Wole Soyinka: Presidential Advisers need to learn to listen before they speak!

Renowned Professor and Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka has in this exclusive interview with Plus TV Africa shared his first-hand opinion on the global pandemic that has hitherto claimed the lives of 75,906 out of 1,359,010 cases worldwide with a focus on how the Nigerian Government is tackling it.

The award-winning playwright and poet first opined that the Federal Government was slow in responding to the pandemic as leaders, and indeed for the containment strategy to be effective, a much more decentralised approach should be improvised thereby enlightening people on the risks and challenges involved.

On why he questioned the lockdown directives by the Federal Government, Soyinka explained that instead of a mandatory lockdown procedure which is now in full swing to which he claimed at this point cannot be decisively wrong entirely, he stressed that there was and still is room for enlightenment which he sought at the time which ultimately led to the FG advisers reportedly retorting that he should wait till the pandemic episode is over before writing about it.

He attributed this to their gross ignorance and advised that in future, holding such positions they need to learn to listen before speaking. He also opined that there is a need for us as a nation to explore our options, citing countries like Sweden which are tackling the matter using a very different approach albeit effective.

In this very interesting piece, Soyinka touched on how people are coping with the lockdown and the dearth of ways to provide for themselves and family, he also suggested that well-wishers should direct their philanthropic activities towards those in low tier government where their intentions may be speedily actualized instead of funding the Central Bank of Nigeria, which should in itself be pouring out its coffers to manage the pandemic.

Oh but there’s more, on how he feels about SERAP calling for the investigation of the relief funds and the current hoard of facemasks in China which is currently getting addressed, click to watch!