Soyinka blasts Buhari over state pardon for convicted ex-govs, others

Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka has again lambasted President Muhammadu Buhari over the presidential pardon granted some Nigerians convicted for corruption.

His position came few days after the Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Sokoto, Matthew Kukah, criticised Buhari over insecurity, corruption and division in Nigeria.

Soyinka in a statement titled “A putrid presidential Easter egg,” backed the position of Kukah.

He also agreed with former President Olusegun Obasanjo who said Buhari’s presidency had offered its best to Nigeria.

The statement read, “Easter greetings to you, Reverend Mathew Kukah and to all your followers. All has been said, I think. I am impelled however not to miss an opportunity to add my own Easter drop to the overflowing vessel of pietistic sentiments, if only to reassure Christians – and also Moslems in turn – that even we, non-believers, do partake of that same ethical communion to which most humanity aspire. Also, your Easter sermon opens up yet again those sluices of juridical hypocrisy to which we dare not cease to draw attention.

“Of course, it is easy to track the trajectory of events. Nettled by increasingly scabrous comments, such as those of his predecessor in office, Olusegun Obasanjo, who declared that this incumbent has run out of ideas, that he has nothing left to offer the nation, Muhammad Buhari decided to embark on the Easter train and donate an Easter egg of truly presidential proportions to his subjects.

“Coming from a leader who had placed all his eggs in one basket, labeled Anti-Corruption, this is one egg squashed against Nigerian faces that they shall not forget – or wipe off – in a hurry. It evokes the legend of Pandora’s box, whose contents are alleged to constitute all the ills that plague the world. Putrid to the core, allied to power provocations in numerous variations, such as catapulting a notorious player in the martyrdom of a serving minister of Justice to the hub of governance’s wheel, these define the nature of bequests that have brought the nation to this moment of near dissolution. Precedents are no consolation, no excuses. One states the obvious in remarking that precedents either undermine or reinforce principles, and aspiring offenders, especially in the political domain, are encouraged or inhibited by the ease or difficulty of access to the fount of mercy. Officeholders, we presume, are constrained by the existence of that dangling Sword of Damocles – simply knowing that one day, the cloak of immunity will turn threadbare, and the awaited day of reckoning finds them answerable. Clearly, not any longer.

“You will forgive, though disagree with me, I know, for clambering onto the Easter wagon myself, to echo the words of the One whose passage through the world the Easter season commemorates: It is finished!”