Presidential Pardon: Rotten Egg Squashed Against The Faces Of Nigerians – Wole Soyinka.
By Ebor Cletus Ralph Jr.
Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka yesterday slammed President Muhammadu Buhari for pardoning former governors Joshua Dariye (Plateau) and Rev. Jolly Nyame (Taraba).
He likened the president’s action to a rotten egg squashed against Nigerians’ faces that they would not forget or wipe off soon.
Both ex-governors, who were convicted and jailed for corruption, got pardoned by the National Council of State (NCS) at its meeting last Thursday, under the president’s Prerogative of Mercy.
But Soyinka, in a statement titled: ‘A Putrid Presidential Easter Egg’, opposed the move, saying he shared in the Easter Day criticism of the Buhari administration by the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Mathew Kukah.
The Nobel laureate said he was “impelled, however, not to miss an opportunity to add my own Easter drop to the overflowing vessel of pietistic sentiments, if only to reassure Christians – and also Muslims in turn — that even we, non-believers, do partake of that same ethical communion to which most humanities aspire.”
