*Condemns State Pardon for jailed corrupt politicians
Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has joined the Catholic Bishops of Sokoto and Kaduna diocese, and their Anglican counterpart in their condemnation of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administrative policies.
This is even as he slammed the President for granting a presidential pardon to former governors, Joshua Dariye and Jolly Nyame, describing the action as an egg squashed against Nigerian faces that will not be forgotten or wiped off in a hurry.
Recall that the National Council of State had last week endorsed the presidential pardon for former Governors Dariye and Nyame were jailed for stealing N1.16 billion and N1.6 billion respectively during their tenures as governor.
The presidential pardon was however extended to 157 others who were serving jail terms following the recommendation of the Presidential Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy headed by President Buhari.Soyinka, in his reaction on Tuesday, through a statement titled: “A Putrid Presidential Easter Egg”, said he shared in the statements on Easter against the President’s actions on the matter by Bishop Matthew Kukah.
According to Soyinka the pardon, “coming from a leader who had placed all his eggs in one basket, labelled Anti-Corruption, is like egg squashed against Nigerian faces that they shall not forget – or wipe off – in a hurry.
“It evokes the legend of Pandora’s box whose contents are alleged to constitute all the ills that plague the world.
“Putrid to the core, allied to power provocations in numerous variations, such as catapulting a notorious player in the martyrdom of a serving Minister of Justice to the hub of governance wheel, these define the nature of bequests that have brought the nation to this moment of near dissolution. Precedents are no consolation, no excuses.
“One states the obvious in remarking that precedents either undermine or reinforce principles, and aspiring offenders, especially in the political domain, are encouraged or inhibited by the ease or difficulty of access to the fount of mercy.
“Office holders, we presume, are constrained by the existence of that dangling Sword of Damocles – simply knowing that one day, the cloak of immunity will turn threadbare, and the awaited day of reckoning finds them answerable. Clearly, not any longer.
“You will forgive, though disagree with me, I know, for clambering onto the Easter wagon myself, to echo the words of the One whose passage through the world the Easter season commemorates: “It is finished!”
On Bishop Kukah’s sermon, Soyinka said he was impelled, however, not to miss an opportunity to add his 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.
“Also, your Easter sermon opens up yet again those sluices of juridical hypocrisy to which we dare not cease to draw attention. Such, in the immediate, remains the plight of two young men – Mubarak Bala and the musician Yahaya Sharif – one serving a sentence of twenty-five years, the other actually sentenced to death for alleged blasphemy.
“While we are busy building walls of division with the blocks of prejudice, our members are becoming atheists, but we prefer to pretend that we do not see this.
“We cannot pretend not to hear the footsteps of our faithful marching away into atheism and secularism. No threats can stop this, but dialogue can open our hearts.”
Soyinka said he was persuaded that the recent largesse from the nation’s president had already won a few hearts and minds to the ranks, “if not of outright atheism, then at least to a healthy sceptical regard of piety spouting leadership that saw nothing wrong in attempts to extinguish the life of a young man for an honest declaration of conviction, while veterans of broken pledges were let loose to further infect a world they had betrayed.”
He continued: “No pardon has been extended in the direction of endangered, youthful integrity. Of course, it is easy to track the trajectory of events.
“Nettled by increasingly scabrous comments, such as those of his predecessor in office, Olusegun Obasanjo, who declared that this incumbent has run out of ideas, that he has nothing left to offer the nation, Muhammad Buhari decided to embark on the Easter train and donate an Easter egg of truly presidential proportions to his subjects.”
