BY SAHARAREPORTERS, NEW YORKMAR 29, 2015

In a blockbuster new interview, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka has told The Guardian (UK) that until he told President Goodluck Jonathan, the Nigerian leader did not know for an entire five days that Morocco, a friendly but angry country, had withdrawn its ambassador from Nigeria.

“He jumped up as if his seat was on fire,” he said of the moment Jonathan learned of the situation, adding that it was that night that the president made a public statement about it for the first time.

“So when I say that there is a force around, I know what I’m talking about. There is a very sinister force in control and it is that sinister cabal which is responsible for caging him in and showing him what they think he should know about and keeping away from him things which are not in their interest, and this for me is the most dangerous situation that any nation can be in.”

See Full Interview here - http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/29/wole-soyinka-interview-nigeria-corruption-goodluck-jonathan

http://saharareporters.com/2015/03/29/five-days-president-jonathan-did-not-know-morocco-had-withdrawn-her-ambassador-until-i



FULL INTERVIEW
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David Smith in Lagos
Sunday 29 March 2015 20.55 BST Last modified on Monday 30 March 2015 00.15 BST

Not for Wole Soyinka, Nigeria’s foremost man of letters, a gentle retirement or attempt to separate art from politics. The 80-year-old spent election day in Africa’s biggest democracy working the phones late into the night, gathering reports of technical glitches, irregularities and violence. There was plenty to keep him awake.

“We’re talking about a very positive response by the public in terms of determination to register and vote but, you know, this has been one of the most vicious, unprincipled, vulgar and violent election exercises I have ever witnessed,” Soyinka reflected sadly. “I just hope we won’t go down as being the incorrigible giant of Africa.”

A Nobel laureate and former political prisoner, Soyinka could be described as the conscience of the nation. In an interview with the Guardian in the commercial capital, Lagos, on Sunday he railed against what is thought to have been the most expensive election in African history, revealed intriguing details of a recent meeting with president Goodluck Jonathan (“He jumped up as if his seat was on fire”) and warned a “very sinister force” could exploit disputed results to mount something approaching a coup.

Jonathan is fighting for his political life against opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari in the most hotly contested poll in Nigerian history. Voting spilled over into a second day after widespread technical hitches on Saturday that saw Jonathan himself initially denied registration.

Tall and thin with a shock of white hair and Socratic beard, Soyinka said: “The stakes appear to be so high that all scruples have been set aside and it’s very distressing to compare this election with the election of 1993, which was one of the most orderly, civilised and resolute elections we ever had. This one was like a no-holds-barred kind of election, especially, frankly, from the incumbency side. One shouldn’t be too surprised anyway given the kind of people who are manning the barricades for the incumbent candidate.”

Countless millions of dollars have been lavished on the election campaigns, with commercials dominating television and newspapers for the three months. Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) produced a so-called documentary savaging Buhari’s character and last week paid for a 36-page advertising supplement in leading newspapers. Cities have been coated in placards and posters on a breathtaking scale.

“Most expensive, most prodigal, wasteful, senseless, I mean really insensitive in terms of what people live on in this country,” Soyinka continued. “This was the real naira-dollar extravaganza, spent on just subverting, shall we say, the natural choices of people. Just money instead of argument, instead of position statements.

“And of course the sponsoring of violence in various places, in addition to this festive atmosphere in which every corner, every pillar, every electric pole is adorned with one candidate or the other, many of them in poses which remind one of Nollywood.

“I get a feeling sometimes that some of these candidates were just locked in their wardrobes and they were told: ‘Just take selfies in there and don’t come out until you’ve finished the entire wardrobe.’ All kinds of postures. Just ridiculous. It has been an embarrassing exercise in terms of electioneering.”

The writer fears that Nigeria’s multi-millionaire tycoons will continue to call the tune. Nigeria is ranked 136th out of 174 countries on Transparency International’s corruption perception index.

