Nigeria: Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka slammed the presidency and Olusegun Obasanjo’s book

Prof. Wole Soyinka

 Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka, who spoke yesterday in Lagos at the public presentation of a book titled “Modern and Tradition Elite in the Politics of Lagos” written by Ambassador Patrick Dele Cole dismissed former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s book, “My Watch”, as “three tonnes of doctored and self serving narratives”, concluding that, “a little learning is a dangerous thing.”

According to Professor Soyinka, what the current political actors have done is to take Nigeria to “hitherto imaginable low in the art of public persuasion which  we have a right to imagine forms the foundation of political life.”


He said never before had Nigerians been so subjected to what he called “sheer venom, crudity and vulgar abuse of language in such prodigal quantities as in this current political exercise”, and accused the Presidency of being “at the centre of this uncultured art of political persuasion”.

His words: “All of us here have passed through the electoral process furnace before now and I suspect we would mostly agree that never before have we been subjected to this level of sheer venom, crudity of and vulgar abuse of language in such prodigal quantities as in this current political exercise.
“The very gift of communication, considered the distinguishing mark of cultured humanity even in polemical situations, has been debased, affecting even thought processes, I often suspect. Speaking as objectively as is possible in such circumstances, I would say that, among the various camps, the most reckless and indecorous has sadly proved the incumbency camp, where restraint has been thrown to the wind with such abandon that even highly privileged spouses have publicly urged supporters to stone any voices raised in opposition to their cause.”

He, tasked Dr Dele Cole, who was a former adviser to the former president, to give Obasanjo tutorial on how to write history.

Soyinka further asked Cole to investigate alleged allegations that the Presidency was training some 1000 snipers and write about it. He argued that there were more political murders during the former president’s reign than at any other time, noting that even during Gen. Sani Abacha’s time, he could not boast of 1000 snipers at his disposal.

Soyinka also cautioned Cole for denigrating African religions by calling the practitioners as ‘pagan’ in his book and warned, “any more of that condescending stuff and I shall invoke Ogun, Sango and other Yoruba deities to pay you a re educational visit and then you‘ll see whether your Christian eponymous patron saint, Saint Patrick, can save you from their corrective cane for your profanity.”