Jonathan, Buhari are ‘problematic’ ànd fraudulent candidates~ Soyinka

Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, has criticised the two frontline
candidates in the March 28 presidential election, President Goodluck
Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party and Maj. Gen. Muhammadu
Buhari (retd.) of the All Progressives Congress.
Soyinka, in an interview with the BBC on Monday, insisted that the
political parties should have come up with far better options than the
two leading candidates.
He described President Jonathan, who is running for a second term and
the opposition leader, Buhari, as "problematic candidates."
"There is a huge albatross hanging [around] the necks of the two main
candidates. I can understand the dilemma which many voters have,"
Soyinka said.
He added that "one contender is troubled by the present, the other by the past."
Soyinka also decried the lack of fair play in the election, saying the
spirit of "let's have a fair war" was not yet deep enough.
He faulted Jonathan for the failure to rescue the more than 200
schoolgirls abducted from Chibok in April 2014.
"What happened was a clear failure of leadership – a slow reaction, an
inadequate reaction and response," Soyinka told theBBC.He stressed
that while responsibility for the Boko Haram crisis rested with
President Jonathan, the government could not be held solely
responsible for the entire jihadist problem as it began under previous
governments.
"Buhari and his partner, the late Gen. Tunde Idiagbon, after (former
military head of state) Sani Abacha, I think they represented the most
brutal face of military dictatorship. There is no question about
that," Soyinka said.
"But the environment changes, circumstances change and… I look at the
possibility of a genuine internal transformation in some individuals.
I've been disappointed before and we must always be ready to be
disappointed again," he added.
Soyinka, however, said Nigerians should be ready to "go back to the
trenches stand up against misrule from whoever wins the election.
"Nigerians should be prepared to deal with any new betrayal by any
ruler with the same passion and commitment…. as they did with the late
Sani Abacha because we cannot continue this cycle of repetitious evil
and irresponsibility."
On what to do to counter the Boko Haram sect, whose activities was
cited for the postponement of the election, Soyinka called for "an
aerial bombardment with weapons of the mind" in addition to the
military offensive.
"All kinds of propaganda leaflets should have been raining in those
areas because not all members of Boko Haram are convinced. They need
to know there is an exit and the state will take care of them. Then
the waverers' minds have to be reinforced on the positive side – on
the side of humanity.
"The kind of propaganda being used now between the political parties,
just a fraction of that should have gone into attacking Boko Haram,"
he added.
Asked whether he believed the nation could be dismembered in the next
10 years, he said, "I doubt it very much. The threats of dismemberment
have been going on so long that one of these days there is going to be
a wish fulfilled.
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"The idea of either dismembering at the cost of human lives, as the
Boko Haram people are trying to do with their caliphate delusions or
to force people to stay together as happened in the case of the
[1967-1970] Biafra war, doesn't make sense, it's an abuse of
intelligence.
"Arrangements can be made in which people stick together under
protocols of association which allow some kind of autonomy for certain
issues and other cases centralised policies," he said.
Soyinka also noted that the huge amount being expended on campaigns
would inevitably lead to broken electoral promises.
"What does this make of the incoming government? This money came in
from somewhere. It means such candidates are going to owe, they are
obliged to interests which are not necessarily in the best interests
of the nation.
"So, a lot of the electorate will be disappointed at the failure – the
reneging on electoral promises – because there may not be funds for
the fulfilment of those promises," he said.
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