Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has reacted to media reports on the visit to him by the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the February 25, 2023 elections, Peter Obi.
His position was contained in a statement he issued on Monday on the use of an inappropriate word to label the visit.
Soyinka countered the use of the word “reconciliation” to desrcibe the visit, saying it is most inappropriate and diversionary.
The literary icon in the statement issued on Monday and titled: “A VISITATION, and the ALLURE of RECONCILIATION,” declared and specified that he could easily relate with Obi and his party, noting that there were virtually no issues to reconcile between him and the two entities.
But he distanced himself from the political appellation “Obidient” or “Obidient Family”, insisting that any conjecture in this regard by anyone “is simply grasping at empty air”.
In a statement personally signed by him, Prof. Soyinka asserted: “‘Reconciliation’, inserted into some reports of Peter Obi’s visit to me yesterday, Sunday, May 7 is a most inappropriate, and diversionary invocation.
“Let me clarify: I know the entity known as Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party.
“I can relate to him.
“I know and can relate to the Labour Party on whose platform he contested elections.
“There are simply no issues to reconcile between those two entities and myself.
“However, I do not know, and am unable to relate to something known as the ‘Obidient’ or ‘Obidient Family’.
“Thus, albeit in a different vein, any notion of Reconciliation, or even relations – positive, negative or indifferent – with such a spectral emanation is simply grasping at empty air.”
Prof. Soyinka offered that contrary to the impression being laid before the public, what really transpired at the meeting, which he revealed was also attended by two other persons, were expressions of burden of leadership, responsibility, apology and pleading.
He narrated: “During that meeting, attended by two other individuals only, the word ‘Reconciliation’ was never bruited, neither in itself nor in any other form.
“It simply did not arise.
“By contrast, there were expressions of ‘burden of leadership’ ‘responsibility’, ‘apology’, ‘pleading’, ‘formal dissociation from the untenable’, all the way to the ‘tragic ascendancy of ethnic cleavage’, especially under such ironic, untenable circumstances.
“Discussions were frank, and creative.
“The notion of Reconciliation was clearly N/A – Non Applicable.
“It was never raised.”
Prof. Soyinka warned this should be understood, but never underestimated, stressing that what “remains ineradicable from that weekend of orgiastic rave in the social media was the opening up of the dark, putrid recesses in the national psyche that we like to pretend do not exist”.
He added: “It invited – into minds seeking a grasp on reality – gruesome variations on images from Dante’s Purgatorio.
“A fathomless pit was exposed, at the bottom of which one glimpsed a throng of the damned, writhing in competitive lust for the largest of the gangrenous ladles in a diabolical broth.
“To peek over the edge of that pit for a prolonged spell was to turn giddy, with a risk of falling into the tureen of inhuman pus.
“To attempt to navigate one’s way, however gingerly, along a mat spread across the infernal abyss, is an invitation to moral suicide.
“For the serious minded, I call attention to essays I have offered on the theme of Reconciliation based on Truth, and the ethical imperative of Restitution.
“There will be further elaborations forthcoming in DEMOCRACY PRIMER III – Bookcraft’s INTERVENTION series, now brought forward for publication on June 12, the watershed extorted from the current regime as the nation’s Democracy Day.
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“If, from here on, I now comply with entreaties from several valued, genuinely concerned directions, and ignore new provocations, however vile, it is only because I also approve of Mohammed Ali’s strategy of Rope-a-Dope, where blind menace is left flailing hopelessly at the disdainful manifest of Truth.”
Recall that Obi visited Professor Soyinka on Sunday in his residence.
The visit followed a statement made by the literary genius which was believed to be a renounce of the “Obidient” political cliche.
However, in a statement he put out on his Twitter handle, the former two-term Governor of Anambra State did not use the word “reconciliation”.
He tweeted on Sunday after the meeting: Today, I visited one of Nigeria’s most revered figures and an international literary icon, Prof Wole Soyinka.
“Prof Soyinka has been a father whom I hold in very high esteem for what he has achieved and stands for in the struggle for a better Nigeria.
“His reputation as a fighter for justice and equity in our society has been legendary and we will NEVER ignore them.
“I had a very useful and enriching discussion about his aspirations for a better and greater Nigeria, and he shared a lot with me about his dream for a greater and more inclusive Nigeria.
“I reminded the Nobel laureate of the huge price he paid just before the outbreak of the civil war, fighting for the cause of the Igbos.
“I cherished this Sunday’s visit which was intended to erase the needless misconceptions about the relationship between the great icon and the OBIdient family.”
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