Nobel Prize-winning poet and playwright, Wole Soyinka has delivered to scathing response to Olusegun Obasanjo on comments made by the former Nigerian President about Professor Soyinka in his new book “My Watch.” Mr. Obasanjo had belittled Prof. Soyinka’s political expertise saying: “He is surely a better wine connoisseur and a more successful “aparo” (guinea fowl) hunter than a political critic, not to talk of what he would do as a politician…I take him seriously on almost all issues except on the political particularly Nigerian politics.”

But in a treatise, titled Watch and Pray, Watch and Prey, Soyinka labelled the former president an “infantile career liar.” According to Soyinka, Obasanjo was“a seasoned predator on others’ achievements – he preys on their names, their characters, their motivations, their true lives, preys on gossip and preys on facts, preys on contributions to collective undertakings…even preys on their identities, substituting his own where possible. Well, hopefully he may actually believe in the inevitable End to all vanities?”

Read Soyinka’s treatise here:
“I had fully attuned myself to the fact that our Owu retiree soldier and prolific author is an infliction that those of us who share the same era and nation space must learn to endure. However, it does appear that there is no end to this individual’s capacity for infantile mischief, and for needless, mind-boggling provocations, such as his recent ‘literary’ intrusion on my peace. Perhaps I ought to interrupt myself here with an apology to some mutual acquaintances – ‘blessed peacemakers’ and all – especially in this season of ‘peace and goodwill to all men’. Please know that your efforts have not been entirely in vain. I had a cordial exchange with Obasanjo over the phone recently – engineered by himself, his ground staff and/or a chance visitor – when I had cause to visit his Presidential Laundromat for the first time ever. During that exchange, I complemented him on making some quite positive use of landed property that was acquired under morally dubious circumstances, and blatantly developed through a process that I denounced as ‘executive extortionism’. That obscene proceeding has certainly set a competitive precedent for impunity in President Jonathan’s recent fund-raising shindig, editorialized in The Punch (December 23, 2014) as “Impunity Taken too Far”. So much for the latest from that direction – we mustn’t allow Handing-Over notes between presidents to distract us for too long.

Source: http://www.citifmonline.com/2014/12/25/youve-made-career-lying-soyinka-jabs-obasanjo/#sthash.VsFMjRUd.dpuf