“Obviously this money didn’t come from personal pockets only, there’s no question. It’s been bankrolled by lots of businesspeople – many of them I’m sure have been taxed indirectly – and they’ll be expecting some returns for this outlay, and so how are we actually going to get rid of this thing called corruption, if the electoral process itself has been so corrupted? It’s a money election. How on earth is that bugbear going to be lifted from the neck of society? I just don’t know.”

Soyinka was imprisoned for almost two years during one of Nigeria’s spells under military rule in 1967. He became the first African to win the Nobel prize for literature in 1986. He remains politically active and a constant thorn in the side of authority, although he insists that he lacks the temperament to ever run for office himself. He told how he was recently invited by Jonathan, who has a “boyish charm”, to discuss various issues.

“We even discussed life after power, whenever that takes place,” he recalled. “It was difficult for me to decide from his side how readily he might accept defeat. He absolutely swore that if he lost he was going back to [his home] Otuoke village. If I take him literally, I think he will accept the result, but I’ve learned never to trust any politician from here to there, even if they’re just coming out of communion. So I really don’t know.”

He added: “I think Nigerians have had a very rough time over the last few years with [the Islamist militant group] Boko Haram and all kinds of insecurity, failure of governance and so on. I think we deserve to have this period as a period of comparative tranquillity and peace of mind to reconstruct and address some really fundamental issues of society. So I really hope the result, however gracelessly or grudgingly, will be accepted by the loser.”

If it is not, however, chaos could ensure. Although both leaders have sworn a peace pledge, it is unclear whether they can control their supporters, some of whom have threatened a violent backlash. Soyinka fears that political instability could be used as an excuse by figures in the state security apparatus to seize power. “Even before elections there had been discussions and preparation for ‘interim government’,” he alleged. “Why on earth such a card should be on the table at all beats me. I asked President Jonathan, ‘What is this business of interim government?’

“What he said was, ‘I could never be part of it. I would consider it a downfall, a demotion. Here I am president of the nation, I was voted in by the whole nation, why should I then accept an arraignment, which is by a few people? I would consider it degrading to what I have attained in life.’ That was his expression. But President Jonathan is in a cage. He didn’t strike me as being aware of the forces which surround him.”

The author cited an incident earlier this month when Morocco recalled its ambassador to Nigeria in a diplomatic spat over whether Jonathan was trying to use the king of Morocco to win over Muslim voters. The Moroccan royal palace said the king had declined a request for a phone conversation, while Nigeria insisted that the two leaders had spoken at length. Nigeria later backed down and admitted the conversation did not happen.

“Here is a situation where a president did not even know that a foreign country, a friendly country, had withdrawn its ambassador from Nigeria. I was the one who told him. He jumped up as if his seat was on fire. I couldn’t believe it … He was not aware that for about five days the media had been absolutely hysterical with this embarrassing situation between the two. It was that very night that he made a public statement about it for the first time.

“So when I say that there is a force around, I know what I’m talking about. There is a very sinister force in control and it is that sinister cabal which is responsible for caging him in and showing him what they think he should know about and keeping away from him things which are not in their interest, and this for me is the most dangerous situation that any nation can be in.”

Soyinka is scathing about Jonathan’s record as president, notably his mishandling of last year’s incident when 276 schoolgirls in Chibok were kidnapped by Boko Haram, prompting a worldwide outcry and social media campaign. “I think he is remorseful now, but at the beginning he took it very lightly. He himself has admitted as much in public. When you are informed that 200 children are missing, you don’t go to dinner until you have got to the bottom of it.

“But it took him I don’t know how many days to believe, but it certainly took him about 10 days to react. Now, for a leader of a people that is just totally unacceptable. Two hundred people. And then his wife was telling the police to go and arrest people who were protesting. The whole of that episode, I told him, whether you win the election or not, you’ve got to do something to assuage the feelings of people over that particular lapse. That was one horrendous lapse of which no head of state should ever be guilty. You send children to school to go and take an exam, and then you’re told they’re missing. For me, the entire nation should not sleep until an answer to that assault is provided.”

