Photo: Bayo Omoboriowo
The Nobel laureate,
Wole Soyinka, has met with President Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential
villa, Abuja.
The meeting was scheduled as private
and took place in the president’s office.
Mr. Soyinka arrived
the villa at about midday Thursday and went straight in for the meeting.
Speaking to journalists after the
meeting, Mr. Soyinka said he had come to “discuss national and international
matters, general matters, that’s all”.
He declined to give further details,
saying he would hold a press conference in about a week’s time.
“You can ask me any question then,
but now, please I will just like to get away,” Mr. Soyinka said.
Months ago, the Nobel laureate disowned ‘disgusting’ comments
attributed to him about President Muhammadu Buhari’s one year in
office.
Mr. Soyinka described a report
quoting him as declaring his support to Mr. Buhari as a “disgusting forgery”.
“Once again, I notify
the security arms of Nigeria about this increasingly obsessed exercise in
identity forgery,” Mr. Soyinka said in a brief statement.
The report quoted the literature
professor as saying he had faith in the president “to stop the unprecedented
bleeding of the country from never-seen looting in history.”
“We couldn’t just continue to have a
country that rewarded criminals like the past administration openly and
obscenely did,” the report claimed Mr. Soyinka said.
“We needed a Buhari to put his
legendary stamp of integrity to drive governance and in one year there is a new
lease of life in the way government business is now conducted.
“On economy we have believed lies of
GDP and statistics built on falsehood for too long. Corruption was driving the
economy as the working capital while petrol-dollars gave us a false sense of
insularity,” the report continued.
“Everything just crashed on us
without the money from oil like it used to be. Years of mismanagement all came
to hunt (sic) us and very bad too.
“With Buhari having used the last 12 months for housekeeping,
the trajectory of the economy will continue to go north with more hard work and
faithful implementation of government programmes,” it concluded.
But Mr. Soyinka denied making such
statement in any interview.
“I alert the public to beware of the
danger this portends in the murky atmosphere of Nigeria’s ongoing politics,” he
said.
“The sycophants of power and
influence will clearly do anything to gain attention and preferment, but they
only earn the contempt of decent citizens, including those on whom they foist
their unsolicited services.”
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