“General Buhari didn’t really win the first election, he won by default. It was impossible to continue with Jonathan (back in 2015).
Professor Wole Soyinka, has said the reason President Muhammadu Buhari emerged winner of the 2015 Presidential elections is because Nigerians could no longer tolerate the incumbent at the time, Goodluck Jonathan.
Soyinka made the comments while responding to questions on the BBC's flagship programme, Hard Talk with Zainab Badawi.
Responding to the question, “Has your generation of older Nigerians failed the people?” the Nobel Laureate said: “general Buhari didn’t really win the first election, he won by default. It was impossible to continue with Jonathan (back in 2015).
“As it happened, yes, I did use that expression ‘born again democrat.’ When somebody competes in an election three, four times and persists, he must believe in democracy… the circumstances in Nigeria, the fact that Nigerians have shown the military what a huge failure they were makes it possible for one to identify the possibility of exceptions when they seem to behave like democrats.
“But in any case, I kept emphasising that Nigerians had a very difficult choice and as I said, it was between the devil and the deep blue sea" he concluded.