Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that he maintains his view, as expressed in his three-volume autobiography, My Watch, that Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has better expertise in wine matters than in political analysis.
In the book, Obasanjo wrote, “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.”
Obasanjo, however, said he had told Soyinka that, in that case, whichever of them gets to heaven first should wait at the gate to welcome the other.
He said, “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.
“But having said that, I also, in my book, bring out Wole Soyinka as I see him and that’s my own judgment; that’s my own perspective of him. He may agree, he may not agree but anybody can bring out his own perspective of me.
“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.”
Obasanjo also dismissed a rejoinder to his book titled, ‘Watch the Watcher’, written by the Publicity Secretary of the Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin, saying the book was not worth being kept in anybody’s library.
Obasanjo said, “Yinka Odumakin was hired to do the hatchet job and he did it.
“It was part of the campaign of Goodluck Jonathan and he did serve the purpose of Goodluck Jonathan. But whether Goodluck Jonathan gained from it or Yinka Odumakin gained from it, well, it’s now left to history.
“But how should I worry about that? That Yinka Odumakin was hired by Goodluck Jonathan to do a job, which he did and Yinka Odumakin didn’t write anything to last. He wrote current affairs, not a book that anybody will seriously want to keep in his library and that’s the way I see it. And a book should be something that somebody wants to keep in the library.”
Too old two man . . . do what people will remember you for
ReplyDelete