Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka has revealed what he told the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi, about the way majority of his supporters were carrying on with their support for him. Soyinka, while speaking on a live television show on Wednesday said the emergence of Obi was one of the outcomes of the protests against police brutality tagged #ENDSARS.
“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.
He said he has become disturbed by the tendency of the Obidients to be fascistic in their approach to issues adding that this was why he objected to the comments by Obi’s vice presidential candidate, Senator Yussuf Datti-Ahmed.
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.
“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.”