is Moses Mabayoje. I’m from Ibadan, Oyo State in Nigeria but I live in the United States of America. I am a teacher of Yoruba Language in one of the Universities in America. I’m teaching at Rodgas University; a State University of New Jersey. I’m also into study abroad programmes. I bring American Students once to learn the Yoruba language or who want to perfect their knowledge of the Yoruba language in Nigeria precisely to The University of Ibadan where we started the Yoruba language centre in 2010 with five students who have been studying Yoruba at the University of Winscon Madisson in America. They’ve been in Yoruba Class for about three years but they came for what we called immersion; to know more about the language and the culture of Yoruba and they were in Nigeria for nine months. And after that, they became better speakers of the language and they appreciate the Yoruba language more. I studied at University of Ibadan to master’s level I was pursuing my Phd before I left for America.

To what extent has the students been cooperating in learning in a simple way?
They are very serious and are putting all efforts and attention. We have a three months programme called African Language Initiative. The two months programme is called Yoruba Good Study Abroad. The one year programme is called Yoruba Language Flagship. We bring them to Nigeria and pair them with Yoruba host parents. The students will mix-up with them. At times, they would even be bearing their names. At the end of the programme, we see a great improvement. Language is not learnt in the classroom. Though, we introduced it in the classroom but we learn it in the society.

In spite of Yoruba language being taught in our schools in Nigeria from primary schools, yet the students don’t seem to understand it deeply, what do you think is wrong?
I was a teacher in Nigerian secondary schools for about 30 years and I’m an author. I have a book jointly written with some scholars for the students but our students have two major problems, one has been corrected.

What are the problems?
The problem is that when we separated the language with literature. What we are teaching in the language is more of applied linguistics. If you know about a language, you can explain the structure of the language, you can pick some words in the language and write up but that doesn’t mean you can speak it. That is what has been happening since 1984. Now we’ve brought the rhythm and the literature back into it and also the culture. That would help the students to learn the speaking right, and also write better than when it’s only language. That is why I say one of the problems is been solved. The second problem is that looking at English as a language that you must learn, speak at the detriment of your own language. In Nigeria, there are many families that their children don’t speak Yoruba language. The family came to America and we are living in the same house, it was my children who have being living in America who started teaching those children Yoruba, whereas they first came fresh from Nigeria. As parents we have to wake up. English is called a feeler language: Many nations are struggling not allow English to tell their own language but Yorubas are not conscious of that. You can see few of filmmakers are insisting on the language, but many of them don’t care we have to talk to this class of people too. We have to tell them the danger of what they are doing. You can do your Film in Yoruba language and subtitle in English or make it in English and subtitle in Yoruba. You don’t mix. Though you can switch from one language to another but it should not be too much. We are losing many other things but we must not lose our language, so our government has to wake up. In many Universities that offer Yoruba as a course, you hardly see students coming to study it. The students who are studying Russia, French are more than those studying Yoruba, why? If we abandon our heritage, it’s like we are uprooting ourselves from our source. Look at Japan, China, Korea and even the Arabs; they hold their language in esteem. If you are good in your languages you will be better in English, but if you are not good in your language, you will even speak quack English. In Nigeria, many of us speak bad English, imagine a parent who does not have a secondary education but wants to speak English to his/her kids.

What advice would you give to our filmmakers who muddle up English language with Yoruba?
It’s because the society they are producing for is an hybrid, they mix languages and they want to give them what they want. Few of the filmmakers are insisting on the language but many of them don’t care, but we have to wake them up and tell them the danger of what they are doing. You can subtitle but it should not be too much. When it is too much you are killing your language.


Tuesday, July 22, 2014

BLACK IDENTITY IS IN DANGER!-BLEACHING!-""YELLOW FEVER"SANG FELA ANIKULAPO-KUTI, OUR BLACK PROPHET!-HERE ARE THE LYRICS!T


Yellow Fever lyrics

Fela Kuti





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Yellow Fever Video:
Lyrics to Yellow Fever Different different fever na him dey
Different different fever na him dey
Different different fever na him dey
Different different fever na him dey

Malaria fever nko? (He dey!)
Jaundice fever nko? (He dey!)
Hay fever nko? (He dey!)
Influenza fever nko? (He dey!)
Inflation fever nko? (He dey!)
Freedom fever nko? (He dey!)
Yellow fever nko? (He dey!)

[Chorus]
Na him dey bring the matter now he dey!

Yellow fever nko? (He dey!)

[Chorus]
Na him dey bring the matter now he dey!

I say tell them make them hear (You say!)
All fever na sickness (You say!)
Original sickness (You say!)
Hay fever na sickness (You say!)
Original sickness (You say!)
Malaria na sickness (You say!)
Original sickness (You say!)
Jaundice na sickness (You say!)
Original sickness (You say!)
Influenza na sickness (You say!)
Original sickness (You say!)
Inflation na sickness (You say!)
Original sickness (You say!)
Freedom na sickness (You say!)
Original sickness (You say!)

Yellow fever nko? (You say!)

[Chorus]
Original and artificial he dey!

Yellow fever nko? (You say!)
One more...

[Chorus]
Original and artificial he dey!

Bom bom bom, tell me now...

Original catch you
Your eye go yellow
Your yansh go yellow
Your face go yellow
Your body go weak
I say but later if you no die inside
The yellow go fade away

Artificial catch you
You be man or woman
Na you go catch am yourself
Na your money go do am for you
You go yellow pass yellow
You go catch moustache for face
You go get your double colour
Your yansh go black like coal
You self go think say you dey fine
Who say you fine?

