The leadership of Labour Party has chided Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, for accusing the opposition party of attempting to hoodwink Nigerians into believing that its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, won the February 25 election.
The objection is coming in the wake of Soyinka’s declaration on Wednesday at an event titled, “The Lives of Wole Soyinka — A Dialogue,” which was held in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
The renowned writer had claimed the party was aware Obi that came third but the leadership persisted on playing ‘Gbajue’ (to force a lie) on the people, especially the youthful population.
When further asked to clarify his previous statement on the LP vice presidential candidate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, after the general election, Soyinka reiterated that he was committed to the truth.
His utterances, however, didn’t sit well with the camp of Obi and the Labour Party.
Reacting in a statement issued in Abuja on Thursday, the National Publicity Secretary of LP, Obiora Ifoh, said Soyinka’s statement was not expected of someone who is highly revered as a “detribalised” statesman.
In the release titled, ‘Soyinka: Statesmen are not double-faced, not blind to truth,’ Ifoh noted that they couldn’t imagine that the playwright could stoop to the ‘groupthink syndrome’ based on “primordial considerations”.
A groupthink syndrome is a phenomenon that occurs when a group of individuals reaches a consensus without critical reasoning or evaluation of the consequences or alternatives.
He said, “Prof. Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian whose accomplishments in the literary world are without doubt intimidating. However, we beg to disagree with his prognosis and personal opinion on the performance of our party during the 2023 general elections. The facts are before the courts and, out of respect for our judiciary, we will reserve our comments until the Supreme Court makes a final pronouncement.
“We understand that the literary giant is human and thus susceptible to emotions and probably said what he said based on information made available to him by those who share the ‘Emilokan’ sentiment.
“It is most befuddling as well as disconcerting that a detribalised and activist like Soyinka would succumb to the ‘groupthink syndrome’ that subscribes to state capture by those belonging to the criminal fringe by any means, based on primordial considerations. We really appreciate him for at least giving some credits to Labour Party and its presidential candidate for breaking the monopoly of power hitherto held by the two other parties.”
Continuing, the spokesman also expressed disappointment that Soyinka decided to take sides rather than condemn some anomalies in the build-up to the last general elections and the abysmal performance of the Independent National Electoral Commission.
Ifoh, however, concluded that Soyinka is a Nigerian and equally entitled to his opinion.
“The whole world followed the 2023 general election and there was a global condemnation on not only the outcome of the election but also the process, particularly, the ‘glitch’ that occurred only during the transmission of presidential result to IREV. We didn’t hear as much as a whisper from Kongi on reminding INEC to stand by its word.
“We will not allege selective amnesia as the reason for Soyinka’s wrong prognosis but we would have expected him to be a statesman, which we thought he was by remaining on the side of caution. We want to also let him know that building a New Nigeria is a dream whose time has come and Nigerian youths will not relent until such a dream is realised,” he said.
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I don't know the way you readers of comments see Wole Soyinka. Simply because he was a nobel laurate we have continued to make him see himself as an academic god of a sort. No, Wole soyinka is not so famous as we see him. We are simply hyping our own. What has been his contribution in nigeria except of course causing confusion with his personal dictionary of confused english. Days have gone when we see such men as men of honour when infact they are not. When Tinubu came with the Emilokan mantra, Soyinka and other Yorubas saw nothing wrong with it but when Peter Obi came with obidients, it was a taboo that need not to be mention. Now you want people like me to listen to the balder-dash coming from Wole Soyinka. He is just a professor and we have so many of them around that could reason better. If indeed, Wole Soyinka has a pedigree of performance in governance or even in education that he is being prided so much, why have successive governments not appointing him to bring his wealth of wisdom to engender better governance in practical form and not in essay? Again, is he not qualified for the position of Vice Chancellor of any University in Nigeria? Just help me ask him what he is qualified to do. I think these guys when they go abroad to attract cheap publicity to themselves, they should rather focus on what the sitting government should do to get it right. We have many issues begging for solution but while in South Africa, only peter obi came to his mind. What of the failing of the naira, the unplanned subsidy removal, the promised palliative that the governors have been given funds to execute. No body is talking about the high cost of living and others. Well, Wole may after all not be a family man. I have not read of any "mrs Wole Soyinka" before. So Wole Soyinka, go and sit down and stop talking about the election because i do not even know if you did cast your vote at all.
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