Rev. Fr. Kelvin Ugwu, a Catholic missionary priest in the Gambia, has criticized renowned author Wole Soyinka for what he perceives to be his silence during President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
In a Facebook post titled “Prof Soyinka then vs. Prof Soyinka now,” he charged that the Nobel laureate had been less vocal under President Muhammadu Buhari’s leadership and had gone entirely silent under Tinubu’s administration.
Ugwu described Soyinka as a “social crusader” and “movement” who openly denounced government excesses, pointing out that he was outspoken throughout the regimes of former presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan.
“Then came Tinubu, a man whose academic records are in doubt and whose identity is unclear,” he said. During his two years in office, he has increased Nigeria’s debt and left its people living in various forms of poverty.
What, he wondered, would have led Soyinka, once a prominent voice for the people, to “suddenly become deaf and dumb” under Tinubu’s leadership?
The Nobel laureate has attacked former Yoruba presidents like Obasanjo, according to Ugwu, who further rejected that Soyinka’s silence was driven by ethnic loyalty.
Additionally, he hinted that Tinubu’s capacity to influence detractors might be inexplicable when he joked that “if this is what people mean by juju, then juju is powerful.”
