A week ago, Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, was at the Harvard University Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Coming shortly after Nigeria’s recent general elections, Soyinka delivered a lecture on: “Predicting Nigeria, Electoral Ironies.”
Soyinka, as usual was direct and unsparing in his interpretation of the events leading to and after the polls which Pres. Goodluck Jonathan lost at the presidential level to Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.
Here are 10 takeaways from the lecture.
1. Just as Soyinka had emphasised shortly before the elections when he grudgingly endorsed Buhari’s candidacy, he once again contrasted the choices Nigerians were faced with: “A failed president” vs “a former military dictator”.
In his opinion Buhari was the better of the two “evils” without a doubt just because of how bad Jonathan had been as president. Another 4 years of Jonathan, according to Soyinka, could have ensured a further plummeting of Nigeria as the crawling giant of Africa
Hear him:
“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.
“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.
“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. Even as the nation tittered on the brink of perdition, a mesmerizing 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.”
2. Soyinka highlighted some of the president’s actions which he found condemnable.
One such action was his recognition of the Jonah Jang faction of the Governor’s Forum even when Rotimi Amaechi had clearly won that election.
Soyinka said that by supporting the minority, Jonathan upturned arithmetic and that his recognition of the minority after a straightforward, peer election rendered democracy meaningless where it should have been most fervently exemplified.
According to Soyinka, the president surrounded himself with bad hands, became increasingly intolerant of opposition and “even after Jonathan personally confided to me 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.”
3. Wole Soyinka sounded like one who is now far too frustrated about the bad turns the nation keeps taking.
He said that soldiers who transmuted into politicians into politicians – the ‘militricians’ – aren’t looking for excellence and that their civilian cohorts are even worse.
“Short cuts and how to circumvent the system for the profit of a few are the norm of governance. Those who do honest work are derided as lacking the skill to fit it. 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 finds the answer in predicting Nigeria; electoral ironies, to counter the inanities of leadership and those ruining the nation with their greed and avarice.”
4. Soyinka spoke about the destructive role religion has played in the polity.
He said that conflicts arising from religious divisions have led to deaths and destruction of property even though the nation was not founded solely on the basis of Muslim/Christian configuration.
“Had every religious leader or their followers adhered to the tenets of their religion in a way that is shorn of worldly manipulations, there is no doubt that Nigeria would have been a better place for every citizen and would have been saved much of the stress and strain being witnessed today. If Nigeria must have a new lease of life, religion must cease to be a defining factor or must play a less destructive role,” he said.
5. Soyinka revealed that there was a time when the wife of Asari Dokubo was living in his house where she sought asylum after her husband had been tricked and jailed by the then president Olusegun Obasanjo.
He lamented that now, Dokubo has been transformed into a Frankenstein monster by the Yar’Adua-Jonathan administration who gave him millions of dollar contracts to secure the creeks and protect oil installations, even after Dokubo had initially rejected the government’s amnesty program; insisting he should be the one granting amnesty to the government.
6. On Boko Haram, Soyinka insisted that it was originally the brain child of some northern politicians.
He pointedly mentioned former Borno governor Ali Modu-Sheriff, accusing him of ordering the extra-judicial killing of the sect’s leader, Mohammed Yusuf, in police custody to prevent him from revealing his backers. He said that he was daring the ex-governor and PDP stalwart to sue him for defamation.
He condemned the controversial image which had Modu Sheriff in audience with Pres. Jonathan and Chadian president Idris Derby in Ndjamena, saying Jonathan’s widely publicized scandalous liaison with the alleged Boko Haram financier, was inappropriate and indecent; portraying either extreme naivety or callous disdain for public opinion.
He said “it was unlikely there was any country in the world, where such grave accusation bordering on national security and public peace has been levelled against a former public official so high, and no investigation is made. Either way, it was a bad sight to see; as it conveyed contempt for the principles of accountable leadership.”
7. Soyinka had praises for some Nigerian patriots.
First: the Nigerian soldiers risking it all and reversing the tide against Boko Haram.
He also praised 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.”
8. Some more tongue lashing.
Soyinka has never hidden his disdain for the wife of Nigeria’s president, Patience Jonathan.
“Given that the office of first lady is unknown to the Nigerian constitution, a better conduct was expected of the first lady at a time when the ship of state was floundering; rather than the valorization of impunity. In concord with the dictates of right reason and good conscience, the bare-faced debasement of the law by Mrs. Jonathan; who by association with democratic rule, should be an ambassador of civil decorum, respect for the rights of persons and the rule of law, deserves condemnation. If Mrs. Jonathan would abuse her position to fan her ego, it is at least the duty of the President who ought to know better, to negate this anomaly by reining his wife’s embarrassing comportment.”
9. On Obasanjo
Soyinka blasted Obasanjo in strong terms, saying the nation and its politics descended into absurdity under him.
According to him:
“Having assumed power under a civilian dispensation, democracy in Nigeria became a dangerous object of derision, no thanks to Obasanjo who decided to pervert legality and constitutionality in his quest for tenure elongation. Having directly handpicked his successors, and by default responsible for the crisis of governance that ensued following the demise of late President Yar’Adua, it is difficult for Obasanjo to stand blameless in the ensuing breach of constitutional order.
He called OBJ a pathological liar, especially as regards some of the ex-president’s revelations in his memoir. According to him, OBJ remained the most “sadistic, self-serving, self-adoring, manipulative hypocrite” whose lust for power drove him to choose Yar’Adua (despite the latter’s failing health); because “he believed Yar’Adua will die during the arduous campaign, and setting a propitious scenario for him to hang on to power; even as a “back-seat driver.”
10. On Buhari
He said that even though the president-elect’s anti-democratic credentials are well known and established, another chapter in Nigeria’s life must begin as Nigerians have decided to lay to rest existing prejudices and distrust and feelings of marginalization in whatever form, as a way of inspiring confidence in the strength of a diverse country.
“If Buhari the ‘Militrician’ 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. This is how, in the final analysis, a new Nigeria, which is the dream of all, will be born,” he said
