Nigeria- Professor Wole Soyinka a Nigerian Author, Nobel Laureate, and Academic has taken swipe at Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni a day after the elections as the world keenly waits for the outcome of the polls.
Issuing a special Statement on Friday, Professor Wole Soyinka said; “Through every available medium, Museveni should be reminded that he will be held personally responsible for the safety of Bobi Wine, his family, and supporters.”
On the elections day, Barbra Kyagulanyi, wife to Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi wine, was roughly arrested by corps that undressed her in a scuffle before handcuffing her as the son yelled, “leave my mummy alone.”
Prof. Soyinka noted in his statement, “Africa has transcended the Age of Impunity. We know it still takes a while in far too many cases, but Museveni should take a good look round the continent. Where are the many of his co-bullies of yester years? “The wheels of justice grind slowly but, they arrive.”
Born Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka- the Nigerian academic is a playwright, poet and essayist in the English language. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first sub-Saharan African to be honoured in that category.
Soyinka at age 86, is often critical of Africa’s leaders. The professor says he’s “fed up” with Africa’s leadership of “sick old men.”
In September 2021, his first novel in 48 years will be released and this is why he says he’s throwing his voice behind Bobi Wine in Uganda.
“Bobi Wine, for me right now, represents the face of democracy for Uganda,” says Soyinka, speaking from Lagos.
Soyinka says he has been watching Bobi Wine, whom he met in Nigeria in October 2019, for awhile now. “Even before [we met], I’d taken an interest in his movement, his candidature, and his passion. And I share it; I share every bit of it,” he says.
“I met Museveni during the fight against Sani Abacha [former Nigerian military dictator]. At the time we met it was still possible to consider him a democratic leader. Today he’s joined the gang—the enemies of society,” the Professor says
According to his argument, the professor submits that realising democracy in African countries is the most important goal, whether you’re a former soccer star “like George Weah in Liberia” or a “B-movie Hollywood actor like Ronald Reagan” in the US.
“Whoever champions the principle of democracy, I back the individual,” he says. “Whoever opposes it, especially in a brutal way that doesn’t even think of the future, that degrades the humanity on behalf of whom such a political principle is being expressed…that person for me is an enemy of humanity, not just of society,” Soyinka says.