Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, on Sunday said he would assess President Bola Tinubu’s administration after one year in office – May 2024.
Soyinka who visited Tinubu as the President is holidaying in Lagos on Sunday, added that he came to find out how he is weathering Nigeria after he had ignored his advice not to run in the 2023 presidential race.
According to him, it is his personal policy to always give leaders at least 12 months to settled down in office and “make up” for lost grounds before rating them.
The Playwright made this known to newsmen.
He said, “My first visit, actually it was an embarrassing visit because when I visited him the last time, it was to try and persuade him not to run for office. I think I’ve written about that. I told Atiku and himself that they should please leave the ground for young people. That was the last time we met, about five years ago.
“I call him, secretly, olorikunkun, a stubborn man, so he ignored my advice completely.
“So I came to see how’s doing after neglecting my advice, I wanted to see if both he and his wife were weathering Nigeria as well as can be expected and to wish them happy Christmas. You know we’re friends, as you know, very well, and it was as a friend that I told him don’t run, leave this thing alone, but he ignored me”, he said.
Asked if he had been convinced that the President made a good choice by running for the office he was advised against, Soyinka said
“Something you may have noticed about me, like when most heads of state take office, I always leave them alone for about the first year, if you have noticed that because I know when they come in, they don’t start from ground zero, they often start even lower than ground zero and they have to make up.
“So I have this personal policy, whether it’s Obasanjo o, Buhari o, or Jonathan, you will notice that during the first year, I hardly say anything, then people will ask me why are you not talking and I will tell them, go and ask the last person whether I spoke during the first year. So, I’m adopting the same principle. At the end of one year, ask me this question.”
Asked what he would like to see the Tinubu administration achieve, he said “that’s very simple. I came here with a seven agenda and we had a very thorough discussion on those items.”
Meanwhile, the Abia State Governor, Dr Alex Otti, who also visited Tinubu in Lagos, urged Nigerians to remain patient saying the economic reforms will yield prosperity if sustained.
Otti said “One thing is that he has a very courageous, unifying the exchange rate and then removing subsidy which actually had become a scam and costing us a lot of money.
“Those policies are good but then they come with the negative sides. They come with challenges for an economy where over 60 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.
“So it’s not going to be easy, immediately. But I believe that if we are patient and if we go through the policies without compromising that over time, things will turn around.”
