Chimamanda accepts Soyinka’s debate challenge, ‘disagrees with him very strongly’
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Novelist Chimamanda Adichie has reacted to Wole Soyinka’s television debate challenge and faulted the Nobel Laureate’s description of the comment of Labour Party (LP) vice-presidential candidate Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed on the election as fascist.
Soyinka threw the challenge to Baba-Ahmed on Arise TV last week, but Obidients and others asked him to debate a literary person like himself, such as Chimamanda or Udenta Udenta, not Baba-Ahmed, a politician.
Taking up the challenge, Chimamanda, a supporter of Peter Obi, fired back in an interview on Arise TV on Tuesday night, saying she respects Soyinka but disagrees with his take on Baba-Ahmed.
“I have a lot of respect for Prof. Soyinka, I admire him, I respect him as a thinker, as a writer. I think everyone should read the The Man Died and Ake: The memoir [Soyinka’s memoir] is beautiful.
“But at the same time, I disagree with him very strongly on this particular issue, and actually because I respect Prof. Soyinka so much, I went back and watched the interview and I think ‘fascist’ is a really strong word.
“We use it now to address this sort of authoritarianism that is often populist, and right-wing like Hungary, and even the former American President [Donald Trump], and if you look at those situations, you can see why they have been termed fascist, and I didn’t see any reason Mr. Datti Baba-Ahmed’s interview would have been termed fascist.
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Fascism a very strong word
“I think he [Baba-Ahmed] was making a very strongly felt point about the election. I think a charitable way of reading Prof. Soyinka’s comments is that Professor Soyinka himself, I think it’s fair to say he is not given to restraint in language, in general, so maybe that’s where that word fascist came from,” Chimamanda said, per Vanguard.
“I think fascism is a really strong word, which often makes me think of Mussolini of Italy. We use it now. I do not see any reason Datti Baba-Ahmed’s interview would have been termed fascist.
“I think he was making a very strong and fair point about the election and he was saying, which again, I thought is fairly reasonable, that if our democracy is rooted in the Constitution and you then swear in a person who is being elected unconstitutionally, and you are in fact ending democracy. I think it is quite a reasonable position.”
Chimamanda disclosed the election made her to read the Nigerian Constitution and make suggestions for editing.
“I don’t think it unreasonable for educated Nigerians who can read, who know what the word ‘and’ means to make their own interpretation and to argue it, and of course the fact that the Labour Party is in court means that they do not believe that this election is constitutional, and I didn’t quite see it should be termed fascist.”
Chimamanda explained some situations she believes could be classified as fascist, such as the actions of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and its Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, during the election, which many Nigerians feel cheated and deeply disfranchised by.
“Fascist is all of the violence that happened during the election. Fascist is the way some people remain silent about that violence.
“A fascist is a government that hasn’t come out to address the very tangible and palpable discontent in this country.”
Backstory
Baba-Ahmed, Labour Party (LP) vice presidential candidate, declared on Channels Television on March 22 that Nigeria has no President-elect despite the INEC announcing Bola Tinubu as the winner of the election on February 25.
He insisted Tinubu would be leading an unconstitutional government if sworn into office because he “has not met requirements of the law,” and swearing him in would be the end of democracy.
Soyinka on Arise TV last week took issue with Baba-Ahmed for saying the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate should not be sworn in as President on May 29 because the election was allegedly rigged for him.
Soyinka described the comment as “fascistic language.”
“If Channels feel up to it,” he later stressed in a statement, “I offer myself willing to engage Mr Datti – or any nominee of his – on its platform on this very bone of contention – one-on-one – without the malodorous intervention of media trolls, and with the same interviewer as mediator. That should be taken as a serious offer.”