Professor Wole Soyinka, the Nobel laureate, has described President Muhammadu Buhari as a different man from the man he knew while the retired general was in the military uniform on the Nigerian political landscape.
Soyinka said in his interview with Zero Tolerance, a periodic publication by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Buhari is the one who is ready to make amends for his past mistakes.
The 1986 Nobel prize winner noted that the new president has already paid some debts to the Nigerian society. He further described the president as a lucky man.
He noted that although Buhari has not come out openly to apologise for his wrong deeds in the past, he has nonetheless accepted the fact that he had made some mistakes.
“He (Buhari) has not pleaded for forgiveness for his past, if he had done that, I might have been less ambiguous about him. But I think from my findings about him, he is a born again phenomenon. If I am wrong, well, too bad. Though I don’t believe in ‘born-againism’ but I think this may be an exception,” Soyinka said.
Meanwhile, the laureate also came down heavily on the former president Goodluck Jonathan for trying to differentiate between stealing and corruption, saying Nigerians should have challenged him on that.
Soyinka, who is fondly called Kongi, also noted that it was wrong for Jonathan to have taken such a position on the serious issue like corruption, thereby playing down its negative impact on the nation and its people.
He said: “The media should have challenged President Jonathan to define what stealing is, when he said that stealing is not corruption. How can a public figure, an intelligent person like that, come out to tell the public that corruption is not stealing? Then you should have asked him, what then is corruption? The media should have challenged him.”
The pioneer Federal Road Safety Commission chairman, who is believed to have co-founded the Pyrates Confraternity in Nigeria, said it was wrong to lump cultism with confraternity, arguing that the two were not the same.
According to him, belonging to confraternities is a normal culture in colleges and not an evil cult, as wrongly portrayed by ignorant persons in Nigeria.
He said: “Everybody knows that fraternities are a normal culture in all colleges. It exists in all colleges. President Clinton was a member of a fraternity. In fact, anybody who goes to college in the United States is a member of a college fraternity. There is absolutely nothing evil or occultic about fraternity.
“But here, the media is largely responsible for fuelling the ignorance of society of the words ‘cultism’ and ‘fraternity’. This is a disservice and I have said it again and again. There are evil cults, whose members must prove themselves by going to rape. There are others whose entry is to slash or eat somebody or rob; it has nothing to do with college fraternity.
“The media owes the responsibility to constantly tell the public the truth. But they go on and children grow up, believing that college fraternity is Satanic, demonic and this is wrong.”
Meanwhile, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, a former governor of Ogun state, has replied to allegations made by Professor Wole Soyinka that as the governor, the former used the police to illegally close down the state House of Assembly.
Gbenga Daniel was appointed by Goodluck Jonathan to be his campaign manager and the Nobel laureate made reference to it in the interview he granted Zero Tolerance magazine, a publication of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission. Soyinka castigated the former president for appointing Daniel as his campaign manager, claiming that Daniel used the mobile police to lock the state house of assembly for a year.
Soyinka said in his interview with Zero Tolerance, a periodic publication by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Buhari is the one who is ready to make amends for his past mistakes.
The 1986 Nobel prize winner noted that the new president has already paid some debts to the Nigerian society. He further described the president as a lucky man.
He noted that although Buhari has not come out openly to apologise for his wrong deeds in the past, he has nonetheless accepted the fact that he had made some mistakes.
“He (Buhari) has not pleaded for forgiveness for his past, if he had done that, I might have been less ambiguous about him. But I think from my findings about him, he is a born again phenomenon. If I am wrong, well, too bad. Though I don’t believe in ‘born-againism’ but I think this may be an exception,” Soyinka said.
Meanwhile, the laureate also came down heavily on the former president Goodluck Jonathan for trying to differentiate between stealing and corruption, saying Nigerians should have challenged him on that.
Soyinka, who is fondly called Kongi, also noted that it was wrong for Jonathan to have taken such a position on the serious issue like corruption, thereby playing down its negative impact on the nation and its people.
He said: “The media should have challenged President Jonathan to define what stealing is, when he said that stealing is not corruption. How can a public figure, an intelligent person like that, come out to tell the public that corruption is not stealing? Then you should have asked him, what then is corruption? The media should have challenged him.”
The pioneer Federal Road Safety Commission chairman, who is believed to have co-founded the Pyrates Confraternity in Nigeria, said it was wrong to lump cultism with confraternity, arguing that the two were not the same.
According to him, belonging to confraternities is a normal culture in colleges and not an evil cult, as wrongly portrayed by ignorant persons in Nigeria.
He said: “Everybody knows that fraternities are a normal culture in all colleges. It exists in all colleges. President Clinton was a member of a fraternity. In fact, anybody who goes to college in the United States is a member of a college fraternity. There is absolutely nothing evil or occultic about fraternity.
“But here, the media is largely responsible for fuelling the ignorance of society of the words ‘cultism’ and ‘fraternity’. This is a disservice and I have said it again and again. There are evil cults, whose members must prove themselves by going to rape. There are others whose entry is to slash or eat somebody or rob; it has nothing to do with college fraternity.
“The media owes the responsibility to constantly tell the public the truth. But they go on and children grow up, believing that college fraternity is Satanic, demonic and this is wrong.”
Meanwhile, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, a former governor of Ogun state, has replied to allegations made by Professor Wole Soyinka that as the governor, the former used the police to illegally close down the state House of Assembly.
Gbenga Daniel was appointed by Goodluck Jonathan to be his campaign manager and the Nobel laureate made reference to it in the interview he granted Zero Tolerance magazine, a publication of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission. Soyinka castigated the former president for appointing Daniel as his campaign manager, claiming that Daniel used the mobile police to lock the state house of assembly for a year.
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