Nobel laureate, Soyinka, Has Described President Buhari As A “Born-Again”

Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, has described President Muhammadu Buhari as a “born-again” phenomenon on the Nigerian political landscape, who is ready to make amends for his past mistakes.

Soyinka, who spoke in an interview with Zero Tolerance, a periodic publication by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, noted that Buhari has already paid some debts to the Nigerian community, describing him as a lucky man.

Soyinka noted that although Buhari has not come out openly to apologise for his wrong deeds in the past, he has nonetheless accepted the fact that he had made some mistakes.

He said: “He (Buhari) has not brought himself round to apologise; if he had done that, I might have been less ambiguous about him. But I think from my findings about him, he is a born again phenomenon. If I am wrong, well, too bad. Though I don’t believe in ‘born-againism’ but I think this may be an exception.”

The laureate also descended heavily on former President Goodluck Jonathan for trying to differentiate between stealing and corruption, saying Nigerians should have challenged him on that.
Soyinka noted that it was wrong for a president to have taken such a position on a serious issue like corruption, thereby playing down its negative impact on the nation and its people.

He said: “The media should have challenged President Jonathan to define what stealing is, when he said that stealing is not corruption. How can a public figure, an intelligent person like that, come out to tell the public that corruption is not stealing? Then you should have asked him, what then is corruption? The media should have challenged him.”