The Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka claims that the Labour Party (LP) leadership was aware that Peter Obi, the losing candidate for president on February 25, lost the poll.
Soyinka charged that the opposition party’s leadership was attempting to “force a lie” on Nigerians, particularly youths, that Obi had won the election.
The Nobel Prize winner talked at an occasion called “The Lives of Wole Soyinka — A Dialogue” that was put on by Africa in the World.
The occasion happened on Wednesday in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Soyinka was asked to respond to his post-general election remark on LP vice-presidential candidate Datti Baba-Ahmed during his speech at the event.
The truth, according to Soyinka, is important to him since so many people are continually looking for methods to save time.
When he broke into a radio station in Ibadan in 1965, the Nobel laureate claimed he was prepared with information.
He continued by saying that he was not relying on “third-hand information” regarding the outcome of the 1965 local election.
In the lead-up to the 2023 elections, Soyinka charged that the LP had taken control of the organized labour movement.
He stated that by ending the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s (monopoly of power), Obi had accomplished “something remarkable.”
“This recent election – two things happened first of all. One party took over the labour movement, which is not my favourite movement, and then it became a regional party,” he said.
“Whereas it was a marvellous breach into the established two camps. Peter Obi achieved something remarkable there, that he broke that mould. However, he did not win the election.
“I can say categorically that Peter Obi’s party came third not even second and the leadership knew it but they want to do what we call in Yoruba ‘gbajue’, that is force of lies.”
Soyinka also alleged that the LP leadership attempted to mobilise young people to protest against the outcome of the election on the “banner of lies and deceit”.
“They were going to send some of the hardliners, proud young people into the street to demonstrate,” he said.
“I’m also ready to be among such demonstrators but only on the banner of truth not on lies, and deceit.
“This party wanted the same thing (referring to 2011 post-election violence) to happen on the basis of a lie and we find this vice-presidential candidate on television boasting, insisting, threatening and trying to intimidate both the judiciary and the rest.
“What kind of government will result from that kind of conduct? In addition, they did not know this but they were being used.
“Before the election, there were certain clandestine forces, including some ex-generals, who were already calling for an interim government before the elections began.
“Some of them were known figures, including a proprietor of a university calling for an interim government before the election took place.”
In March, Soyinka and the Labour Party were at loggerheads over comments made by Baba-Ahmed on the outcome of the presidential election.
The nobel prize winner had condemned the menacing remarks of Labour Party vice-presidential nominee Datti Baba-Ahmed, calling them unworthy.
He described the utterance as a gladiatorial challenge to the judiciary and, by extension, the rest of the democratic society.
On the March 22 edition of Politics Today on Channels Television, Baba-Ahmed urged President Muhammadu Buhari and the Chief Justice not to swear in Bola Tinubu, the president-elect proclaimed by INEC.
