Prof. Wole Soyinka, said he warned the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, Peter Obi on excesses of the his supporters, known as “Obidients.”
Soyinka stated this in a statement titled, “Media responsibility,’’ on Tuesday, April 4.
Soyinka explained that he was misrepresented in the reportage of a Channels Television interview he granted recently, rendering his remarks completely unrecognisable.
Soyinka said: “What I have read – at least, thus far – this morning, extracted from a one-and-a-half long interview, conducted a week ago with Channels Television, brings once more to the fore, the critical responsibility of the media in transmitting the spoken, even recorded – word to the public.
“This is especially crucial in a time of civic uncertainty. When remarks are taken out of context, spliced into a new one, provided a sensational headline, distortions become stamped on public receptivity, and the central intent of one’s remarks becomes completely unrecognisable.
“I denounced the menacing utterances of a vice-presidential aspirant as unbecoming. It was a gladiatorial challenge directed at the judiciary and, by implication, the rest of the democratic polity. But what on earth has happened to my even more urgent condemnation of the physical violence inflicted on those designated “strangers” in Lagos in the lead up to, and during governorship elections?
“This prejudicial selectivity is a betrayal of trust, and I find it contemptuous of public deserving. My critique of incipient fascism in the movement remains grounded in indisputable evidence,” Soyinka said.
The Nobel laureate stated that throughout the interview, he continued to stress that the final word had yet to be pronounced on the elections – “that omission renders the full message tendentious!”
He continued: “My rejection of fascism is nothing new.
“On three occasions, I was able to send a message to Peter Obi that if he lost the election, it would be his followers who lost it for him. It was depressing to watch his lieutenant, a crucially positioned voice of a movement that has ‘broken the mould’.”
