…a wrong diagnosis
…your intervention now is rather too late
…says the man indeed died
The Director General of Big Tent Nigeria, Ibrahim Abdulkarim has a taken a swipe at Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka describing his recent outbursts as a belated post mortem examination of the 2023 and a misplaced diagnosis.
TheNewsGuru.com, (TNG) reports this was contained in a statement he personally signed on on Monday stating that the Nobel Laureate showed up at the scene too late as Nigerians waited in vain for his candid opinion.
Using one of his most successful books ‘The man died’ to elucidate his position, Abdulkarim said “indeed the man died”.
Hear him:
“In the build up to the 2023 presidential election, very eminent personalities in Nigeria lent their voices to their wishes and desires for the country, including their wishes on the character and disposition of the next president of the country.
“The combined effects of the anxiety on the baleful state of our union and the parlous state of our security and economy engendered a national debate amongst the Nigerian political elite on the kind of president that the nation desires at this time.
“Given Prof. Wole Soyinka’s global influence as a world-acclaimed statesman, Nigerians fruitlessly clamoured for his intervention at the most auspicious time.
“The clamour was so rife that some clever elements would on social media at different times, issue fake statements on what they desired the eminent professor of literature to say at the time.
” This would thereafter elicit some rebuttals from the revered Nobel Laureate on multiple occasions.
Prof. Soyinka uncharacteristically, in what many have attributed to his closeness to one of the presidential candidates at the time, disappointed a host of his admirers who waited in vain for his intervention.
“Save for the terse but strongly worded statement censuring the members of a fraternity he birthed for ridiculing one of the candidates in a gyration song that went viral on social media, the fiery professor was not known to have intervened throughout the campaign period.
“It is therefore against this background that a good number of Nigerians felt outraged by the sudden intervention of Soyinka in the just-concluded presidential election. Shortly before the election, the media space was awash with statements of persons who threatened genocide on some ethnic groups should they dare vote in certain places in Nigeria.
“These elements made good their threats as witnessed in the election violence that led to the untimely deaths of some Nigerians whose only crime was the shared determination to change the course of their nation.
“Strangely, Prof. Soyinka’s activist tongue was wittingly gagged when all these took place.
Nigeria’s 2023 election has been dubbed one of the darkest electoral heists in history, yet Prof. Soyinka maintained studied silence when this daylight robbery was being visited on Nigerians.
“Opinions are rife that this unusual reticence of Prof. Soyinka had a lot to do with his relationship with the dramatis personae involved in that electoral larceny, including his closeness to the INEC-declared president-elect.
“Whatever it is that informed Prof. Soyinka’s uncommunicative approach when it mattered the most, one thing that has remained constant in all the analysis so far is that his silence at that auspicious time was not golden.
“It is therefore curious that of all the shenanigans that characterised the 2023 presidential election, the only action Prof Soyinka considers inordinate in the whole melee was the behaviours of the harmless Obidients and the utterances of Datti Baba-Ahmed who merely expressed his sadness at the shambolic manner in which the election was conducted.
“Nigerians are therefore herein alerted that there is a dangerous growing pattern and determination to impose on Peter Obi and his supporters the tag of violence, even when available evidence shows otherwise. And it is much more insidious to have someone like Prof. Soyinka, who should know better, lend voice in feeding such satanic narrative.
“How could Prof. Soyinka openly betray his bias by challenging Datti Baba-Ahmed to a debate? Does Soyinka want to debate Datti as a co-contestant or what? This is confusing, for want of a better word.
“Little wonder Prof. Soyinka could not spare a word of commendation for Peter Obi who has throughout the campaign, and after, stuck to the issues that ail us as a nation. We are miffed that Soyinka feigned ignorance of the fact that Peter Obi has consistently enjoined his supporters to continue to toe the path of peace while the judiciary works to restore his stolen mandate.
“It is on record that even when the sister opposition parties filed out on the streets to protest the outcome of the election, Labour Party and their supporters have maintained restraint, in apparent belief in the capacity of our judicial institutions to do the right thing.
” What then are the sins of these Obidients who have continued to embrace peace, even in the face of provocative efforts by some politicians who have colluded with some state agents to steal their future?
“The only known offence of these Obidients as far as we can recall is their resilience and determination to not fizzle out; they have refused to keep quiet since the 25th February robbery incident and Prof. Soyinka believes they should have kept quiet in the face of such glaring and brazen injustice.
“We then ask our beloved Prof Soyinka: What has now happened to the book “The Man Died”? These chaps deserve a huge dose of apology from Prof. Soyinka, to say the least.
“…where is justice for the Nigerians who believed that Nigeria can work and they set out to make it work? Where will Wole Soyinka seat in 4 years if the concrete injustice cures and people like him have to bequeath last words to young Nigerians who have lost faith in this Nigeria and the struggles that his likes have undertaken for almost 100 years…the man has indeed died.
“Finally, while Nigeria continues to count herself lucky to still have the sage around, and in good health, and while we nonetheless continue to accord tremendous respect to our global icon, we would not shy away from reminding Baba Soyinka that there is absolutely nothing wrong with him having his preferred presidential candidate amongst the pack, and we don’t begrudge the choices he has made in that regard.
“However, we insist that next time Baba wants to intervene on issues of this nature he should do well not to coat such support in the garb of neutrality. It is actually cowardice not to be publicly proud of one’s political convictions and we are absolutely certain that Prof. Wole Soyinka is not a coward.