Professor Wole Soyinka Says Obasanjo is an" Overgrown Child of Circumstance"

Professor Wole Soyinka has brutally criticised former President Obasanjo in his new book, titled InterInventions: Between Defective Memory and the Public Lie – A Personal Odyssey in the Republic of Liars, presented in Abeokuta, Ogun State on Saturday. He described him as "an overgrown child of circumstance".

Although Soyinka conceded that he used to be friendly with Obasanjo and admitted in the book that some stakeholders were making efforts to reconcile them, he said he owed it a responsibility to fundamentally respond to lies that Obasanjo allegedly told against him in his latest biography, titled, My Watch, described in InterInventions as Three-Carat Watch.

Soyinka, who in the book also critically takes on the likes of former Osun State Governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola; and veteran critic, Prof. Chinweizu, wrote, quoting a Yoruba proverb, “The child that swears his mother will not sleep must also prepare for a prolonged, sleepless infancy. So, let it be with Okikiola, the overgrown child of circumstance.
”I brainstormed with him over meals both when he was military Head of State – in Dodan Barracks and in his home, Ota – for some time after he left office and early in Aso Rock at his ‘second coming.’ Today, it is a different situation. If he offered to host me, I would wait until he had first swallowed a morsel from the same dish.
“I had fully attuned myself to the fact that our Owu retiree soldier and prolific author is an infliction that those of us who share the same era and nation space must learn to endure. However, it does appear to me that there is no end to this individual’s capacity for infantile mischief, and for needless, mind-boggling provocations, such as his recent ‘literary’ intrusion on my peace.
He added that part of the intervention the elders made was a ‘cordial’ conversation he had with Obasanjo recently. According to the Nobel laureate, he, during the conversation, commended Obasanjo for the creative way he had developed the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, which Soyinka, however, described as a Presidential Laundromat and a product of executive extortion.

He added that he discussed the possibility of a collaboration with the facility. But Soyinka, who chronicled the various places his path had met with that of Obasanjo since childhood, insisted that the lies in which the former President allegedly thrived were so unthinkable that he and some other people had started working on another book solely focusing on Obasanjo.

He questioned the godliness to which Obasanjo professed and claimed that the former President indulged in identity theft.

Credit: Nigerian Monitor