Prof. Wole Soyinka Nobel laureate has raised the alarm over what he described as political 419s whose activities had been a form of violence of some members of the electorate.
Soyinka regretted that the organisers of the All Political Stakeholders National Workshop on Violence-Free Elections in 2015 got President Goodluck Jonathan and General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) as well as 12 other presidential candidates to sign an accord without addressing the other kind of violence.
Prof. Wole Soyinka denied that he made any statement endorsing any presidential or governorship contestant, saying such attributions to him were “fabrications by faceless, often self-appointed agents of deception”, which should be publicly criticized.
“Whenever I choose to declare support for a candidate – as is my electoral right – I shall ensure that I deploy a medium that places my authorship beyond dispute”, he added.
Prof. Wole Soyinka further noted that he was less bothered about the view of some opportunists who sometimes use out of context genuine quotes from statements he had made in the past, even as he warned that such users should expect to hear from his Literary Agents.
“From personal interest however, I was disappointed that the communiqué makes no reference to the violence done to members of the electorate whose identities are stolen, abused and debased during this exercise"
"It is rapidly becoming commonplace to encounter totally fictitious statements, even entire interviews published and attributed to unsuspecting authorship.
“This criminal proceeding has even involved the cloning of media mastheads to which non-existent interviews are then attached. To render it in local parlance, this is political 419, and of the most despicable brand”.
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