But while Jonathan is too weak, critics say, his opponent, Buhari, may be too strong. He ruled Nigeria as a military dictator for 20 months in the mid-1980s, cracking down on the media among others, but claims to be a “born again” democrat who has contested three previous elections, losing every time.

Soyinka admitted: “My memory of General Buhari has become rather mixed up. Four years ago I certainly wasn’t even prepared to consider the possibility of a genuine ‘born-again’. But at the risk of being proved wrong, I think we have a case here of a genuine ‘born-again’ phenomenon.”

The poet and playwright declined to say explicitly how he voted, but dropped a big hint by saying: “Maybe we should all try to be a little bit of Mandela. If Mandela could actually make a leap of faith towards the Boers after the atrocities committed against the black people [in South Africa], when the moment comes and the system under which we operate has thrown up just two candidates really … I think I asked myself: ‘Who would Nelson Mandela have voted for?’ and that’s the person I voted for. That’s all I’m going to tell you.”

Talk about being clueless lol. By this time tomorrow, we should be celebrating his return to Otuoke

like seriously...

GEJ all the way sha.

Oga Soyinka what are you trying to make out of this now?

dustmalik:
Talk about being clueless lol. By this time tomorrow, we should be celebrating his return to Otuoke

Don't be quick to judge man, when there are forces in one's government even Professor Soyinka can be made to look Clueless.

However you do have a point sha...Jonah is behaving like a political neophyte, dats why easily tossed about.

And he appointed a Minister of foreign affairs?

Clueless-ness of the highest order. Worst naija president ever liveth


Sai Buhari

Nigeria has lost its respect and prestige since the emergence of Goodluck Jonathan. He has no charisma. It's unusual in places where things work for leaders that cut across religion, politics, the academia, etc not to be a source of inspiration and role models to their fellowers. The working of their system alone makes it difficult for just anybody to put himself up for a possible emergence.

O my good God! This is so damning.

I have been saying it here that some powerful elements could have easily hijacked the war against BH insurgency and using it for their various agendas, without the GEJ actually ever knowing about it.

There have been so many occasions on which GEJ clearly showed that he is never in charge of anything actually; just check how many 'I don't know', 'I have not been briefee', 'I am not aware of it', etc have come out of his mouth. And in all the cases, it would be obvious that he genuinely dd not know.

Then how could you expect him to know and fully understand the extent of damage his 'supporters' like Asari, Clark, Fayose, FFK and others have been causing to his electoral chances through their rabidly hateful smear campaign against GMB?

I think Nigerians should honestly forgive GEJ, because in reality he was hardly ever in charge of anything all these years, either because he simply genuinely never cares about, or not fully aware of, what is going on.

Perhaps if he is not cluelessly unaware of what is going on, he would have controlled his aides and rebuked them when their negative campaigns started to be too personal against GMB, and began to disgust even many decent PDP officials and supporters.

Soyinka admitted: “My memory of General Buhari has become rather mixed up. Four years ago I certainly wasn’t even prepared to consider the possibility of a genuine ‘born-again’. But at the risk of being proved wrong, I think we have a case here of a genuine ‘born-again’ phenomenon.”

The poet and playwright declined to say explicitly how he voted, but dropped a big hint by saying: “Maybe we should all try to be a little bit of Mandela. If Mandela could actually make a leap of faith towards the Boers after the atrocities committed against the black people [in South Africa], when the moment comes and the system under which we operate has thrown up just two candidates really … I think I asked myself: ‘Who would Nelson Mandela have voted for?’ and that’s the person I voted for. That’s all I’m going to tell you.”

I do not think Pa Soyinka voted for the clueless corrupt cabal-controlled candidate.

M4gunners:
Oga Soyinka what are you trying to make out of this now?

ask the literate id!ot

How will he know when he is busy running from one oba to the other, one pastor to the other, one nollyhood event to the other, kneeling, begging, licking aszz, paying owo omogo in dollars in southwest.

We are hours and (60) days away from being rid of his incompetence.

