Peter Obi: The Labour Party has rebuked Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, for accusing the party of attempting to deceive Nigerians into believing that its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, won the February 25 presidential election.
The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh, reacted to Soyinka’s statement in a responding statement in Abuja on Thursday. Ifoh described the comment as unexpected of a revered statesman.
The reason titled ‘Soyinka: Statesmen are not double-faced, not blind to the truth,’ Ifoh expressed disappointment and said the playwright had succumbed to the ‘groupthink syndrome’.
“Prof. Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian whose accomplishments in the literary world are without doubt intimidating. However, we beg to disagree with his prognosis and personal opinion on the performance of our party during the 2023 general elections. The facts are before the courts and, out of respect for our judiciary, we will reserve our comments until the Supreme Court makes a final pronouncement,” Ifoh said.
“We understand that the literary giant is human and thus susceptible to emotions and probably said what he said based on information made available to him by those who share the ‘Emilokan’ sentiment.
“It is most befuddling as well as disconcerting that a detribalised activist like Soyinka would succumb to the ‘groupthink syndrome’ that subscribes to state capture by those belonging to the criminal fringe by any means, based on primordial considerations.
“We really appreciate him for at least giving some credit to the Labour Party and its presidential candidate for breaking the monopoly of power hitherto held by the two other parties.”
Ifoh also expressed disappointment that the playwright took sides in the issues, instead of condemning the irregularities in the last general elections and the of the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) Comission.
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Concluding Ifoh maintained that Soyinka is a Nigerian and entitled to his opinion.
“The whole world followed the 2023 general election and there was a global condemnation on not only the outcome of the election but also the process, particularly, the ‘glitch’ that occurred only during the transmission of presidential results to IREV. We didn’t hear as much as a whisper from Kongi on reminding INEC to stand by its word.
“We will not allege selective amnesia as the reason for Soyinka’s wrong prognosis but we would have expected him to be a statesman, which we thought he was by remaining on the side of caution.
“We want to also let him know that building a new Nigeria is a dream whose time has come and Nigerian youths will not relent until such dream is realised,” he said.
On Wednesday, Soyinka had accused the leaders of LP of trying to force a lie on Nigerians. Soyinka alleged that party knew that its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, lost the presidential election but was trying to convince Nigerians, particularly the youths, that Obi won the election. He also accused the party of trying to mobislise youths to protest the result of 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 force of lies.
“They were going to send some of the hardliners, proud young people into the street to demonstrate,” Soyinka had said said on Monday.