“Today, Nigeria is fast drifting to a failed and badly divided state; economically our country is becoming a basket case and poverty capital of the world, and socially, we are firming up as an unwholesome and insecure country.
“And these manifestations are the products of recent mismanagement of diversity and socio-economic development of our country,” Obasanjo had said.
The Presidency reacted by describing Obasanjo as Nigeria’s “Divider-in-chief”, because, according to it, the former president “attempts to divide the nation while President Muhammadu Buhari continues to promote nation building and the unity of Nigeria.”
However, Soyinka, in a statement personally signed and titled: “Between ‘Dividers-in-Chief’ and Dividers-in-Law,” a copy of which was obtained by Ashenewsonline on Tuesday, said he is no fan of Obasanjo, who has contributed, “as a twice former president and co-architect, to the crumbling edifice that is still generously called Nigeria.”
“I have no reasons to change my stance on his record. Nonetheless, I embrace the responsibility of calling attention to any accurate reading of this nation from whatever source, as a contraption teetering on the very edge of total collapse.
“We are close to extinction as a viable comity of peoples, supposedly bound together under an equitable set of protocols of co-habitation, capable of producing its own means of existence, and devoid of a culture of sectarian privilege and will to dominate.”
Soyinka said in May 2019 at the Africa Day organised by the United Bank for Africa, UBA, he drew Buhari’s attention to Obasanjo’s warnings “over the self-destruct turn that the nation had taken”.
According to Soyinka, he urged Buhari to heed Obasanjo’s warning, while “remaining chary of the messenger”, but the advice was ignored.
“That advice appears to have fallen on deaf ears. In place of reasoned response and openness to some serious dialogue, what this nation has been obliged to endure has been insolent distractions from garrulous and coarsened functionaries, apologists and sectarian opportunists,” he said.
