Budget for First Ladies Mission House illegal – Soyinka

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, says the N4bn allocated for the construction of an office for the African first ladies in the 2013 budget of the Federal Capital Territory is an attempt to institutionalise illegality.

He, therefore, urged African first ladies to distance themselves from the construction of the house.

Soyinka said this in a speech read on his behalf by President, Women Arise for Change Initiative, Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin, during a protest march to the Lagos State Government House, Alausa, on Thursday.

In the speech entitled ‘A St. Valentine’s Day Card on the Occasion of Women’s March Against Connubial Corruption’, Soyinka said the allocation debased the democratic process.

Soyinka said, “I deplore the slavish adoption of foreign saints of whatever shade, colour, or religious persuasion. However, the coincidence of dates for women’s intervention in yet another egregious conspiracy to drain the Nigerian treasury, mounted in the name of a high-flying member of your gender, strikes me as a call to break the mould and submit myself to the call of Saint Valentine.

“I must send a Valentine card for the first time in my life, then let me do so on a grand scale. I have therefore elected not to lend my affection to any one individual, but the entire bevy of First Ladies of African continent – and that includes first male spouses.

“What, after all, is to stop these male consorts from developing ‘pet projects’ and setting up missions? Even if they number no more than one or two, there is a saying that goes: ‘What is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander’.

“A mind-boggling fiscal misappropriation – N4bn, no less – is being attempted in your names – openly, in an attempt to institutionalise an illegality through a debasement of the democratic process.”

He said it was no longer secret that their names were invoked as the ultimate beneficiaries, and thus, they are “vicariously implicated”.

“In the name of St. Valentine and the love I bear for you all, please dissociate yourselves from this display of shameless avarice. I shall not go so far as to ask you to denounce what you probably know nothing about, but if you ever get to hear of it, distance yourselves from the gross impropriety,” he appealed.