Soyinka: GEJ will return to Otuoke if he loses

Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, says President Goodluck Jonathan has confided in him that if the outcome of the presidential election does not end in his favour, he would retire to his hometown of Otuoke in Bayelsa state.

Speaking on Sunday during an interview with British Newspaper, The Guardian, Soyinka said Jonathan made the promise during a recent meeting between both of them.

“Recently, I was invited by the president to discuss various issues,” he said.

“We even discussed life after power, whenever that takes place. It was difficult for me to decide from his side how readily he might accept defeat but he absolutely swore that if he lost he was going back to his Otuoke village.

“If I take him literally, I think he will accept the result, but I’ve learnt never to trust any politician from here to there, even if they’re just coming out of communion. So I really don’t know.”

Describing the 2015 election as one of the worst in the history of the country, the revered scholar said while the campaign lasted, a lot of money was devoted to frivolities.

“This has been one of the most vicious, unprincipled, vulgar and violent election exercises I have ever witnessed,” he said.

“Most expensive, most prodigal, wasteful, senseless, I mean really insensitive in terms of what people live on in this country.

“This was the real naira-dollar extravaganza, spent on just subverting, shall we say, the natural choices of people. Just money instead of argument, instead of position statements.

“And of course the sponsoring of violence in various places, in addition to this festive atmosphere in which every corner, every pillar, every electric pole is adorned with one candidate or the other, many of them in poses which remind one of Nollywood.

“I get a feeling sometimes that some of these candidates were just locked in their wardrobes and they were told: ‘Just take selfies in there and don’t come out until you’ve finished the entire wardrobe.’ All kinds of postures. Just ridiculous. It has been an embarrassing exercise in terms of electioneering.”

Revealing that he was the one who drew the attention of Jonathan to a current diplomatic spat between Nigeria and Morocco, Soyinka said the president was surrounded by those who do not mean well for him.

Morrocco’s ministry of foreign affairs had revealed that its monarch turned down a request of having a phone conversation with Jonathan.

Apparently embarrassed by the disclosure, the Nigerian government turned around to say both leaders had a conversation, an allegation which Morocco subsequently denied.

The issue eventually resulted to the recall of the Moroccan ambassador in Nigeria.

However, Soyinka expressed shock that the president’s aides kept him in the dark over such crucial development.

“President Jonathan is in a cage. He didn’t strike me as being aware of the forces which surround him,” he said.

“Here is a situation where a president did not even know that a foreign country, a friendly country, had withdrawn its ambassador from Nigeria.

“I was the one who told him. He jumped up as if his seat was on fire. I couldn’t believe it … He was not aware that for about five days the media had been absolutely hysterical with this embarrassing situation between the two. It was that very night that he made a public statement about it for the first time.

“So when I say that there is a force around, I know what I’m talking about. There is a very sinister force in control and it is that sinister cabal which is responsible for caging him in and showing him what they think he should know about and keeping away from him things which are not in their interest, and this for me is the most dangerous situation that any nation can be in.”