In a landmark event, the National Association of Seadogs, also known as Pyrates Confraternity, celebrated its 70th anniversary and honored its co-founder, Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka, on his 90th birthday.
The occasion was marked with the 26th Annual Wole Soyinka Lecture, held at the June 12 Cultural Centre in Abeokuta.
The lecture, themed “The Baby or the bathwater: Navigating the dark tunnels of systemic corruption to nationhood,” featured a keynote address by former Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola. Soyinka, in his remarks, emphasized the need for collective action to combat corruption, describing it as a “deadly cankerworm” that threatens Nigeria’s progress.
The event highlighted the Pyrates Confraternity’s commitment to social activism and its contributions to Nigeria’s development over the past seven decades. Founded in 1952 by Soyinka and six fellow University of Ibadan undergraduates, the organization has consistently advocated for social justice and good governance.
Soyinka, while commenting on the lecture delivered by former governor of Lagos State, Mr Babatunde Fashola, said that the challenge of corruption was such that it ran from the top to the bottom in Nigeria, adding that only a collective decision would halt its deadly march in the country.
He described corruption as a deadly cankerworm that lays great nations in ruins and puts the people at a great disadvantage.
Soyinka stated that without attitudinal change and the readiness of everyone to begin to do the right thing, winning the war against the mounting corruption challenge in the country would remain an impossible task.
He said, “The particular aspect of this lecture that struck me is corruption. Corruption is not just when you exchange money; it is a cankerworm that eats deep into the fabric of society from the top to the bottom and corrupts our very nature, our very existence.
“And one aspect of the lecture emphasised that the cure for corruption begins from the inside. Yes, we can talk about institutions, government, and the exercise of power unfairly and inordinately to the disadvantage of the rest of the community as part of corruption, but ultimately, the solution, both short-term and long-term, must begin from the inside, and this is one of the motives for establishing the Pyrates Confraternity 62 years ago.”
Soyinka also used the medium to disabuse the minds of the people regarding misconceptions about the Pyrates Confraternity, saying that the registered association is not a blood-thirsty secret cult but an association founded to push for justice and advance the betterment of the country.
“Ship Ahoy,” written to document the 60-year history of the confraternity.
Giving his lecture earlier, Mr Babatunde Fashola, the former two-term Minister of Works and Housing, described Soyinka as not only a gift to the country and the continent but to the entire civilisation.
Speaking on the theme of the lecture, Fashola maintained that while corruption in terms of pecuniary gains is undoubtedly condemned, the worst form of corruption is that which has displaced our highly cherished moral values and has therefore corrupted the people’s ways of life.
He said, “When I was in office as a minister, the Federal Road Safety Corps usually made copies of the monthly reports on road crashes available to me. The report is actually for the office of the Secretary-General of the Federation, but I used to get a copy.
“In October 2022, a total of 1,111 road crashes were reported across the country, out of which 449 people died, representing six per cent of 6458 people involved in the accidents, with 2780 injured.
“The analysis showed a three per cent decrease when compared with the previous month but a 10 per cent increase when compared with the figure for October 2021.
“This goes to show that an average of 400 people are lost monthly to road crashes in the country, but I doubt if the insecurity which is always an issue during campaigns is responsible for such a huge loss of lives every month in the country.”
