My generation has failed you – Wole Soyinka to Nigerians

My generation has failed you - Soyinka to Nigerians

Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate, has accused his generation of failing Nigerians.

The renowned poet said this during a BBC programme, Hard Talk.

Soyinka when he was asked by Zeinab Badawi, anchor of the programme, that “Has your generation of older Nigerians failed the people?” and the professor said “Yes, I believe so.

“I compare today with dreams and aspirations we had when we all rushed home after studies abroad. We considered ourselves the renaissance people that are going to lift the continent to world standards, competitors anywhere. It hasn’t happened.”

On the 2019 presidential election, he said:

“The 2019 election is one of the most depressing elections we’ve been through. Talking for myself, it wasn’t possible for me to make a choice for the simple reason that both candidates (President Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar) both had histories— one immediate, one past —which made one look for alternatives.”

About why he President Muhammadu Buhari won in 2015, Soyinka said:

“General Buhari didn’t really win the first election, he won by default. It was impossible to continue with Jonathan (back in 2015),” he said.

“As it happened, yes, I did use that expression ‘born again democrat’. When somebody competes in an election three, four times and persists, he must believe in democracy… the circumstances in Nigeria, the fact that Nigerians have shown the military what a huge failure they were makes it possible for one to identify the possibility of exceptions when they seem to behave like democrats.

“But in any case, I kept emphasising that Nigerians had a very difficult choice and as I said, It was between the devil and the deep blue sea.”