JIDEOFOR ADIBE FROM INDEPENDENT
In recent weeks, Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, multiple award-winning writer, Chimamanda Adichie, and supporters of Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the February 25, 2023 presidential election (otherwise known as Obidients), have been trending.
The backgrounds were an interview granted by Datti Baba Ahmed in which he was quoted as saying that whoever “swears in Mr. Tinubu has ended democracy in Nigeria”. Elsewhere, Dr. Datti Baba- Ahmed was also quoted as saying that Nigeria does not have a President-elect.
The conversation took a different turn when Soyinka criticised the comments by Dr. Datti Baba-Ahmed, saying: “I have never heard anyone threaten the judiciary on television the way Datti did. I heard the kind of menacing, blackmailing language that we were treated to by Datti. That kind of do-or-die attitude and provocation is not what I think we have all been struggling for.”
Soyinka also challenged Datti to a television debate, which the latter rightly declined. Responding to the critical responses that followed his Channels interview, Professor Soyinka issued a statement titled: ‘Fascism on course’ in which he criticised the Obidients and argued that the “seeds of incipient fascism in the political arena have evidently matured”.
He also called Obidients “the Republic of Liars.” Earlier, Chimamanda had on April 6, 2023, published an open letter to Joe Biden in the US paper, The Atlantic, in which she urged the US President not to congratulate Bola Ahmed Tinubu as doing so would amount to legitimising an election she thought was rigged.
There are several issues raised by the interventions of both Soyinka and Chimamanda in the contestations between the supporters of Obi and Tinubu. One, though the…
Connect with us on our socials: