Man Of Integrity! Prof. Wole Soyinka Resigns As CBCIU Chairman Over Oyinlola’s ‘Threat’

Please read. We sometimes don’t understand what people look for in power.

Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has announced his resignation as Chairman of the board of the Centre for Black Culture and International Understanding.

In a statement on Saturday, Mr. Soyinka said that he was frustrated and embarrassed at the continued reference of a court suit involving Olagunsoye Oyinlola, a former governor of Osun State, and the CBCIU as a leadership tussle.
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”This is painful reductionism,” Mr. Soyinka, a professor of Comparative Literature, said in the letter dated July 14, 2015.

“In any case, I am left with no choice but to openly demand of the governor of Osun State the immediate and formal acceptance of my resignation letter from CBCIU chairmanship.”

Messrs Soyinka and Oyinlola had been engaged in a war of words over the headship of the Oshogbo-based CBCIU, a category 2 facility under the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, established in 2009.

Last month, Mr. Soyinka had stated that Mr. Oyinlola’s parading of himself as the head of CBCIU was “unlawful and unethical.”
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In 2008, as governor of Osun State, Mr. Oyinlola signed into law the CBCIU Act which stipulated that he would be the Chairman of the Board for life.

However, four years later, the Osun State House of Assembly amended the law to state that the Chairman of the Board shall be ‎”the Governor or anyone appointed by him for that purpose.

Governor Rauf Aregbesola appointed Mr. Soyinka as Chairman of the Board in August 2012.

Then Mr. Oyinlola headed to court to challenge the decision.