NOBEL laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, on Wednesday responded to former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s uncharitable words about him in his new controversial boo, My Watch.
Obasanjo defied court injunction to launch the book about a few weeks. The former president was very critical of many high-placed Nigerians in the book, which a law court has ordered its seizure anywhere it is found in the public space over contempt charges.
In his response to Obasanjo, Soyimka described My Watch as a narrative by a career liar always determined to crookedly ionproject himself above his true standing among men.
Affirming his general detestation of such men, Soyinka expressed his distaste for an Obasanjo brand, which he said, was compounded by his inclination of even foisting the lies on members of the younger generation.
Obasanjo had in his book flayed Soyinka as a self serving critic who he said always sought to shine out among men claiming that the Nobel Laureate is a “misfit as a political analyst, commentator or critic.”
He had written “For Wole, no one can be good, nor can anything be spot-on politically except that which emanates from him or is ordained by him.”
Continuing his assessment of Soyinka, Obasanjo had said: “He is surely a better wine connoisseur and a more successful “aparo” (guinea fowl) hunter than a political critic, not to talk of what he would do as a politician,” adding “I take him seriously on almost all issues except on the political particularly Nigerian politics.”
Soyinka’s treatise
Replying, yesterday, in a treatise, titled Watch and Pray, Watch and Prey, Soyinka said: “I had fully attuned myself to the fact that our Owu retiree soldier and prolific author is an infliction that those of us who share the same era and nation space must learn to endure. However, it does appear that there is no end to this individual’s capacity for infantile mischief, and for needless, mind-boggling provocations, such as his recent ‘literary’ intrusion on my peace.
