Renowned playwright, Professor Wole Soyinka has alleged that the leaders of the Labour Party LP were being used by ex-military generals and other forces to truncate democracy in Nigeria.
Soyinka had stated categorically that Peter Obi of the Labour Party did not win the 2023 presidential election in Nigeria, but came third.
The Nobel Laureate while speaking as a guest speaker at the 2023 ‘Africa in the World’ event, said:
“In addition, and this is the worst part. They didn’t know it but they were being used. Before the elections ever took place, there was a certain clandestine force – reactionary. It included some ex-Generals who were already calling for an interim government before the elections began.
“Some were well-known figures including even the proprietor of a university calling for an interim government before elections ever took place so the party was playing into their hands. Maybe not consciously – all of them – but some were definitely trying to create a situation to bring back the military.”
The legal icon said three emissaries were sent to the “leader,” saying “curb your supporters, tell them to be on their guard.”
“If you lose an election the first time, that doesn’t matter. I said, ‘Tell them to stop threatening, stop intimidating people so it wasn’t something new though I had to stop their getting youths on the streets to be slaughtered, and for what, for a lie,” he said. “That for me was unacceptable.”
