I respect Soyinka but disagree with his position on Datti comments – Adichie
Novelist Chimamanda Adichie has disagreed with the Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, for saying comments made by the Labour Party’s vice presidential candidate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, on the outcome of the February 25 presidential election were fascist.
Adichie, in an interview on Arise TV on Tuesday night, however said she still held Soyinka in high esteem and admired him a great deal.
“Because I respect Soyinka a lot, I went back and watched the interview again. I think fascism is a really strong word, which often made me think of Mussolini of Italy.We use it now. I do not see any reason Datti Baba-Ahmed’s interview would have been termed fascist.
“I think he was making a very strongly and fair point about the election and he was saying, which again, I thought is fairly reasonable, that if our democracy is rooted in the constitution and you then swear in a person who is being elected unconstitutionally, and you are in fact ending democracy. I think it is quite a reasonable position. Of course we can argue about what that means in the constitution,” Adichie said.
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She also said, “I am very grateful for this whole election period because it made me read things I probably would have, such as the Nigerian constitution and also made me have quite a few suggestions for editing. I think now we are talking about what ‘and’ mean right. So Mr. Ahmed Datti-Baba is saying that it is two-third and the FCT and that’s separate and its a reasonable argument right.
“You know ‘and’ is a conjunction and we use it in that context often to mean plural right so we say; Aisha and Yemi are coming and we don’t say Aisha and Yemi is coming, that is because they are two separate things, two separate entities and of course the court will interpret.
“I don’t think it unreasonable for educated Nigerians who can read, who know what the word ‘and’ means to make their own interpretations and to argue it and of course the fact that the Labour Party in court means that they do not believe that this election is constitutional and I didn’t quite see it should be termed fascist.”
Adichie said she had suggestions for what people could use fascist for.
For instance, she said, “Fascist is all of the violence that happened during the election. Fascist is the way some people remain silent about that violence. Fascist is a government that hasn’t come out to address the very tangible and palpable discontent in this country.
“I think that when I say that we can use fascist for INEC, what I mean is the fact that many of us, including myself are convinced that this is not in any way technological glitch. I think that Prof. Yakubu had an opportunity for heroism and I thing he wasted it spectacularly.”
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