Unlike some activists who make themselves experts on inflation, macroeconomic politics, climate change, epidemiology, public health, and politics, he mostly engages governments and other stakeholders when people’s rights are trampled on or threatened.
Supporters of Peter Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, have refused to leave Wole Soyinka alone, and the renowned professor would not let their disrespect slide either. The latest iteration of this ongoing battle occurred early June when Soyinka pointedly blamed Peter Obi himself for the unrelenting social media attacks on him by Obi’s followers.
Here is some background information for the uninitiated. Unlike in 2015, when Wole Soyinka made statements that were considered an endorsement of Buhari, for the 2023 election, the Nobel laureate maintained a stoic silence. Even though he never directly endorsed Buhari nor campaigned for the man in 2015, he has continued to receive blame for the electoral victory of the man.
It is understandable that he decided not to make any public statement in the run-up to the 2023 election to avoid being blamed for the decision of Nigerian voters. (This despite Obidients’ fervent testimony of the friendship between Wole Soyinka and the APC candidate, Ahmed Tinubu). Soyinka’s stance might be understandable to sensible observers of Nigerian politics, but it was not understandable at all to Peter Obi’s supporters, who styled themselves as Obidients and believed that everyone, including an 89-year-old statesman, ought to obey and follow them.
Soyinka’s stance might be understandable to sensible observers of Nigerian politics, but it was not understandable at all to Peter Obi’s supporters, who styled themselves as Obidients and believed that everyone, including an 89-year-old statesman, ought to obey and follow them.
For Soyinka, it was enough that he had discouraged Atiku and Tinubu from contesting in 2023. Of course, both promptly ignored him. There is no evidence that Soyinka’s endorsement or refusal to endorse has ever helped or hurt any candidate in Nigerian elections. His influence has never been decisive or even significant in elections. However, what his detractors since 2015, but especially since 2023, have tried to do is to ascribe to him a level of influence he has never had in a bid to blame him for all that is wrong with the APC administration.
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In the run-up to the 2023 election, Obidients dragged Soyinka on Twitter, letting their imaginations run wild with his silence on the election. Sitting on the fence was considered as bad as campaigning for Bola Tinubu, the eventual winner of the elections. They probably wanted his endorsement for their candidate and never got it.
After the election, which saw their candidate come third, Soyinka described the conduct of the Vice Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed as amounting to “facism”. Datti had threatened on live television that only a supreme court verdict that awards victory in the 2023 elections to the Labour Party would be acceptable. Soyinka’s comment opened a floodgate of Obidients’ anger, and they have been extremely angry since then.
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Recently, Obidients have stepped up their unwarranted, no-holds-barred attack on Soyinka. Their new line of attack revolves around his perceived silence on the Bola Tinubu administration’s performance. He is accused of being critical of all previous governments of Nigeria except the APC-led one, a party they accuse him of supporting.
An Obidient acquaintance of mine on Facebook even asserted that Soyinka has never criticized the ruling APC since they took power in 2015. When I provided him with many links to Soyinka’s criticism of the Muhammadu Buhari administration (2015 to 2023), he changed course and asked for evidence of his criticism of President Bola Tinubu, who only took office last year. This is typical of the Obidients. What Obidients try to do is call Soyinka’s legacy into question by blaming him for everything wrong in the country. Many of them circulate utterly senseless information on social media such as the one claiming that African writers met and resolved not to accept the imperialist Nobel Prize before Wole Soyinka was awarded and accepted the Literature prize in 1986.
Wole Soyinka has, of course, warned his detractors before, saying, “I choose my methods of intervention without the permission of social media border patrols, so where you find a gap, just pick up the baton where last deposited and stop whining and belly-aching – ‘he stopped talking all this while, why now?’ etc., etc., ad nauseam. Flat, easy disposable lies that gain traction by repetition. However, even more importantly, they remain irrelevant to the rights and wrongs of ongoing material issues. Sadly, these virtue vigilantes succeed with the ignorant and susceptible – especially among the younger, confused generation. The consequence is that the nation is plagued by fake CVs compiled by all kinds of amateur commentators, still wet behind the ears, who have too few truths to build on before they are corralled into positions of No-Retreat.”
Obidients, of course, need to acquaint themselves with Soyinka’s history as a person and an activist for two reasons. First, he doesn’t comment on every issue. He chooses his issues carefully, and more often than not, they are issues around human rights and the rule of law. He is not someone who comments willy-nilly on economic issues, for example. Unlike some activists who make themselves experts on inflation, macroeconomic politics, climate change, epidemiology, public health, and politics, he mostly engages governments and other stakeholders when people’s rights are trampled on or threatened.
The second reason is simply that Wole Soyinka is not going to shut up for you. He is not someone who will let you have the run of the field and tender whatever narrative you want without contention. If you keep coming for him, he will come for you. There is a Reverend Father, an Obidient going by the title of his new book, Electoral Robbery and the Crisis of Legitimacy in Nigeria, who has written a 50-page chapter on how Tinubu has “happened to Soyinka”.
When Soyina responds to the Reverend Father’s tract, some people might accuse him of going too far or of responding to every criticism. But he is not someone who backs down from a fight. Before his teenage years, he had the opportunity of learning stubbornness in the service of good causes from the duo of Mrs Funmilayo Ransome Kuti and his own mother, Mrs. Eniola Soyinka, who both played leading roles in the Ẹgba women’s war of the 1940s. I highly recommend a recently produced biopic of Madam Kuti, and Soyinka’s own “Ake: The Years of Childhood” (memoirs) to appreciate this point further.
Obidients cannot expect to get away with relentlessly maligning such a man on social media. They can expect that he will continue to push back against their untrue, unfair narratives, as he knows that the narrative Obidients are spinning about the 2023 election and Soyinka himself, along with others who didn’t queue behind Obidients’ deluded agenda, could become the gospel truth if left unchallenged. The fact that the Obidients are not in power is not a reason to ignore them; people outside of government can be as effective at framing narratives and getting away with it. With enough cultural influence and voices, anyone can frame the narrative of an era.
