Soyinka Got It Wrong On Rivers Crisis - Presidency

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The Presidency reacted to Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, insisting that the professor’s attack on the First Lady over the crisis in Rivers State was only made to score political points.

 According to the statement issued through the spokesman to the First Lady, Ayo Osinlu, said Soyinka’s accusation against Dame Jonathan in which he accused her of stoking Rivers’ political crisis was only a propagandist campaign least expected from a man of Soyinka’s calibre

Soyinka betrayed the moral duty expected of him, as a
--> respected member of the society, one expected to carefully consider all shades of issues that informed his opinions on any matter.

It added that the Nobel Laureate has as such become an embarrassment to his admirers with his diatribe against the President’s wife.

“Unfortunately, Soyinka betrayed moral duty in his recent diatribe against Mrs. Patience Jonathan.

“Of course, this would not be the first time he would reach out against the First Lady, usually from self-righteously indignant lecterns.

“In this particular instance, his verdict was that Mrs. Jonathan was ‘stoking the crisis currently rocking her home state of Rivers…’, and thereupon asked Mr. President to caution his wife.

“The good, old Prof. reminds one of the truth that indeed, most of the giants on the street are men of like passions like everyone else. Worse still, most of them are actually standing on clay feet and would fail the test of a gentle push.

“Otherwise, who would have believed that the social, civil, constitutional and sundry rights crusader Prof. would maintain a safe distance from the heart of an activity that is a potential threat to the peace, security and safety of the people of a state, then collect exaggerated stories and jaundiced perspectives from familiar propagandists and character assassins, and promptly summon the media to a “state of the nation” address.

It also stressed that the calculation was to attack the President and pull to pieces anyone associated with him, as a strategy for attracting public sympathy to the “clear underdog.”