Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has said that the leadership of the Labour Party (LP) knew that the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, lost the February 25 election in Nigeria.
Soyinka accused the leadership of the opposition party of attempting to foist “a lie” on Nigerians, especially the impressionable youths, that Obi won the election.
The Nobel laureate spoke in far away Stellenbosch, South Africa at an event titled “The Lives of Wole Soyinka — A Dialogue” on Wednesday.
The even was put together by Africa in the World.
Asked to respond during the discourse to his earlier comment against Datti Baba-Ahmed, LP vice-presidential candidate, after the general election, Soyinka said he was more concerned and interested in truth as it matters much to him.
The playwright noted that many people always look for shortcuts.
The Nobel laureate said he was armed with facts when he stormed a radio station in Ibadan in 1965, adding that he was not relying on “third-hand information” about the result of the 1965 regional election.
The globally respected intellectual accused the LP of taking over the organised labour movement in the build-up to the 2023 election but reckoned that Obi achieved “something remarkable” by breaking the monopoly of power established by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
“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,” he said.
Soyinka also accused the LP leadership of trying to mobilise young Nigerians 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,” he said.
“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.”
-The Cable
