After a deafening silence on the hardships Nigerian are facing in the face of cruel government policies, Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, descended on the leadership of the Labour Party (LP), accusing them of trying to force “a lie” on Nigerians, especially youths, when they knew that Peter Obi, LP Presidential candidate, lost the February 25 election.
Soyinka, the rallying figure of anti-people policies and conscience of the nation before now, spoke at an event on Wednesday in Stellenbosch, South Africa titled: ‘The Lives of Wole Soyinka – A Dialogue,’ organised by Africa in the World.
Answering a question on his earlier comment against Datti Baba-Ahmed, LP Vice Presidential candidate after the Presidential election, Soyinka said truth matters to him and so he was armed with facts when he invaded a radio station in Ibadan in 1965 and never relied on “third-hand information” about the result of the 1965 regional election.
Noting that many people always look for shortcuts, the Nobel Laureate accused LP of taking over the Organised labour movement in the build-up to the 2023 election.
According to Soyinka: “This recent election – two things happened first of all. One party took over the Labour Movement, which is not my favourite movement, and then it became a regional party.
“Whereas it was a marvellous breach into the established two camps. Peter Obi achieved something remarkable there, that he broke that mould. However, he did not win the election.
“I can say categorically that Peter Obi’s party came third not even second and the leadership knew it but they want to do what we call in Yoruba ‘gbajue’, that is force of lies.”
Soyinka also alleged that the LP leadership attempted to mobilise young people to protest against the outcome of the election on the “banner of lies and deceit. They were going to send some of the hardliners, proud young people into the street to demonstrate.
“I’m also ready to be among such demonstrators but only on the banner of truth not on lies, and deceit.
“This party wanted the same thing (referring to 2011 post-election violence) to happen on the basis of a lie and we find this vice-presidential candidate on television boasting, insisting, threatening and trying to intimidate both the judiciary and the rest.
“What kind of government will result from that kind of conduct? In addition, they did not know this but they were being used.
“Before the election, there were certain clandestine forces, including some ex-generals, who were already calling for an interim government before the elections began.
“Some of them were known figures, including a proprietor of a university calling for an interim government before the election took place.”
In March, Soyinka and LP were at loggerheads over comments made by Baba-Ahmed on the outcome of the presidential election.
On March 22, Baba-Ahmed, said in an interview with Channels TV that the country had no President-elect despite the declaration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, flagbearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the winner of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Baba-Ahmed said Tinubu should not be sworn in as President because he “did not meet requirements of the law.”
Soyinka, a close ally of Tinubu, reacted, stating that the LP Vice Presidential candidate’s words contained “fascistic language” and that has “never heard anyone threaten the judiciary on television the way Datti did.”