I’m sorry! Soyinka apologizes to President Buhari after wrongly criticizing him

- Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka has admitted making a grave error when he attacked President Buhari for congratulating the winner of the recently concluded presidential election in The Gambia

- Soyinka says he thought outgoing president Yahyah Jammeh had won again after 22 years in power and was being congratulated by President Buhari but has now realised his mistake

Professor Wole Soyinka has apologised to President Muhammadu Buhari for criticising his congratulatory message to president-elect of The Gambia Adama Barrow.

The Cable reports that Buhari had called Barrow after his victory at the polls ended President Yahyah Jammeh’s 22-year rule in the West African country and congratulated him saying he looked forward to a “smooth transition of power and working with the incoming President of The Gambia to deepen existing cordial relations between both countries”.

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Thinking Jammeh had been re-elected, Soyinka mistook President Buhari’s and advised him sternly to avoid “congratulating petty little dictators”.

“President Buhari is congratulating the president-elect of Gambia, that lunatic who makes his citizens undergo hallucinogenic tests to prove that they are not witches on his farm,” the Nobel Laureate had said on Monday, December 5.

“Please help me beg President Buhari, I don’t say he shouldn’t congratulate Trump because there is no way one can avoid Trump but you can avoid petty little dictators like Jammeh of Gambia who is the opposite of everything one would expect of the true African leader for his or he citizens. Please President Buhari, restrict yourself to those you absolutely have to congratulate.”

But Soyinka has now realised his error and apologised.

“Just before setting off for my media chat at Freedom Park, I was handed a Sunday newspaper with a comment on the recently concluded Gambian Presidential elections. I totally misheard the comment and thought that ex-President Jammeh had again succeeded in manipulating the votes to remain on the continent’s ‘sit-tight’ roll of dishonour,” he said.

“It turned out that I had obtained the wrong picture. The torturer and notorious administrator of hallucinogenic broths to citizens had been dethroned. I therefore take back my criticism of Nigeria’s message of congratulations.

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“Let the entire West African sub-region and indeed the entire continent rejoice in the overthrow of the monatrocity who had sworn to rule for a billion years, a throw-back autocrat with delusions of eternal power who casually tossed opposition in dungeons and threw the keys away. It is now time to make Yahweh answer for his twenty-two years of boastful misrule and crimes against humanity.

“Once again, my apologies for the miscommunication. I rejoice with the long-suffering citizens of Gambia, encourage the rehabilitation of that land strip, and recovery of its existence in full liberty, freed of fear, and restored to dignity as part of the sentient species.”

Earlier on Tuesday, December 6, Reno Omokri, a former aide to ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, slammed Soyinka for insulting Nigerians over their debate on his decision to tear up his green card after Donald Trump's victory in the US election in November.