PUNCH
The leadership of Labour Party has chided Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, for accusing the opposition party of attempting to hoodwink Nigerians into believing that its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, won the February 25 election.
The objection is coming in the wake of Soyinka’s declaration on Wednesday at an event titled, “The Lives of Wole Soyinka — A Dialogue,” which was held in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
The renowned writer had claimed the party was aware Obi that came third but the leadership persisted on playing ‘Gbajue’ (to force a lie) on the people, especially the youthful population.
When further asked to clarify his previous statement on the LP vice presidential candidate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, after the general election, Soyinka reiterated that he was committed to the truth.
His utterances, however, didn’t sit well with the camp of Obi and the Labour Party.
Reacting in a statement issued in Abuja on Thursday, the National Publicity Secretary of LP, Obiora Ifoh, said Soyinka’s statement was not expected of someone who is highly revered as a “detribalised” statesman.
In the release titled, ‘Soyinka: Statesmen are not double-faced, not blind to truth,’ Ifoh noted that they couldn’t imagine that the playwright could stoop to the ‘groupthink syndrome’ based on “primordial considerations”.
A groupthink syndrome is a phenomenon that occurs when a group of individuals reaches a consensus without critical reasoning or evaluation of the consequences or alternatives.
