Soyinka: Patience Jonathan no longer first lady

Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, says he no longer regards Patience Jonathan, wife of President Goodluck Jonathan, as the country’s first lady.

Soyinka, who has had cause to disagree with Mrs. Jonathan several times, condemned recent comments attributed to her.

At the women’s rally of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Calabar, Cross Rivers state, the first lady called on the party supporters to “stone anyone that says ‘Change'”, the APC mantra.

She also alleged that Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of APC, was brain-dead.

“What she said was totally unacceptable. I no longer regard her as the first lady of Nigeria,” the revered scholar told DW, a German radio station.

Though Soyinka believes that she deserves being cautioned, he disagrees with the decision of the APC to take the matter to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

He further alleged that some people were plotting to plunge the country into a political crisis in order to install an interim government.

“Ex-military officers and security officers are trying to push aside the political contestants and use the unrest as an excuse to establish an interim government,” he said.

“The nature of the interim government wants to pretend it’s not really a military intervention. A few political leaders, well-known civilians, want to give the veneer of civilian structure, but basically it’s a kind of political intervention.”

Commenting on the insurgency in the northeast, he said Nigeria was aspiring to become a failed state.

“It will take a generation at least to exterminate this phenomenon [insurgency] altogether,” he said.

“The military would not have had to cope with Boko Haram on this level if the proper action had been taken at the right time. This is the biggest problem I have with the Jonathan government.”