OBIdients Foolishly Playing Script Of Others Pushing For Interim Government – Wole Soyinka

By Sola Omoniyi, Lagos

Noble laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has insisted that some supporters of the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, popularly known as ‘Obidients’ are fascists.

Speaking during the question-and-answer session at the launch of his book titled “The Putin Files: Excursions Around The Ideology Of Pain”, the latest in the popular Interventions series in Lagos on Friday, Soyinka described some members of the Obedient movement as appalling to think that only governments and government agencies could be fascists.

Soyinka, who said this while responding to a question asked by poet and lawyer Ogaga Ifowodo, as to why he called Obidients fascists, used the 2020 #EndSARS protest as an example of a struggle driven by pure truth.

“#EndSARS is one of the most successful movements in this country,” he said.

He said that he supported the #EndSARS protest and even addressed some protesters when he was leaving Lagos for Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital during the protest.

“They begged me not to go, I said I’m going,” he said and narrated how he “stood on the median and addressed the crowd”.

In comparison with the #EndSARS protest, Soyinka said that what the Obidients were trying to do was the mobilisation of youth to defend an untruth, noting that he had been there and seen when the immediate former Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari, pushed people to kill innocent serving members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) by claiming he was cheated out of an election.

According to the literary icon, some Obidients claiming to be radical were playing the script of some other people, which had been designed before the February 25 presidential election.

He said long before the election, some people had schemed to tilt the country towards having an interim government.

“That tendency had been apparent even before the election. So some of those who thought they were being radical, were being ‘mumu’ (foolish), and “playing the script of others.”

The Nobel laureate said that he knew that after his statement on Friday, a mob of Obidients would again launch an attack against him online by opening what he described as their “dictionary of abuses”, adding that he would be happy to face them.