Hydropus? This is not a word you might encounter in any Standard English dictionary, at least for now.
However, it may yet make it to the next
edition of some of the best dictionaries in the world especially since
it was coined by no less a person than distinguished Nobel Laureate, and
renowned poet and playwright, professor Wole Soyinka, as a word that best describes the ‘Nigerian Legislature’.
The professor, who derived the metaphor
from the mythological creature, Hydra, and the sea animal Octopus, made
this known at a town hall meeting convened by the Save Nigeria Group on Monday, January 23, 2012 at Ikeja, Lagos.
‘This head I’m trying to find a
palpable institution that fits that mythological creation, that Hydropus
and believe me, I eventually found it; it’s the Nigerian legislators.
That is the hydropus of corruption‘, he pronounced.
‘There is no way you can get rid of
corruption in this country without changing the legislative system.
Every single attempt at reform merely opens up new channels of
corruption’.
Professor Soyinka also called for the
complete overhaul of the Nigerian system of government as a means of
solving the problem of corruption.
Soyinka, 77, is currently the Elias Ghanem Professor of Creative Writing at the English department of the University of Nevada,
Las Vegas and the President’s Marymount Institute Professor in
Residence at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California, US.
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