Soyinka’s statement sparked negative reactions from Obi’s camp with many claiming he has no moral justification to condemn Baba-Ahmed.
Former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Prof. Kingsley Moghalu, has told supporters of Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 election, popularly known as ‘Obidients’ that Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, will survive their flood of criticism as he survived dictators in the years past.
Moghalu said this while reacting to the online attacks on Soyinka for saying that an attempt made by the vice-presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Datti Baba-Ahmed to dictate to the Supreme Court regarding the party’s suit challenging the presidential election is fascist and unacceptable.
SaharaReporters had reported that Soyinka during an interview on Arise TV on Wednesday condemned Baba-Ahmed’s statement in an interview in which he said the judgment of the Supreme Court must favour his party.
Baba-Ahmed during an interview on Channels TV on Thursday, March 23, 2023, said Section 134 of the constitution stipulates that the winner of the presidential election must score the highest number of votes and at least 25 per cent each in two-thirds of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Baba-Ahmed further argued that the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, who was declared as the ‘President-elect’ did not satisfy the requirement to be declared ‘President-elect,’ stating categorically that there was no president-elect for Nigeria yet because the declared winner failed to get 25 per cent of the votes in the FCT.
When asked what part of Baba-Ahmed’s statement that he considered as unbecoming, Soyinka said, “Nearly the totality, listen, the interviewer asked him several times; he said ‘what will you do if the Supreme Court judgment is against you, if the interpretation which you are offering about the constitutional aspect of this election, if it is against that of the Supreme Court.’”
Soyinka’s statement sparked negative reactions from Obi’s camp with many claiming he has no moral justification to condemn Baba-Ahmed.
Reacting to the criticisms, Moghalu said, “Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka is a principled fighter for justice in our country and around the world. He is a phenomenon that unlettered and uncultured people may not fully understand in an age of lazy social media in which many don’t read or think deep.”
Moghalu, who contested for the presidential seat in 2019 on the platform of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), added, “His endorsement of my 2019 presidential candidacy in my short-lived but impactful foray into Nigerian electoral politics remains one of the greatest honors of my life.
“I view very dimly any criticism of him simply because he’s OBJECTIVE. He survived dictators. He will survive you.”