Obasanjo is the most sadistic and manipulative hypocrite-Prof Wole Soyinka

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Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka has described ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo as the most sadistic and manipulative hypocrite in the world.
He stated this while delivering a lecture titled, “Predicting Nigeria, Electoral Ironies”, at the Harvard University Hutchins Centre for African & African American Research, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA,

The Nobel prize winner in literature who hails from same Ogun State with the former military dictator who later became Nigeria's elected President from 1999 to 2007 has had running battles with his kinsman dating back to the civil war years with Soyinka supporting Biafra while Obasanjo fought on the side of Nigeria and was reportedly shot in his buttocks as he fled from Biafran soldiers during the war.

According to Soyinka:.
“Obasanjo remained the most sadistic, self-serving, self-adoring, manipulative hypocrite” whose lust for power drove him to choose Yar’Adua (despite the latter’s failing health), because he believed Yar’Adua will die during the arduous campaign, and setting a propitious scenario for him to hang on to power; even as a ‘back-seat driver’

“Having assumed power under a civilian dispensation, democracy in Nigeria became a dangerous object of derision, no thanks to Obasanjo who decided to pervert legality and constitutionality in his quest for tenure elongation.


“Having directly handpicked his successors, and by default responsible for the crisis of governance that ensued following the demise of late President Yar’Adua, it is difficult for Obasanjo to stand blameless in the ensuing breach of constitutional order.


“Obasanjo, coming for the second time, had a lot to do to change his public perception and prove his critics wrong,” Soyinka said

Prof Soyinka who had previously engaged the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan continued his proxy war against her which started as a result of her disagreement with outgoing Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi was unsparing of the woman who he once called "shepopothamus". He stated that “given that the office of first lady is unknown to the Nigerian constitution, a better conduct was expected of the first lady at a time when the ship of state was floundering; rather than the valorisation of impunity."


“In concord with the dictates of right reason and good conscience, the bare-faced debasement of the law by Mrs. Jonathan, who by association with democratic rule, should be an ambassador of civil decorum, respect for the rights of persons and the rule of law, deserves condemnation.


“If Mrs. Jonathan would abuse her position to fan her ego, it was at least the duty of the president who ought to know better, to negate this anomaly by reining his wife’s embarrassing comportment,” he stated.

Prof Soyinka who backed former military dictator and Nigeria's President elect General Muhammadu Buhari during the recently concluded presidential poll also had strong words for Ndigbo and others who supported President Jonathan. For the refusal of Ndigbo to vote for Buhari he attacked them in unglamorous words and described them as voting for their "stomach" only. According to him Igbo are “predictable” and “greedy”.

In reference to the genocidal civil war of 1966-70, Soyinka said the Igbos remained unrepentant and resolute towards their strategic objective of secession at worst, or a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction at best.


The Yoruba born activist said although MASSOB did not have the same pan-Igbo outreach like the umbrella Ohanaeze Ndigbo socio-cultural group, MASSOB carried sufficient clout amongst the Igbos to open offices, defy government directives against its secessionist activities and even printed its own currency.


“The climax of MASSOB’s war against the Nigerian state was the call for sit-ins and civil disobedience that shut down markets and public services as Igbos stayed at home in a symbolic gesture to assert Biafran independence.


“The call was honoured by governors in the two principal Ibo states, though without fanfare,” Soyinka said, adding humorously that the Igbos are probably the only group of Nigerians that could be predicted with great accuracy as to whom they will vote for in an election, “because they tend to put their votes where their stomachs take them; suffering as it were, from incurable money-mindedness, as they would stop at nothing in their quest for personal financial gain”.


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