Nobel
Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has described the presidential and National
Assembly elections as the most vicious, unprincipled, vulgar and violent he had
ever witnessed.
In an
interview with The Guardian UK on Sunday, he was quoted as saying,
“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 exercises I have
ever witnessed.I just hope we won’t go down as being the incorrigible giant of
Africa.
“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.
“Most expensive, most prodigal, wasteful, senseless, I mean
really insensitive in terms of what people live on in this country.
“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.”
Soyinka, who told The Guardian how he was recently invited by
President Goodluck Jonathan to discuss various issues, said
, “We even discussed life after power, whenever that takes
place.
“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 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.
“I think Nigerians have had a very rough time over the last
few years with 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.”
