‘Ex-President was caged while in office,’ Soyinka says

Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, has said that former President, Goodluck Jonathan was held hostage by some powerful forces while he was in power.

The playwright made the remarks during an interview with the Zero Tolerance magazine, a publication of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Soyinka said:

“There were forces around Jonathan, which he himself did not understand and that is why I stressed that you’ve got to choose your circles of advisers very carefully, when you are in charge. He was caged; things were going on that he did not know about.”

“I will tell you one interesting aspect of what we discussed. I will reveal to you that Jonathan did not know that the nation had been compromised so badly in this telephone thing with the King of Morocco. I was the one who told him when we met over an issue and I said to him, ‘by the way, how is the king of Morocco? Jonathan didn’t know what I was talking about.”

“When I mentioned the telephone issue, he thought I was talking about is campaign for AfDB managing director for which he was lobbying other heads of states. He said ‘I haven’t spoken to him in a long time’, and I said, ‘no, you spoke to him a few days ago.’ He said, ‘no, I intend to speak with him. I even asked my foreign ministry to link me up with him because I am campaigning for a candidate but I haven’t spoken to the king of Morocco.’ Then I said to him, ‘you better go and read the newspapers of last week.’ And I can tell you he did not know.”

“So you can imagine that the president did not know that a scandal had developed that involved a withdrawal of an ambassador!”

“And again, I am revealing this to you since this interview won’t be published till after the elections because I wouldn’t want to be seen as campaigning for or against any one side. It shows how in deep trouble governance can be; governance can dig itself into a huge hole and not even know it’s in there. The statement that was issued was issued the night when I met him.”