Wole Soyinka, Professor of Literature and Noble Laureate Prize winner for Literature in 1986, has condemned in very strong terms the naira redesign policy of the Godwin Emefiele-led Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), describing it as not only a crime against humanity but a crime against the nation over and beyond the electoral flaws and skirmishes that characterised the February 25 and March 18 general elections in Nigeria.
The noble laureate, who has been at the forefront of nation-building and promotion of democratic principles in the country since 1973, narrated his experiences with the naira redesign policy. He described it as injurious to the subsistence of most Nigerians, bearing in mind that most people depend on that daily income to survive.
Soyinka, in an exclusive, no-holds-barred interview with Channels Television on Monday, said that it was unfair for both Emefiele and Buhari to have punished Nigerians with the naira redesign policy.
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“This man—Emefiele, I don’t know who he is or where he came from, but he has committed a crime against humanity and the nation over and beyond the electoral “magomago” (a local Nigerian word for fraud) because he struck at the heart and survival of the subsistence and survival principles and the minimal needs and entitlements of the ordinary people in the street,” he said.
Earlier in the interview, the noble laureate had described the CBN governor as an active agent of destruction only interested in impoverishing the majority of Nigerians, with his policies a far cry from what his principles and ideologies aim to achieve.
“Don’t throw me on the mercy of sadists like Emefiele, who improvished Nigerians, he and his boss, Buhari, because his ultimate responsibility within was to allow this to happen, but he (Emefiele) is the expert,” he said. “He is the one who gives the advice; he is the one who executes and reduces this nation to a state where even a few days ago I sent a cheque to a bank, and the cheque came back as they had no cash.”
So pained with the situation, he explained that it was one of the bank workers who bailed him out with money. “One of the bankers brought me something from his own stash and explained to me what has been going on and how they will sit and wait for money to come. You can’t buy a newspaper; you can’t buy snacks, which means that the farmer can’t pay for his goods to leave the farm,” he narrated.
Meanwhile, on the conflict between the political elite and those with integrity who have the capacity and ability to change the country, he agreed that the compromises made in the corridor of power make it difficult for people with integrity to sanitise the system.
He said that most of the people he thought were going to make the needed changes when they got into power only ended up getting consumed by the same rot in the system.
“Don’t forget that among all these things we talked about, some of us seriously considered requesting power so that we could make the changes that we preferred. But if we are honest with ourselves, I don’t have the temperament for the kind of compromises involved that you can necessarily attain where you can make changes,” he explained.
“A few individuals did go in, and some of them succeeded, and we watched, but we backed certain states and said to some of ourselves, Why don’t we get power in these states? This demonstrates to the rest of the nation what modern society should be like.
“Thank goodness we didn’t get there because the person whom we picked, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), is still looking for him,” he said, laughing out how amazed and strong the forces of corruption had gripped political power.
“So there have been efforts to practicalize our theories of what society should be. They go beyond theories; they are not unachievable objectives.
“It’s just that something happens to some breed of people when they get in power; they forget the past. They are so busy with the present, and they say, Let me just handle this, and I will get back to it. This is always a mistake.
“From the moment those individuals arrive at power, even before they arrive at power, they should begin to work towards the transformation of society. So I don’t think we were wrong to say we are going to take a back seat because we were not after office, we just wanted to interact with our people in a state of civic dignity,” he said.
