Anger As Soyinka Fires Fresh Shot At Peter Obi And Followers

On social media, a group of Peter Obi's supporters, referred to as the "Obidients," are presently engaging in a debate with Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka.

Soyinka, who had a faceoff with Obidients in the buildup to the general elections, fired fresh shots at Labour Party Presidential candidate on Wednesday.

He had said the Labour Party was aware that Obi did not win the February 25 election.

Soyinka stated this while speaking at the 2023 ‘Africa in the World’, which brought together the world’s most innovative thinkers and top leaders to platform invigorating ideas for fresh changes and sustainable solutions for African people.

It started on Tuesday, September 12 and is scheduled to end on Saturday, September 16, 2023 at Stellenbosch, South Africa.

In March, the Nobel Laureate had disagreed with the comment credited to the LP vice-presidential candidate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, shortly after INEC declared President Bola Tinubu as the winner of the election.

In a programme on Channels Television, Baba-Ahmed asked former President Muhammadu Buhari and the then Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Kayode Ariwoola, to stay away from the May 29 handover ceremony because of the poor conduct of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The party has vowed to take its opposition to the outcome of the election to the Supreme Court following the dismissal of its petition by the presidential election petition tribunal last week.

At Wednesday’s event, Soyinka lamented that the LP leadership had been trying to mobilise young people in the country to protest against the outcome of the election on the “banner of lies and deceit.”

Although the playwright accused the party of taking over the organised labour movement before the election, however, he commended Obi for breaking the dominance of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

He said: “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.

“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 a force of lies.

“They were going to send some of the hardliners, proud young people into the street to demonstrate. I’m also ready to be among such demonstrators but only on the banner of truth not on lies, and deceit.

“This party wanted a demonstration 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.”

Tweeting with the handle @aai_austin, an Obi supporter wrote, “This insurrectionist This cultist Who invaded a radio station at gvn point, littered universities and the streets of Nigeria with cultism is out again making bogus claims.”

Malcolm Omirhobo, another Obi supporter, said, “While Soyinka tried hard to mislead and misinform the whole world by hammering that Peter Obi did not win the election but he mischievously deliberately refused to address the issues as to whether the election was free, fair , credible and transparent.”

Mikael Bernard, another social media user said, “Soyinka is a bigot  He completely avoided the trending news about Tinubu and his Chicago University Certificate forgeries, DrugTrafficking, and others but decided to distract Nigerians with his false and fake news.”

@FemiLakers wrote, “But he win (sic) Lagos and FCT , some professor are political contractors”

But @aliyusalehjnr1, also a Twitter user, aligned with the position of Soyinka, saying, “Everybody including the Obi knew this. But I don’t know how they think.”