Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka,
has expressed shock at the contents of former President Olusegun
Obasanjo’s controversial autobiography titled, My Watch.
Soyinka, in a piece titled, ‘Watch And
Pray, Watch And Prey’, described Obasanjo as an expert in telling lies
and a shameless man.
Soyinka is one of the personalities the
former President slammed in the three-volume controversial book which an
Abuja court ordered security agencies to confiscate wherever it is
being sold.
He described the literary icon as a misfit, a better wine connoisseur and a guinea fowl hunter in the book.
“For Wole, no one can be good, nor can
anything be spot-on politically except that which emanates from him or
is ordained by him. His friends and loved ones will always be right and
correct no matter what they do or fail to do. He is surely a better wine
connoisseur and a more successful aparo (guinea fowl) hunter than a
political critic, ” Obasanjo wrote.
But, Soyinka who, by the tone of his
piece did not find Obasanjo comment funny, said, “I despise that species
of humanity whose stock-in-trade is to concoct lies simply to score a
point, win an argument, puff up his or her own ego, denigrate or attempt
to destroy a fellow being.
“However, even within such deplorable
species, a special pit of universal opprobrium is surely reserved for
those who even lack the courage of their own lies, but must foist them
on others.”
He also took a swipe at the former
President for openly condemning his former Special Adviser, Mr. Akin
Osuntokun, who is “young enough to be his son.”
The playwright said, “For now, let me
single out just one of the most glaring instances of this man’s
compulsive career of lying, one sample that the media can readily check
upon and use as a touchstone – if they do need one – in assessing our
author’s multifaceted claims and commentaries on people and events.
“I refer here to the grotesque and
personally insulting statement that he has attributed to me for some
inscrutable but obviously diversionary reasons.
“In the process, this past Master of
Mendacity brazenly implicates an innocent young man, Akin Osuntokun, who
once served him as a special adviser. Instead of conferring dignity on a
direct rebuttal of an ignoble fabrication, I shall simply make a
personal, all-embracing attestation:
“When an old man stuffs a lie into the throat of an age-mate of his own children – omo inu e! – we can only pity an irredeemable egomaniac whose dotage is headed for twilight disgrace.”
The literary icon also revisited the
controversial Obasanjo Presidential library, saying it was acquired
through ‘executive extortionism’ just as President Goodluck Jonathan
recently got over N21bn at a dinner/fund-raiser last Saturday.
He noted that both Jonathan and Obasanjo were leaders known for impunity.
Soyinka said, “That obscene proceeding
(Obasanjo’s Library Fund-raising) has certainly set a competitive
precedent for impunity in President Jonathan’s recent fund-raising
shindig, editorialised in The PUNCH (Dec. 23, 2014) as Impunity Taken too Far.
“So much for the latest from that
direction – we mustn’t allow Handing-Over notes between presidents to
distract us for too long.”
He said Obasanjo had no right to take the moral high ground.
Soyinka added that Obasanjo loved to
call on the name of God but his actions implied that he probably did not
believe in God’s existence.
He urged Nigerians to be careful about taking heed to the advice of Obasanjo as the former President was very deceptive.
Soyinka wrote, “In this season of
goodwill, we owe a duty to our immediate and distant neighbours: CAVEAT
EMPTOR! Let all beware, who try to buy a Rolex from this indefatigable
watch peddler,” he said.
“Our author invokes God tirelessly,
without provocation, without necessity and without justification,
perhaps pre-emptively, but does he really believe in such an entity?
Does our home-bred Double-O-Seven believe in anything outside his own
Omnipotence?
“Could he possibly have mistaken the Christian exhortation – ‘Watch and Pray’ for his private inclination to “Watch and Prey?”
He maintained that Obasanjo’s book was
written in a deceitful manner such that he took credit for the good
deeds of others and then blamed others for his own failure.
“This is a seasoned predator on others’
achievements – he preys on their names, their characters, their
motivations, their true lives, preys on gossip and preys on facts, preys
on contributions to collective undertakings…..even preys on their
identities, substituting his own where possible,” Soyinka said.
Soyinka compared Obasanjo to a creature in Igbo Olodumare, a novel written by the late Daniel Fagunwa.
Although he did not mention Obasanjo’s name while making comparisons, he said only one man could fit into that description.
He said, “The seventh (creature) is not
among those who set out to improve the world but rather to cause
distress to its inhabitants. It was through manipulations that he
attained a high position. Having achieved this however, he constantly
blocked the progress of those behind him, this being a most deplorable
act in the eyes of God, and rank behaviour in the judgment of the
dwellers of heaven – that anyone who has enjoyed upliftment in life should seek to be an obstacle for those who follow him.
“This man forgot the beings of earth,
forgot the beings of heaven, in turn, he forgot the presence of God. The
worst kind of behaviour agitated his hands – greed occupied the centre
of his heart, and he was a creature that walked in darkness.
“This man wallowed in bribery, he was
chairman of the circle of scheming, head of the gang of double-dealing,
field-marshal of those who crept about in the dark of night. With his
mouth, he ruined the work of others, while he used a big potsherd to
cover the good works of some, that others might not see their
attainments.
“He nosed around for secrets that would
entrap his companions, and blew them up into monumental crimes in the
eyes of the world. He who turns the world upside down, places the
deceitful on the throne, casts the truthful down – because such is a
being of base earth, he will never stand as equal among the uplifted.”
Source.....Punch
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