
Nigeria's first and only Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka on Tuesday lamented that some people are trying to use him to start a tribal war in the country.
Soyinka spoke at the Freedom Park on Lagos Island during the presentation of two books-‘Between Defective Memory and the Public Lie’ and ‘Green Cards, Green Gods’ under Intervention six and seven series.
Soyinka, who was reacting to the negative social media reportage of the wedding of his son, Tunlewa and Nneka Ekechukwu said some people were trying to get at him by painting the wedding in bad light.
According to Soyinka, his son and Nneka had become victims of other people’s viciousness, asking whether it was a crime now for people to get married, while taking a swipe at the social media.
He said the reports on social media said his son, a 20-year man wedded a 30-year old woman, which he said was purely a lie as his son is 27 years while Nneka is 26 years old.
Soyinka said he knew fully well that his son, Tunlewa is 27 years while Nneka is 26 years and that they had the right to marry, adding that there was an underlying reason behind such obnoxious report on social media.
“When I say these things are not spontaneous, it is part of what I am talking about. You cannot make a mistake between 20 years and 30 years on the one hand and 26 years and 27 years on the other hand, you sit down and you concocted and you have a purpose.
“What that purpose is, I know because it is not really those kids you are getting at, it is Wole Soyinka, it is not even the parents of the girl; the internet maggots who creep out from time to time to try and get into the world that they are still alive,”
Soyinka added that the social media concocted another lie that he refused to attend his son’s wedding in the first place and that he had to be persuaded to do so, a report he found very offensive.
In his words:
“You see, is this linked to the alleged disparity between the two? no, that is not at all, there is a tribal thing involved. There are people who think they can use me to start a tribal war in this country. This is not the first time; a lecture which I delivered in Harvard two years ago was deliberately misreported, concocted; this is not a question of misreading or mishearing, no, something I never said. I was supposed to have said something about the Igbo, something derogatory, this came up and this went on facebook and ofcourse an industry started immediately.
“Having failed in that one, I think they were disturbed by my son marrying an Igbo girl, this girl was born in America. They were so shocked. Why are they telling these stories, what have I done to them? Why put young people through such an emotional rigour.
“I want to say here that we are dealing with seriously dysfunctional people, not only dysfunctional people, but people from dysfunctional homes. I am saying to you, whatever you are, you facebook operators who think you are there to ruin people’s lives, you come from dysfunctional homes, you are to be pitied, but you are also to be fought because you are dangerous, you are very dangerous, you are danger to society, danger to humanity and danger to your own people.”

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