Veteran Nigerian singer Charles Oputa also known as Charly Boy, has compared Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka to late renowned author Chinua Achebe, following his recent remarks on media outlets.
According to the actor, Prof. Soyinka can never be the man Chinua Achebe was.
Soyinka has in the past few days criticized the vice presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed and the ‘Obidients’ describing the movement as one of the most repulsive, off-putting concoctions he ever encountered in any political arena, for which he was condemned and called many names.
Thee playwright had, on Channels TV and later on Arise TV, condemned what he termed the fascist language of the vice presidential candidate of the LP, Datti Baba-Ahmed, by attempting to dictate to the Supreme Court during an interview on Channels TV over the poll won by the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
Besides, Soyinka faulted voter suppression witnessed in some polling units in Lagos State during the 18 March governorship and House of Assembly polls among other issues.
The Nobel laureate on Tuesday in a statement titled, “Media responsibility,” also dwelt on related issues bordering on the presidential election, noting that his interview with Channels TV was distorted thereby rendering his remarks completely unrecognizable.
But the Obidients trolled Soyinka online, abusing him and an ex-deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Kingsley Moghalu, who in a Tweet, identified Soyinka’s objectivity and described him as “a phenomenon that unlettered and uncultured people may not fully understand in an age of lazy social media in which many don’t read or think deep.”
Charly Boy who supported Peter Obi of the Labour Party during the 2023 elections joined the conversation by taking to Twitter on Saturday morning to say he has lost the respect he has for Soyinka.
He tweeted: “The kin respect I had for dis man, was almost the kind of respect I had for my stainless father, The Socrates of the Supreme Court. It has finally dawned on me that Soyinka can never be the man Chinua Achebe was.
“Look at a man many Nigerians put on such high pedestal reducing himself to a boyiboyi for criminal politicians. What a f..king big shame”
While some opinion holders have suggested that it would have been better for Soyinka to stay from sharing his thoughts on partisan politics as he has always done, others have hailed his stance.
