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| Prof. Wole Soyinka |
Mr. Soyinka while delivering a lecture titled, “Predicting Nigeria, Electoral Ironies”, at the Harvard University Hutchins Centre for African and African American Research, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. He also condescendingly described Nigerians of Igbo extraction as “predictable” and “greedy” following their choice to vote en masse for Jonathan in the just concluded general election.
Justifying his support for the former military dictator, the foremost dramatist said on a personal level, it was a “painful decision to tell people to vote Buhari, but the country needed a new beginning. I was more against Jonathan, than I was pro-Buhari”.
He informed the sold-out audience that if the incumbent had been anything near competent, Buhari’s most “maladroit statement” about the dog and the baboon being soaked in blood, would have been enough to scuttle his presidential ambition for the fourth time.
“As the nation’s much talked-about centenary year ended, the 2015 elections offered Nigerians an opportunity to halt the nation’s descent into anarchy,” he said.
Mr. Soyinka still believes that, four more years of Jonathan would have seen Nigeria plummet further, “as the crawling giant of Africa, and the beggarly, weeping boy in the comity of nations”.
“In a country where one of the six zones that make up the federation was on the verge of excision, with millions of beleaguered citizens marooned in the North-east of the country; and thousands more cruelly murdered by insurgents, all Jonathan could offer was mollifying rhetoric and empty promises,” Soyinka said.
The Nobel laureate said that even as the nation was on the brink of perdition, a mesmerising state of perplexity seemed to envelope the seat of power.
“Nigeria is in a state of war, and the President, Commander-in-Chief must not only lead but be seen to lead the charge. The situation demanded exemplary leadership, which Jonathan could not provide; not because he was unaware of the problem, he was just at a loss for solutions. It is not for nothing that he (Jonathan) was called clueless,” Soyinka said amid derisive laughter.
“Ironically, things haven’t quite changed a bit after 16 years of democracy in the country. How do you account for a society saddled with monsters strutting the national landscape as leaders? How do you counterbalance the national madness for the sanity of ordinary citizens trying to make sense of their lives?”
Soyinka said after the fratricidal civil war of 1966-70, the Igbos remained unrepentant and resolute towards their strategic objective of secession at worst, or a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction at best.
Soyinka said, adding humorously that the Igbos are probably the only group of Nigerians that could be predicted with great accuracy as to whom they will vote for in an election, “because they tend to put their votes where their stomachs take them; suffering as it were, from incurable money-mindedness, as they would stop at nothing in their quest for personal financial gain”.
Soyinka also faulted Jonathan for failing to win the war against Boko Haram, stating: “Even as the nation was bleeding, the body language and the atmosphere in the seat of power did not reflect the pain and vulnerability of the country. Was Jonathan so numbed, so unshockable, so desensitised to sympathise with the Nigerian people?
“The offensives against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Nigeria were too shameful and belittling and Jonathan’s leadership quotient hit rock bottom by his failure to visit Chibok.
“It was certainly an unimaginable feat of political miscalculation and a colossal error of judgment, as it portrayed Mr. President as thoroughly insensitive. By his uncanny display of ineptitude in rescuing the Chibok girls, the president was derelict in his duty to the Nigerian people.”
Soyinka also accused Jonathan of being in cahoots with selfish politicians who have turned the insurgency into a self-enriching industry.
Admitting that the patriotism and sacrifice of the soldiers who have reversed the tide against Boko Haram was the reference for all if Nigeria would be safe and if each Nigerian would be his brother’s or sister’s keeper.
He said even after Jonathan personally confided in him (Soyinka) that he made a mistake by surrounding himself with the wrong people, “the president continued to surprise us in ways that very few could have conjectured”.
Soyinka hailed the singular patriotism of Dr. Stella Ameyo Adadevoh, whose sacrificial act of preventing the Liberian Ebola carrier, Patrick Sawyer, from unleashing the dreaded virus on all of Nigeria, saved the country from a health catastrophe beyond imagination, saying she personified the best of Nigeria and the best in the Nigerian.
“Her life is a profile in courage and a good place to begin in forging a national character if Nigeria would have a future,” he said.
Contrasting Adadevoh’s example with that of first lady, Patience Jonathan, Soyinka strongly condemned the first lady syndrome and their pervasive influence on Nigerian politics.
He stated that Buhari’s election signalled the country’s desire to lay to rest existing prejudices and distrust and feelings of marginalisation in whatever form, as a way of inspiring confidence in the strength of a diverse country.
“If Buhari the ‘Militrician’ (soldier turned politician) is sensitive to all areas of mutual distrust, he will earn the confidence and trust of the people, and this will certainly imbue his actions with legitimacy and acceptability". He said.
With the election of Buhari whose anti-democratic credentials were well known and established, Soyinka noted that another chapter in Nigeria’s life must begin.
culled from thisdaylive
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