Obasanjo is a liar and an economic illiterate – Soyinka

Prof. Wole Soyinka, has stated that he has no respect for former President
Obasanjo, who he describeds as an indescribable liar.
Soyinka talked about the former president on Friday night when he
responded to questions during a programme tagged: ‘An evening with Wole
Soyinka’, organised by Globacom.
Asked to respond to Obasanjo’s assessment of him in the former president’s
book titled ‘My Watch’, where he notes that Soyinka is good at hunting and
wines but a political illiterate, Soyinka said that he was hardly bothered
because he believed that Obasanjo was a liar.
Soyinka said, “Obasanjo is entitled to his opinion. But the question is: ‘Who
respects the opinion of a liar?’
I can spend the whole night proving that he is a liar. Obasanjo was once
described by an economist, the late Prof Ojetunji Aboyade, as an economic
illiterate. They nearly went into blows that night. It was Prof. Mabogunje
who separated them.
“So, if an economic illiterate calls somebody a political illiterate, no problem
at all.
“In ‘ My Watch’, Obasanjo told the first lie when he said he deplored lies.
Anybody who said he never plotted to have an unconstitutional third term in
office, even as a writer, I need a word to describe him.”
The former President and the Nobel laureate have been in a running battle
taking swipes at each other over a lingering issue between them. Obasanjo
had once stated that Soyinka once vowed that the differences between the two
of them would not be resolved on earth.
Obasanjo had also in his book, My Watch, and at public events
described Soyinka as an expert in wine matters than in political analysis.
He had said:
“For Wole, no one can be good, nor can anything be spot-on
politically except that which emanates from him or is ordained by
him. His friends and loved ones will always be right and correct, no
matter what they do or fail to do. He is surely a better wine
connoisseur and a more successful aparo (guinea fowl) hunter than
a political critic.
“Wole Soyinka is a gifted man. I have always acknowledged that but
he is a bad politician and I have also always said that. That is my
own point of view. He may agree with it, he may not agree with it.
For instance, I know that if I want somebody to give me the best
wine, one of the people I will go to is Wole Soyinka and I know he
has a taste for good wine and I said that in the book.”
Punch