Soyinka Versus Buhari

By

WUMIONE@aol.com

 

I see a compelling reason to comment further on the on-going exchange between Soyinka and General Buhari and each of the two camps supporting them. I did know what I was getting into when I flew a kite in one of my articles on this Forum that "if you know what I know, at that point in time, Buhari will be the next President of Nigeria" I crafted the title that way because I knew the debate was just starting, and I was convinced that more compelling revelations like the one made by Wole Soyinka may yet unfold as more and more candidates throw their hats into the ring.

  

Then boom came the first serious salvo from no less a juggernaut and patriot than the Nobel Peace Laureate himself, the one and only Wole Soyinka. Before then, Ebinitopsy like John the Baptist, had literarily prepared the way for Wole's article on the same subject in an article that was widely publicized at home and abroad and certainly on this forum.

  

Both Ebinotopsy and Wole Soyinka are no strangers to political controversy in our country, but having said that, I dare say that the two distinguished Nigerians are great patriots who are fiercely independent and would never play the pander bear to any political views in our country. They say what they mean and they mean what they say most of the time. Like I acknowledged in my subsequent rejoinder, Wole Soyinka was my English Lecturer in my first year at Obafemi Awolowo University way back in 1963 some 43 years ago to be precise. If he was wise then, he was even wiser and more learned today as his track record has clearly shown.

  

You could call him a revolutionary, but he has never been a rabble rouser or a charlatan. I vividly recall the position he took when Awolowo and Akintola first fell apart based on their political disagreement in the old West..He personally risked his own life and jail time when he broke into the old WNBS Radio Station at Ibadan to commandeer the microphone from a Radio announcer in a determined effort to contradict the falsehood that the Akintola Government was, at the time, dishing out to the public. It was an act of courage never before witnessed in our country, but the move was borne out of conviction of an ideologically-driven young intellectual who felt compelled to take a stand in the crisis between Awo and his Deputy, but for the benefit of our country.

  

The same Wole Soyinka has repeated the same spectacle when he sided with Odumegwu Ojukwu and our brothers in the East of the Niger for initiating the move to break away from our country by declaring the Biafran War. He was in the minority at the time, but he was right and the majority of us were wrong. He did it again when Buhari took over power from Shehu Shagari, and he started executing a number of draconian policies Soyinka and Nigerians who think like him could not support. He repeated the same scenario under Abacha and he narrowly escaped being thrown to jail or assassinated in cold blood. Wole Soyinka has always been very consistent on the side of the truth and our nation is blessed to have him as one of us. I don't care what any critic may say about Wole Soyinka, I think the man has truly proved himself to be a force to reckon with not only in Nigeria, but in Africa as a whole.

  

I based my initial assessment of Buhari on my personal knowledge of him, but I am also aware that there is more to Buhari than my own individual assessment of him in a country of 140 million. I was aware of some of the issues that Soyinka has raised in his very thoughtful appraisal of Buhari, but like a good lawyer and prolific writer, Soyinka has been able to marshal his points in a way that very few critics can dismiss with a wave of the hand. We are talking about an executive President in a country as big and as sophisticated as Nigeria with all the powers the President is most likely to wield once elected into office.

 

I think Wole Soyinka surely has a point and his credibility is unimpeachable, if the truth must be told. His submission on Buhari is part of the issues that any rational voter ought to consider in casting their votes for or against Buhari or any other presidential candidate in Nigeria. I personally will surely factor that submission into my own equation especially after I have weighed the rebuttal of Buhari and his supporters to the issues raised by Soyinka. Buhari has one point going for him despite his track record in office that nobody familiar with Nigerian Politics should ignore. He can effectively fight Corruption in our society and creditably lead the war against indiscipline like he did before. Wole Soyinka cannot take that away from him regardless of his indictment that Buhari had allowed those 53 suit cases loaded with foreign currency and belonging to the father of his aide camp, Major Jokolo, at the time, to go unnoticed. I can hold brief for Buhari that he was not aware that his aide camp could do that. If he did, he would have been the first to fire the aide camp. To use that against him is hitting him below the belt, I would argue.

   

Wole Soyinka may have been too hard on Buhari in the way and manner he has described or castigated the General, but he sure spoke the truth. There was nothing Soyinka had said that Buhari and his supporters could easily dismiss as completely false. There may have been some exaggerations here and there is my conclusion  Despite the sweeping indictment, it seems clear to me, and I could be wrong  that Soyinka still has not completely ruled out the chances of Buhari, especially if a more deserving candidate does not emerge from the North  or the South.

  

That was why in my short rejoinder to his article, I asked that Soyinka should have gone a step further to tell us the name of his ideal candidate and why Nigerian voters ought to consider voting for him. Soyinka cannot afford to be seen as a nihilist who cannot find anyone ready and qualified to rule Nigeria, assuming that Obasanjo is actually serious in quitting the job in May 2007 as clearly mandated by the Nigerian Constitution. For some reason, I still have a strong feeling that Obasanjo is not interested in handing over power to anybody regardless of what he may be saying to the contrary.

   

He has managed to leave so many loopholes that could possibly lead to the postponement of the elections at the ninth hour or the result of the elections may be so riddled with irregularities that our nation would have no choice than to ask the current incumbent to continue in office for a little while or the Military could simply step in and return our nation back to dictatorship under duress.

  

Those are the scenarios that I see, despite Pastor Adeboye's predictions that the next elections would be one of the most peaceful in our country. I would rather side with another cleric in Nigeria whose dialogue with the same God has revealed the scenario I have analyzed above. Any attempt by the ruling Party to rig the next elections might lead to serious mayhem and bloodshed our nation can ill-afford.

  

Why do I say that? I say so, because there is currently going on in our country a re-alignment of forces that would make it that much harder for the PDP to rig elections this time around. Many of those aggrieved party stalwarts who used to help the PDP rig elections have now crossed over to the opposition parties where they are going to use the same gimmicks that the PDP has always used to massively rig elections nation-wide.

  

It is true that Obasanjo could still use his control of the Police and the Military to intimidate the opposition parties. That would have been far much easier to do, if Obasanjo and his Vice President and their supporters are still together. Happily, they are not, By the time the two elephants fight themselves to a point of no return, what is left of the old PDP can no longer pull a fast one on Nigeria like they used to. That is my prediction.

Dr. Wunmi Akintide