Sophia Michaels
Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka has said his meeting with Peter Obi, Labour Party presidential candidate was not for reconciliation.
Speaking on Monday, Soyinka said Obi visited his residence in Abeokuta, Ogun state to offer apology for the misconduct of his followers.
Soyinka in a statement titled, “A visitation and the Allure of ‘Reconciliation’” said Obi’s meeting with him was where “discussions were frank and creative.”
He said, “Before it gains traction and embarks on a life of its own, I wish to state clearly that the word “Reconciliation”, inserted into some reports of Peter Obi’s visit to me yesterday, Sunday, May 7. is a most inappropriate, and diversionary invocation. Let me clarify: I know the entity known as Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party. I can relate to him. I know and can relate to the Labour Party on whose platform he contested elections.
”There are simply no issues to reconcile between those two entities and myself. However, I do not know, and I am unable to relate to something known as the “Obidient” or “Obidient Family”. Thus, albeit in a different vein, any notion of Reconciliation, or even relations – positive, negative or indifferent – with such a spectral emanation is simply grasping at empty air.
“During that meeting, attended by two other individuals only, the word “Reconciliation” was never bruited, neither in itself nor in any other form. It simply did not arise. By contrast, there were expressions of “burden of leadership” “responsibility”, “apology”, “pleading”, “formal dissociation from the untenable”,,,.all the way to the “tragic ascendancy of ethnic cleavage”, especially under such ironic, untenable circumstances. Discussions were frank, and creative. The notion of Reconciliation was clearly N/A – None Applicable. It was never raised.
“The following should be understood, but never underestimated. What remains ineradicable from that weekend of orgiastic rave in
