Soyinka knocks Datti, ‘Obidients’, recalls advising Tinubu, Atiku not to contest

The Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka, said he warned the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, on the excesses of the his supporters, the ‘Obidients’, ahead of the election.

He condemned the recent utterance of the LP vice presidential candidate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, as unguarded and an affront on the judiciary.

He also said he advised the presidential candidates of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, and the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Atiku Abubakar and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, respectively, to leave the stage for young brilliant people.

Soyinka stated this in a statement titled, “Media responsibility” on Tuesday.

The elder statesman said his recent interview with Channels Television was misrepresented, with his remarks rendered unrecognisable.

The TV station aired on Monday the one and a half-hour interview with Soyinka, which it conducted a week ago.

Soyinka said on three occasions, he was able to send a message to Obi that if he lost the election, it would be his followers who lost it for him.

He recalled advising both Tinubu and Atiku against contesting the presidential election on account old age.

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He said, “I told Atiku when he was contesting and came to see me in my Ikeja office few years ago; he came with Gbenga Daniel, my former governor (of Ogun State).

“I said to him, ‘Listen, it’s about time you people left the stage, why don’t you just go away. We need an infusion of fresh blood into the system’.

“But, for some people, maybe they read it as bloodletting. No I said infusion of fresh blood. I said so I can not support you. I think your generation should quit.

“But, he wasn’t the only one. I then sought out the current President-elect, Tinubu and I gave him exactly the same message.

“I said, ‘Whatever you people are planning, I’m convinced that we need the young generation, new thinking, new sensibilities, new energies’.

“So, why don’t you just leave the stage, let’s look for somebody, a really brilliant individual then use your entire influence to catapult that person to power, and this country will see a massive transformation.

“We spoke for about an hour and a half, and then Bola Tinubu said, ‘No’. He said there were still things he felt he could still contribute,” Soyinka said.

He stated, “What I have read – at least, thus far – this morning, extracted from a one-and-a-half long interview, conducted a week ago with Channels Television, brings once more to the fore, the critical responsibility of the media in transmitting the spoken, even recorded – word to the public.

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“This is especially crucial in a time of civic uncertainty. When remarks are taken out of context, spliced into a new one, provided a sensational headline, distortions become stamped on public receptivity, and the central intent of one’s remarks becomes completely unrecognisable.

“I denounced the menacing utterances of a vice-presidential aspirant as unbecoming. It was a gladiatorial challenge directed at the judiciary and, by implication, the rest of the democratic polity.

“But what on earth has happened to my even more urgent condemnation of the physical violence inflicted on those designated ‘strangers’ in Lagos in the lead up to, and during governorship elections? This prejudicial selectivity is a betrayal of trust, and I find it contemptuous of public deserving. My critique of incipient fascism in the movement remains grounded in indisputable evidence.”

Soyinka stated that throughout the interview, he continued to stress that the final word had yet to be pronounced on the elections – “that omission renders the full message tendentious!”

“My rejection of fascism is nothing new. It was depressing to watch his lieutenant, a crucially positioned voice of a movement that has ‘broken the mould’, threaten the totality of social existence.

“Whatever our ideological leaning, is Donald Trump the ideal template for a burgeoning democracy in the nation?”

He said he was concerned about the alleged complaint by him of people not following “instructions”.

“If words are garbled in recording, the speaker can be reached for clarification – else, simply leave out the unclear section completely to avoid misrepresentation.

“After all, piecemeal transmission is legitimate proceeding, as long as a part is not presented as the whole.

“I am not a member of the Labour Party, so how can giving ‘instructions’ become my role?

“Like a number of others, I have admittedly contributed to the making of this moment – going back several years – and it is painful to have the followers of such a movement send it slithering backwards and down the fascistic slope,” Soyinka said.

Soyinka knocks Datti, ‘Obidients’, recalls advising Tinubu, Atiku not to contest