The Nobel Prize winner said that he had been abroad for a few months and gave his opinion on the rise of political jargon during his absence.
Professor Wole Soyinka has commented on the general elections of 2023 and the language used by political figures.
The Nobel laureate said the elections were “not exactly the most edifying exercise that we’ve gone through” in an appearance on Monday’s Roadmap 2023 episode on Channels Television.
Soyinka gave his opinion on the political jargon that became prevalent while he was abroad, noting that he had been out of the country for a number of months.
He claimed that as soon as he arrived for World Poetry Day, he was inundated with the most dreadful tales about the elections, both before and after them.
Since then, I’ve also read articles. I just saw Nigerian newspapers for the first time in months, and I wasn’t at all pleased with what I discovered.
“My faith has entirely crumbled, and even the minimal discipline that we have come to expect from seasoned politicians has been utterly abandoned.”
The literary giant stated that he chose not to comment on the election since he was travelling, but he insisted that this did not imply that he was unaware of what was going on at home.
He believed that the country was headed towards a circumstance where the current mould would be shattered, one that wasn’t intended but instead just so happened to occur.
He said that there were indications that the breaking of that mould would face fierce opposition. Elections ought to be fiercely contested. Yet I still hold a strong belief in what I refer to as the Fashola Dictum.
According to former governor and current Minister of Works and Housing Babatunde Fashola, elections should be held like festivals.
They ought to represent yet another facet of humanity’s holiday spirit, but this, he thought, was everything but.
