A former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Kingsley Moghalu has apologized for his wrong choice of words in defence of Professor Wole Soyinka.
He admitted that his choice of words may not be the best and comes across as a harsh judgment hence the need for the apologies.
It would be recalled that Moghalu described Nobel laureate, Professor Soyinka as a global fighter for justice. While praising the principles of Soyinka, Moghalu said the Nobel Laureate may not be easily understood by lazy social media users.
The former CBN Deputy Governor spoke against the backdrop of recent submissions made by Soyinka on the outcome of the 2023 presidential election and particularly those touching the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and his running mate, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed.
It was recalled in recent interviews, Soyinka disclosed that before the election he reached out to Peter Obi three times and told him what could make him lose the elections.
He said that he told the LP flag bearer that if he lost the election it would be the fault of the Obidients.
Also, Soyinka slammed the vice presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Datti Baba-Ahmed, over his outburst in a recent television interview.
Recall that Datti, in an interview with Channels TV, had said the country has no president-elect and called on the judiciary and President Muhammadu Buhari against swearing Bola Tinubu as the President on May 29.
Baba-Ahmed also claimed that Tinubu would be leading an unconstitutional government if sworn into office because the APC candidate has not met the requirements of the law.
But in a chat with Arise TV on Wednesday, Soyinka said the whole comments by Baba-Ahmed during the interview were unbecoming, adding that statements contained fascistic language.
He described Baba-Ahmed’s remarks as a “kind of do-or-die attitude and provocation” that goes contrary to democratic disposition, stressing that he has no right to threaten the judiciary.
The Nobel laureate said it was unacceptable that the LP vice-presidential candidate tried to “dictate to the supreme arbiter of the nation”.
The submissions have attracted criticisms for Soyinka, particularly from Labour Party supporters popularly called obidients.
Sharing his mind on the matter, Moghalu however backed Soyinka, saying he would survive all the attacks because he is always an objective person.
He added that Soyinka has survived worse situations including dictators and would see out this one also while describing the obidients as “uncultured and unlettered.”
But on Friday, Moghalu after the criticisms that followed his statement, said he has to apologize for his choice of words.
In my tweet yesterday on Prof. Wole Soyinka’s comment on Datti Baba-Ahmed’s own comments about the 2023 presidential election, I said WS is a principled fighter for justice and a phenomenon “that unlettered and uncultured people may not fully understand in an age of lazy social media in which many don’t read or think deeply,” he wrote on Twitter.
“I want to apologize for the phrase in quotation marks which, on second thought, can be misconstrued as a harsh judgment on citizens who are hurting from the outcome of the elections.
“That was not my intention. While we all bear responsibility for the words we choose to use (and I have the utmost respect for Prof Soyinka and Dr. Datti-Ahmed), I caution again, however, that there will always be different voices with different beliefs in a democracy.
These voices are not illegitimate simply because we disagree with them or they do not agree either with our political preferences or with whatever manner in which we choose to express our views. This applies across the board to the supporters of all the leading candidates.
This is a difficult time for our country, but I hope we can still be civil and measured even as we may disagree.”
