Nobel Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka has again hit out at President Muhammadu Buhari over the state of the nation, saying “it is finished.”
He faulted President Buhari’s decision to grant state pardon to some Nigerians convicted of corruption.
The frontline playwright said the President had placed all his eggs in one basket and that these eggs had “squashed against Nigerian faces that they shall not forget – or wipe off – in a hurry.”
Soyinka in a statement titled, “A putrid presidential Easter egg,” said, “Coming from a leader who had placed all his eggs in one basket, labeled anti-corruption, this is one egg squashed against Nigerian faces that they shall not forget – or wipe off – in a hurry.”
“It evokes the legend of Pandora’s box, whose contents are alleged to constitute all the ills that plague the world. Putrid to the core, allied to power provocations in numerous variations, such as catapulting a notorious player in the martyrdom of a serving minister of justice” to the hub of governance’s wheel, these define the nature of bequests that have brought the nation to this moment of near dissolution.
“Precedents are no consolation, no excuses. One states the obvious in remarking that precedents either undermine or reinforce principles, and aspiring offenders, especially in the political domain, are encouraged or inhibited by the ease or difficulty of access to the fount of mercy.
“Officeholders, we presume, are constrained by the existence of that dangling Sword of Damocles – simply knowing that one day, the cloak of immunity will turn threadbare, and the awaited day of reckoning finds them answerable. Clearly, not any longer.
“You will forgive, though disagree with me, I know, for clambering onto the Easter wagon myself, to echo the words of the one whose passage through the world the Easter season commemorates: It is finished!”
Recall that Bishop Matthew Kukah had in his Easter message accused Buhari of destroying Nigeria, saying that every aspect of Nigeria is broken. The cleric lamented that Buhari has successfully divided the citizens on the basis of ethnicity, religion, and region, in a way that the country has never witnessed in its history.
Kukah noted that Nigerians have become vulnerable as years of friendships, cultural exchange, and collaboration among the people built over time have now come under serious pressure from stereotyping.
And to this the Presidency, responded, accusing the cleric and others of actually being the ones destroying the country with their talks.
Femi Adesina, Buhari’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity said some of his principal’s critics are the ones trying to divide the country, adding that the intentions of such persons would not work.
But the cleric hit back at President Buhari, his aides and the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, on Tuesday, reminding them that back in 2015, Buhari declared that there would be bloodletting if he did not win the presidential election.
Kukah said he brought Buhari and former President Goodluck Jonathan to the table to sign the Peace Accord.
He recalled that at this critical time in the country’s history, while he fought to ensure that the 2015 election did not result to bloodletting, agents of the current administration such as Femi Adesina, Lai Mohammed and Garba Shehu were working for Orji Kalu, Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar, respectively.
He suggested that Lai Mohammed, Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu have no right to speak back at him when he talks about issues concerning a country he had stood to defend at its most critical moments.
