30th May, 2024
By Taiwo Okanlawon
The National Association of Seadogs, also known as the Pyrates Confraternity has openly denounced any involvement with a new group called the Association of Humble and Obedience Youths (AHOY).
NAS made this known in a press conference held on Wednesday 29, 2024 at Radisson Blu Hotel, Lagos.
According to the NAS Capoon, Mr. Abiola Owoaje who read a press statement signed by Prof Wole Soyinka and 17 top members of the association, a recently circulated video that attempts to associate their origin with Soyinka and the other six founding members of NAS/PC is “a pathetic and abject failure”.
These statements were released by the board of trustees and Tortuga-in-council of the Pyrates confraternity with claims that the AHOY statements as regards them in the viral video are serious, untrue, and highly inflammatory.
The Nas coupon of the confraternity, Mr Abiola said the AHOY in recent times has committed several grievous offenses which include infringement in the Logo of the National Association of Seadogs.
He said that they pose to be them, claiming that they are the Pyrates’ Confraternity in institutions and another social gathering in the society which is identity theft.
He explained that the confraternity has built a significant positive contribution to the development of Nigerian and global society for 70 years having the great philanthropist, Wole Soyinka, and six others as founders of the association.
He further emphasized that the video entailed outrightly incontrovertible malicious falsehoods about what the association rightly stands for.
He said, “We view this video and any related actions of the perpetrators as a brazen attempt to tarnish the hard-won image and reputation of our organisation, an action aimed at diminishing our significant positive contributions to the development of the Nigerian and Global society over the past 70 years.
“To ignore this impudence would be a gross abdication of the considerable responsibility that we have come to accept as one of the barometers of the social conscience of the communities within which we operate.
“We will fail ourselves and squander legitimacy if we fail to alert all relevant security agencies, and the public, of the grave potential of this act of open criminality tied to political interests.
“Their satanic ploy is aimed at compromising publicly exposed members of our association. We do not rule out plans to eliminate some who, with one word, can dismantle this glossy tumour of lies which, one must concede, has most seductively been packaged in hi-tech designs.
Mr Abiola explained that legal actions are being put in place in the apprehension of those involved in committing these criminal offenses.
However, Mr Abiola advises those involved in the dubious act of circulating the video tarnishing the image of the Seadogs association, to cease all forms of accounts associating them with the AHOY.
Owoaje made references to the formation of PC in 1952 by Soyinka and six others, its formal registration with the Nigeria government, and how it was recently granted Special Consultative Status by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on NGOs in November 2021 and celebration of 70 years of existence as evidence of no link with the “impostors”.
“It is now imperative that we deal with this with piratical swiftness within the parameters of all the legal options open to the organisation. In that respect, our legal resources are now fully engaged.”
“Many are called, but few are chosen. Frustration feeds illusions and eventually slithers into impersonation. All members of the authentic body, the public, and security agencies worldwide are hereby put on the alert. We live in weird, brutish, and dangerous times,” he added.