[Chorus]
Na lie, you no fine at all!
At all, na lie!

My sister, who say you fine?

[Chorus]
Na lie, you no fine at all!
At all, na lie!

Yellow fever

[Chorus]
You dey bleach, o you dey bleach!

You dey bleach, o you dey bleach
African mother
You dey bleach, o you dey bleach
Sissi wey dey go
Yellow fever
Stupid thing
Yeye thing
Fucking thing
Ugly thing
Yellow fever
You dey bleach, o you dey bleach
African mother
You dey bleach, o you dey bleach
Sissi wey dey go
Yellow fever

Now to the underground spiritual game
Underground where dey down for school
Over there for school, yes

Where dey go say: teacher
Oya!

[Chorus]
Teacher!

Who steal my bleaching?
My precious bleaching?
I buy am for shopping
For forty naira
How I go yellow?
How I go find out?
I go die o
I go die o
I go die o

According to complaint
Complaint must get answer
I beg please, help me help teacher
Oya, foolish
Oya!

[Chorus]
Foolish!

Who steal your bleaching?
Your precious bleaching?
You buy am for shopping
For forty naira
You self all yellow
How you go find out?
Your face go yellow
Your yansh go black
Your moustache go show
Your skin go scatter
You go die o
You go die o
You go die o
You go die o

[Chorus]
You dey bleach, o you dey bleach!

You dey bleach, o you dey bleach
African mother
You dey bleach, o you dey bleach
Sissi wey dey go
Yellow fever
Stupid thing
Yeye thing
Fucking thing
Ugly thing
Yellow fever
You dey bleach, o you dey bleach
African mother
You dey bleach, o you dey bleach
Sissi wey dey go
Yellow fever
[ These are Yellow Fever Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/ ]
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Other Fela Kuti Lyrics

BLACK PEOPLE! -BLEACHING IS BLACK SELF -HATRED!-"YOU DEY BLEACH" LIKE FELA ANIKULAPO-KUTI SANG IN "YELLOW FEVER"-FROM THE NATION NEWSPAPER,NIGERIA

FROM THE NATION NEWSPAPER,NIGERIA

BLEACHING IS RACIAL SUICIDE! -"YOU DEY BLEACH?" FELA ANIKULAPO-KUTI SANG IN YELLOW FEVER-BLEACH AND DIE-FROM THE NATION NEWSPAPER,NIGERIA










 FROM THE NATION NEWSPAPER,NIGERIA
Home » Editorial » You dey bleach?
WHO-Logo

You dey bleach?

• WHO rates Nigerian women as world champions in skin-bleaching
Nigeria seems to have become a remorselessly cheerless place, like an arid land where flowers don’t grow. In the last few years she has been shorn of good news, especially as concerns human development indices emanating from the United Nations agencies. We are prominent but only in the league of the laggards. Among the poor nations, we are notable; on the jobless index, we are running strong. Just raise any social or economic index and Nigeria is preeminent on the negative end of it.
While these may be understandable considering that our polity has been long beset with poor leadership which has left her underdeveloped for a long time, how do we explain her current laurel as the country with the most bleached women in the world, as recently adjudged by the World Health Organisation (WHO)? The desire to make the colour of the skin lighter is a personal decision and has nothing to do with economic or social pressures; it is strictly a self-induced harm.
According to WHO, 77 percent of women in Nigeria use skin-lightening products and this is the world’s highest. This compares with 59 percent in Togo and 27 percent in Senegal. An independent poll conducted in Abuja early in the year by NOI Polls corroborates WHO’s position. Ironically, it was discovered that the practice cuts across all social strata while educational standing did not prove to be an important factor. This suggests that attempt to alter the colouration of one’s skin has deep-rooted psychological and colonial undertones.
Some respondents said they use skin-lighteners because they want “white skin” while yet others said they wished to “look beautiful” and “attractive to the opposite sex”. It was also discovered that many people who bleach believe that light or pale skin depicts beauty and success while dark complexion is considered to be below standard and ordinary.
Sadly, skin bleaching substances like most other things, are hardly regulated in Nigeria. All sorts of tubes, plastic bags of powders, ointments and mixtures can be found in most patent medicines stores and on the sidewalks in markets across the country. Both the imported and locally concocted ones are sold side-by-side by vendors. Some of the most ruinously potent ones are not labelled as to their ingredients.
Skin-bleaching has become a pandemic in Nigeria regardless of the fact that skin-lightening creams have been proven over the years to contain dangerous and toxic substances such as hydroquinone, mercury compounds and topical steroids which are known to cause such debilities as kidney failure, diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer. Long use of these chemicals which steadily erodes the concentration of melanin (dark pigments of the skin) often portends long-term damaging effects on the bleached skin; it makes the skin less responsive to suture during surgery while large dose of the chemicals in the body could affect the unborn child in child-bearing women.
It is quite worrisome that even in this age so many Nigerians are still prisoners of their skin colour. Even after we have been liberated from the shackles of colonialism, many of us are still unable to break the chain of inferiority complex and low self-esteem. Despite the crusading work of people like James Aggrey, Booker T. Washington and even Kwame Nkrumah, many years ago, it is uncanny that some Africans, led by Nigerians, would still consider the white skin better or superior to black.
Let us restate Aggrey’s evocative words on this matter that, “I am proud of my colour, whoever is not proud of his colour is not fit to live.” While we urge government to ban bleaching substances and criminalise their sale, the National Orientation Agency (NOA) must initiate campaign to educate bleachers on the need to shore up their self-esteem, be proud of their exquisite black skin and try being beautiful from the inside.