Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka has expressed disappointment about the conduct of the just concluded 2023 general election.
According to him, the nation was moving towards a situation, which he says was not planned, but one that happened fortuitously where the existing mould was going to be broken.
OsunDaily News reports that Soyinka, who said he preferred not to make comments on the electoral process because he was out of the country for a while, noted that the elections were “not exactly the most edifying exercise that we’ve been through.”
The Nobel laureate, who appeared on Monday’s edition of Channels Television’s Roadmap 2023, said even though he wasn’t in the country, he was not ignorant to what was going on.
While sharing his thoughts about the 2023 general elections and the political actors, the Nobel laureate stated that “On arriving, I came in for World Poetry Day, and immediately, I was bombarded by the most horrendous narratives both pre and after the elections.
“Since then, I’ve also read columns; I’ve seen Nigerian papers for the first time in months and I didn’t like what I read at all.
“My trust has broken down completely and even the minimum restraint that we’ve learnt to expect from seasoned politicians has been jettisoned completely.
“And the signs were there that there would be die-hard opposition to the breaking of that mould,” he said. “Elections should be keenly contested. But I still believe very much in what I call the Fashola Dictum.”
