Peter Obi’s Visit Is Not About ‘Reconciliation’, Says Wole Soyinka

According to Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, Peter Obi’s visit was not intended for “reconciliation,” as some sources have claimed.

The former’s fans, known as Obidients, recently had a disagreement with Soyinka after the latter criticized the former Anambra governor’s running mate’s comment about the practice. Obi, the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate for the 2023 elections, visited the literary legend on Sunday.

Many reports that surfaced after the visit suggested that the LP flagbearer had made a gesture toward reconciliation. But Soyinka clarified in a statement on Monday night that the visit wasn’t for that.

“Before it gains traction and embarks on a life of its own, I wish to state clearly that the word ‘Reconciliation’, inserted into some reports of Peter Obi’s visit to me yesterday, Sunday, May 7, is a most inappropriate, and diversionary invocation,” Soyinka said in a statement he captioned “A visitation and the allure of Reconciliation”.

“Let me clarify: I know the entity known as Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party. I can relate to him. I know and can relate to the Labour Party on whose platform he contested elections. There are simply no issues to reconcile between those two entities and myself.

“However, I do not know, and am unable to relate to something known as the ‘Obidient’ or ‘Obidient Family’. Thus, albeit in a different vein, any notion of Reconciliation, or even relations – positive, negative, or indifferent – with such a spectral emanation is simply grasping at empty air.

“During that meeting, attended by two other individuals only, the word ‘Reconciliation’ was never bruited, neither in itself nor in any other form. It simply did not arise.

“By contrast, there were expressions of ‘burden of leadership’ ‘responsibility’, ‘apology’, ‘pleading’, ‘formal dissociation from the untenable’, all the way to the ‘tragic ascendancy of ethnic cleavage’, especially under such ironic, untenable circumstances. Discussions were frank and creative. The notion of Reconciliation was N/A – Non Applicable. It was never raised.”