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Nigeria: Iwu Tackles Soyinka Over 2007 Election

Nosike Ogbuenyi

12 January 2009

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Abuja — Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Maurice Iwu, has accused Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, of intemperance, name-calling and other acts unbecoming of a man of his age.

Reacting to a recent interview by Soyinka, Iwu said it was unfortunate that a man who should be an elder in the society fails almost always to manifest the restraint of an elder in his utterances.

"The intemperance in Soyinka's utterances cannot in any way be termed radicalism. It is most unbecoming of a man of his age. While Soyinka is entitled to play to the gallery and release colourful statements that are essentially designed to achieve prominence in newspapers and nothing more, there must be a limit to the licence a man, especially an old man, takes to abuse others," Iwu said in a statement released yesterday by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Andy Ezeani, in Abuja.

Iwu said Soyinka's comments against him were "not only baseless lies, they are tasteless and a sad commentary on the temperament of a man of Soyinka's age."

He said it was pathetic that Soyinka had failed through the years, "to acquire the good habit of disagreeing with people on issues without resorting to abuse and name-calling.

"Soyinka has been called upon to public service in the past. One wonders whether he is proud of the dust that surrounded his outing at the Federal Road Safety Commission. His interpretation of radicalism to mean unrestrained abuse of every public office appointee is not only unfortunate, but sad.

"It was a similar raw abuse heaped by the same Soyinka on a past Chairman of the same Independent National Electoral Commission that made the otherwise quiet man to publicly question the sanity and sincerity of some of the well known intellectuals in our society who say one thing in the public and do another thing behind.

"It is instructive that Soyinka could declare publicly that Iwu took the nation on 'rigmarole over electronic voting,' and that it is 'not even known how much equipment was bought for electronic voting.'

"In other words, "Soyinka does not know that there was no electronic voting during the 2007 elections and that indeed, there was no basis for any expenditure on any such equipment."

Iwu also said, Soyinka's castigation of the Supreme Court over the ruling on the presidential election petitions simply because the verdict did not satisfy his desire, says it all about his tendencies and respect for institutions of the state.

"As it seems, such institutions are only hailed by the likes of Soyinka when their desire and interest are upheld.

"The refusal by Soyinka to accept that there is a problem with the mindset of Nigerians on elections is rather strange.

"Or is his quarrel that Iwu said so? Anyone who does not know that there is a fundamental problem with the political system in Nigeria and that the environment for elections here is muddy and cannot easily yield such civilised outcome as Nigerians idealise in elections in some other societies must be lying to himself."

"It is a national problem that has nothing to do with Iwu. Maybe Soyinka would have changed Nigeria overnight if he had been given the job of the Chief Electoral Officer of the country which he actually wanted," Iwu said.

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