Soyinka further described Tinubu as the architect of change while adding that Amaechi was the arrowhead of the process.
Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka has praised All Progressives Congress (APC) leader, Bola Tinubu and Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi for leading the journey to change in Nigeria.
Soyinka further described Tinubu as the architect of change while adding that Amaechi was the arrowhead of the process.
The Nobel Laureate made the comments on Thursday, May
14, 2015, during the public presentation of ‘Dynamics of Change: The
Amaechi Years,’ a book edited by a former Managing Director of Daily
Times, Yemi Ogunbiyi, and author, Chidi Amuta.
“The political atmosphere today, whatever you
call it, change or hope or cautious hope and naked hope or careless
hope, I recognise two personalities, in particular, who led the chant of
change,” Soyinka said.
“One of them, I call him the architect of the
process, the architect, in fact, that houses the essence of hope. That
is Ahmed Bola Tinubu. The other person was unconsciously, perhaps, the
arrow head of that charge that led to the change and that is the man
that we gather here to celebrate,” he added.
The Nobel Laureate also commended Amaechi for standing up to President Goodluck Jonathan during the 2013 Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) crisis.
“He (Amaechi) was the one who said no, we cannot
turn the clock backwards. Nothing about the philosophy of the clock runs
against what we were hoping for. It was a very unpopular and risky
decision to take,” Soyinka said.
“But it exposed to us the basic arithmetic
fallacy of governance in demonstrating that when 16 is said to be higher
than 19, something is fundamentally wrong and the same kind of
arithmetic leads to the cooking of figures in governance. And it was
within that nexus that he stood up and challenged even his own
colleagues, and said let’s change the mentality of the stock, let us
re-orientate it towards the people and towards the nation and the
electorate,” he added.
“I remember someone very close to me that said I
hear you are close to Rotimi Amaechi, tell that young man that he is
going to destroy himself, and I said, you know something, you have been
in a position where I have had the opportunity of being your teacher and
your mentor and you mean to say you never learnt from me that it is
better to be destroyed on the basis of what you really live for? ” the Nobel Laureate said.
“And you want me to deliver such a message? That
person who is in Aso Rock wanted me to tell Amaechi to back off, to slow
down and that he is playing with fire and playing with a catapult
against big guns. I never delivered that message. All I did was to study
him more closely and wait to see,” he added.
Amaechi won the NGF election by 19 votes but President Jonathan chose to recognize Plateau State Governor, Jonah Jang, who won 16 votes, as the Chairman of the forum.
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