Nigerian Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka has said that the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Gregory Obi, did not win the February 25 election, even though he acknowledges he achieved a remarkable feat of “breaking the mould.”
Professor Soyinka made this remark while reacting to his comment about the vice presidential candidate of the LP, Datti Baba-Ahmed, at an event titled “The Lives of Wole Soyinka — A Dialogue”, organised by Africa in the World.
Soyinka says, “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 revealed that the LP leadership attempted to mobilise young people to protest against the outcome of the election on the “banner of lies and deceit; Soyinka said: “They were going to send some of the hardliners, proud young people into the street to demonstrate.”
However, 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 (while 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 former 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.”
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