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Channels TV interview blown out of context, but my issues with Obidient movement stand — Soyinka

Renowned playwright and novelist Prof. Wole Soyinka has criticised the media for misinterpreting his words in an interview with Channels TV.

The broadcaster aired a part of an interview it had with the 88-year-old on Monday and the media drew various reports out of it.

In a statement on Tuesday, however, Soyinka said he had read some reports from the interview and felt he needed to bring to the fore the critical responsibility of the media in transmitting the spoken word to the public “in a time of civic uncertainty.”

Some reports feasted on his comments about the Obidient movement and the Labour Party’s vice-presidential candidate Datti Baba-Ahmed who called on the judiciary not to swear in President-elect Bola Tinubu on May 29.

Soyinka said: “When remarks are taken out of context, spliced into a new one, provided a sensational headline, distortions become stamped on public receptivity, and the central intent of one’s remarks becomes completely unrecognizable.

“I denounced the menacing utterances of a Vice-Presidential aspirant as unbecoming. It was a gladiatorial challenge directed at the judiciary and, by implication, the rest of the democratic polity.

“But what on earth has happened to my even more urgent condemnation of the physical violence inflicted on those designated ‘strangers’ in Lagos in the lead up to, and during governorship elections?

“This prejudicial selectivity is a betrayal of trust, and I find it contemptuous of public deserving. My critique of incipient fascism in the movement remains grounded in indisputable evidence. Throughout the interview, I continued to stress that the final word had yet to be pronounced on the elections – that omission renders the full message tendentious!”

He said his rejection of fascism is nothing new, as on three occasions, he sent a message to the Labour Party’s presidential candidate Peter Obi that if he loses the election it would be the fault of his followers.

He continued, “It was depressing to watch his lieutenant, a crucially positioned voice of a movement that has ‘broken the mould’, threaten the totality of social existence. Whatever our ideological leaning, is Donald Trump the ideal template for a burgeoning democracy in the nation?

“On a minor note, I remain concerned by the alleged complaint by me of people not following ‘instructions’. If words are garbled in recording, the speaker can be reached for clarification – else, simply leave out the unclear section completely to avoid misrepresentation.

“After all, piecemeal transmission is legitimate proceeding, as long as a part is not presented as the whole. I am not a member of the Labour Party, so how can giving ‘instructions’ become my role? Like a number of others, I have admittedly contributed to the making of this moment – going back several years – and it is painful to have the followers of such a movement, send it slithering backwards and down the fascistic slope.”

The nobel laureate concluded that he hopes Channels TV plans to provide the entire interview.

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