Wole Soyinka - I told Obi three times that Obidients would cost him election

 In a statement titled "Media Responsibility" on Tuesday, April 4, Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, clarified that he was misrepresented in a report about his recent interview with Channels Television. He had warned the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, Peter Obi, about the excesses of his supporters, known as "Obidients". Soyinka expressed concern that his remarks were taken out of context and distorted, and emphasized the critical responsibility of the media in transmitting the spoken word accurately, especially during times of civic uncertainty.

Soyinka denounced the menacing utterances of a vice-presidential aspirant as unbecoming and a gladiatorial challenge directed at the judiciary and the democratic polity. He also criticized the prejudicial selectivity of the media in ignoring his urgent condemnation of physical violence inflicted on designated "strangers" in Lagos during the governorship elections. Soyinka rejected fascism and stressed that the final word had yet to be pronounced on the elections.

Soyinka revealed that he had sent a message to Peter Obi on three occasions warning that if he lost the election, it would be his followers who lost it for him. He expressed concern about alleged complaints by him of people not following "instructions," stating that he was not a member of the Labour Party and that giving instructions was not his role. Soyinka admitted to contributing to the making of this moment going back several years and expressed pain at the followers of such a movement sending it slithering backwards down the fascistic slope.