I Told Atiku And Tinubu To Quit For Fresh Blood— Soyinka reveals

Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, has revealed that he asked the presidential candidates of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, and the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Atiku Abubakar and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, respectively, to make room for fresh energies to assume the helm of affairs in Nigeria.

Prof Soyinka made this statement during an interview with Arise TV today, Wednesday. He hinted that Atiku who was contesting came to see him in his Ikeja office a few years ago. Soyinka revealed that he told Atiku, ‘Listen, it’s about time you people left the stage, why don’t you just go away? We need an infusion of fresh blood into the system’. He added, “But, for some people, maybe they read it as bloodletting. No, I said an infusion of fresh blood. I said so I can not support you. I think your generation should quit.”

Soyinka told Tinubu to look for a brilliant individual

Speaking further the Nobel laureate stated that he also gave the President-elect the same message. He said, ‘Whatever you people are planning, I’m convinced that we need the young generation, new thinking, new sensibilities, new energies’. 

Soyinka noted that he told Tinubu to leave the stage and look for somebody, “a really brilliant individual then use his entire influence to catapult that person to power, and this country will see a massive transformation.” He further revealed that after speaking with Tinubu for over an hour, the President-elect insisted that “there were still things he could contribute.”

Earlier, Soyinka hinted that he warned the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, Peter Obi on the excesses of his supporters, otherwise known as ‘Obidients’. He said he sent a message to Obi, detailing that, if he lost the election, it would be his followers who lost it for him.