Letter to the Cabal: Game Up
By: Peregrino Brimah
2015-03-26 09:26
Dear Cabal,
It is time for you to give up. It is time for
you to abandon ship. Dear unscrupulous
cabal, enough has surely been enough. We
have had it with you... your time and grip
of treasury is done; your choking of this
nation is over. This letter is addressed to
you. You know you are a cabal if you have
cut up a slice of the paupers’ loaf that you
fondly and atrociously call the 'national
cake.' Yes that is you. You lazy godawful,
who earned what you did not work for and
made us suffer. You thief.
According to the latest report by the EFCC
you cabal have from 1960 to 2005 looted
$20 trillion dollars. 20 Trillion Dollars!
That is over 100 yearly budgets put
together! And in the last ten years with
Nigeria earning more than ever before, you
have looted no less than another 7 trillion
dollars. That is final. This election you see
here is a coated revolution. We are
compiling a list of your names and all
your benefactor family and friends. None
of you will ever again near the corridors of
power. It is our time. It is time for the
Nigerian masses. APC cabal sef who
helped this revolution will not near power.
We promise you this. We thank you but it
is time you retire. It is time all you cabal
retire. Nigeria is about to experience a
new day where our oil yield, 100%$ of it is
for the masses; where our land is owned
by the people and not cabal; where we
farm natural seeds and not cabal GMO’s,
where the masses decided and achieve in
totality; where hooligans are no longer
paid and political or military brute,
brainless thugs no longer hold sway.

lets see who wins..........................only then will i comment

Tufiakwa!!

Woe unto those who support a guy like this to keep running down the lives of millions of people.

By the time he's finally kicked out, I hope he forgets his name forever and fails to recognise his wife.

LocalChamp:
BY SAHARAREPORTERS, NEW YORKMAR 29, 2015

Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka:

“I’ve learned never to trust any politician from here to there, even if they’re just coming out of communion"

So true. Naija politicians especially, can't be trusted.

Make them Allow this man rest small now

What does Jonathan know? He wasn't consulted before elections were postponed, he admitted that journalists have more intelligence report that himself who has all security agencies under him.

He's not aware that stealing is going on in his government,but America will know, he wasn't aware/sure of the chibok girls' abduction until three weeks later. I like the man, but these loopholes are just unacceptable. Make we try another person abeg!

iv lost all d respect i had 4 dis white hair man, i mean its jonathan nt human? must he know everytin in an instance? what of if he was nt quickly informed? pls dis man shud nt waste d little respect sm people has 4 him.

story for baba ijebu abeg prof go sit down .....even if he loses he'll forever be remembered as one time Nigerian president.thats bigger than your nobel abegi

softapple:
iv lost all d respect i had 4 dis white hair man, i mean its jonathan nt human? must he know everytin in an instance? what of if he was nt quickly informed? pls dis man shud nt waste d little respect sm people has 4 him.

shoro niyen

osarcho:


shoro niyen

u smoke weed?

omenka:
Tufiakwa!!

Woe unto those who support a guy like this to keep running down the lives of millions of people.

By the time he's finally kicked out, I hope he forgets his name forever and fails to recognise his wife.

What of after all these your abuses and name calling, GeJ is declared the winner, what will you do? Will you leave nairaland or kill yourself? Bro please take it easy joor, you are always abusing every time! There is need we show restrain in everything So that we don't make caricature of ourselves

The Presidency is a Joke...

saintandsinnerz:

What of after all these your abuses and name calling, GeJ is declared the winner, what will you do? Will you leave nairaland or kill yourself? Bro please take it easy joor, you are always abusing every time! There is need we show restrain in everything So that we don't make caricature of ourselves

Go to hell. Thanks.

Long, interesting read. Nigerian politics is still in the dark ages.

- ChibokGirls were abducted without Jonathan knowing or even accepting for weeks.
- Yar'Adua returned to Nigeria, Army formation moved Jonathan did not know
- Trillions stolen by those around Jonathan and he still called not to know.
- The Presidency plotted to dismantle the NGF and Jonathan said he did not know.

It is either Jonathan is a deliberate liar or stack clueless and incompetent. Whichever it is, we don't want him again.

imagine