Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, in this interview on Channel TV, Roadmap 2023, says restructuring must take the centre stage for the incoming administration. He stresses that politicians are just aiming for power without really talking about redressing and reconstructing the country. Usman Peter monitored the interview from Abuja.
The 2023 general elections have been concluded, waiting for the swearing-in of the president, governors-elect and others. We have done it again another time, probably for the seventh, for those who are counting from 1999. What does it mean for you?
Well, not exactly the most edifying exercise; what we have been through. I have been away, of course, and quite a lot has been done. Since I was going to be physically away, I preferred not to make comments, but that didn’t mean I didn’t receive, from time to time, reports of what is happening here.
It is not altogether unanticipated, and for one simple reason; the nation was moving towards a situation not planned, just one of these things which happened fortuitously where they mold for something to be broken, and these signs were there that there will be die-hard opposition to the breaking of that mold.
In fact, my apprehensions were on such a level that Emeka Anyaoku, the former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, we interacted quite a lot. I decided at the last meeting before I traveled out that we should prepare a statement, appealing to politicians not to let his electoral process be the commencement of a total unhealable rupture among the politicians. I was supposed to send him a draft, but something happened, and I had to dash out immediately, and that was that.
I still believe in what I call the Fashola dictum. You may remember at one time, he said that elections should be like festivals. This should be yet another aspect of festive spirit, the spirit of humanity, and this was anything but festive, what is most distressing. In fact, it was so distressing that I felt I should reach out from my base in Abu Dhabi to New York University. I should have reached out and tried to make a statement, but unfortunately, technology didn’t work. I was going to make an appeal from there and just put oil into troubled waters.
On arriving, of course, I checked, and I was bombarded by the most horrendous tales and narratives, both pre and after-elections. Then I also read the column sides of the Nigerian newspapers, and I didn’t like what I read. At all these, it was like trust has broken down completely and even the restraints, the minimal restraint, we have learned to expect from seasoned politicians had been jettisoned completely.
My mind also went far because we are now moving into certain aspects of what I have observed and also interrogated. I had to go back in the archives to meetings which had been held before; three to my special recollection. One in Enugu, one which was organised by the medical doctor association in the United States, South United States, and the third one in Lagos with the theme, “Hands Across the Nature.” The last one, I think, was, ‘Hands Across the Nations’.
I delivered a lecture there, and with those civilised encounters with the give and take, the very calm analysis of our history, the prospects, etc, etc. I just couldn’t help wondering how things deteriorated so fast-unraveled, so fast. The promise of all those meetings, the inter-ethnic understanding, and a very calm and calculated clinical approach to our history, and I said the prospect hasn’t been a very pleasant home-coming for me personally.
Prof. by what we read online, you made some comments as regards to this election, saying, regardless of who is in Aso Rock, the North will be ruling Nigeria, would be in-charge of Nigeria. So, you are not really bothered who is in Aso Rock because that will always be the case there? Did you actually make that comment as credited to you?
I was horrified when the statement was sent to me. I can tell you, I am repeating, I have not made such a comment. Deliberately, I stayed away from making a comment since the electoral pistol was fired. I have not said anything in public or in private about the election.
Of course, I have discussed things, but I have never made a statement, and we have denounced this fake news over and over again. I have been closing down certain portals and platforms where fake news was attributed to me with my photograph. The whole process is so sickening and I hope that while I was away physically, it would even lessen the orgy of falsification. On the contrary, it seems to have worked the opposite way. It was oh, he is away, he won’t see it in time, we would have done the damage we wanted to do anyway.
What sickens me even more than those who actually write is the way it is circulated among ordinary intelligent people, who will not throw away this garbage, or come out as occasionally.
Somebody like Shola Adeyeye, for instance, I remember you know when he even without contacting me, and said robustly while I think I could never upset such a thing. This, for me, is the kind of posture that intelligent Nigerians should learn to adopt by now. I mean if it was possible for somebody to fake a platform, named after the new Nobel Laureate, and use that platform to announce my obituary, yet another obituary, another death, saying, I dropped dead, I use that expression, creating distress among people. I mean, I enjoy it when I read it. I don’t enjoy it anymore because I know it causes emotional distress to a number of people.
On the other hand, it is creating an atmosphere that is extremely dangerous for this nation. When things are attributed to me on that level in which I am supposed to be speaking sweepingly, about ethnic groups, religious groups, and so on. For me, this is a conspiracy toward chaos. Some people will take it seriously and say, oh I see, Wole Soyinka, this is where he is now. We have better now go our own way. It is very dangerous.
In fact, I was telling off one young semi, a semi-protege of mine; he was asking me why didn’t you comment on what was going on, I said, please, go, just get away. Where have you commented on all the rubbish attributed to me in my absence? You are a columnist; you have your platform; have you actually come out aggressively to attack this phenomenon, this evil of fake news, fake attribution? Not a word that I spoke until this moment publicly on this election in any aspect. So, what does one do with that?
Do you think it is correct to say that we do not understand democracy as a people and, therefore, that is affecting all these outcomes, especially when we go through this exercise every four years or so?
Well, I do not think it is that we don’t understand democracy. These certain stakes have been catapulted to the fore and over and have come to overwhelm what should be the real stuffing of the democratic process. I will give you an example, in fact, one of the reasons why I refused to endorse any candidate in this election is that none of the candidates to me actually address things that were closest to my heart. You know, like again, none of them talked about reconstructing the nation. There were token statements here and there that I read, but I didn’t really see any genuine commitment, or any believable agenda about quote-unquote restructuring, decentralisation. People are just aiming for power without talking about redressing and reconstructing which is at heart. For me, Nigeria’s problem at the moment, people are more concerned in my view with just aiming for power.
Now, it is not all about reconstruction, there is also the redressing of history. Let me explain what I mean by that; I mean the things which Emeka and I used to discuss and even work towards. For instance, we believe that to close this circle, the circle of negative and negativities that we have embarked upon before and including the civil war, I am to believe. For instance, the presidency, as soon as possible, should go towards the Eastern region, which lost a war. This is one of the ways to heal the wounds of the nation.
Now that the principle of philosophy and towards that end, for instance, I could reveal to you when I formed a party at one time, the democratic front for the people’s Federation right, which a passenger at the time refused to register. I mentioned him because he was the one dictating it. So don’t tell me I should say, I am a guy, let me anticipate that, and then we teamed up with the African Renaissance Party, which is registered.
The small party was Latin at the office along Balak Road, but at least, they were registered and a candidate at the time was Pat Utomi. You know many people don’t remember that because it didn’t work out; it doesn’t matter if these things don’t happen. Suddenly, it is a progression to the following election.
Emeka, for instance, phoned me one morning and said, have you heard about this young man called Kingsley Moghalu, and I said, do you think he is the kind of person we are looking for? Sure, I think so, he said. So, we met and decided we are going to back Kingsley Moghalu. Later on, for reasons best known to us, I didn’t even bother to programme. Aynaoku sort of withdrew a little bit. I was left holding the baby, I didn’t mind. I enjoyed it, you know. I believed in it absolutely, but what did I get in response from quarters, which I thought would understand what we were trying to do. They came at me and said I was splitting the votes, and you know when I encounter situations like that, I come close to saying, do these people understand the complexities of democracy?
Democracy is actually linked up with issues beyond the immediate. It is linked up also with history. How did we get here, is this where we want to be, how do we get out of it, what are the various prospects, and you strengthen democracy by using democratic means of making changes to arrive at your vision of society, which is what I have always done.
