Peter Obi’s emergence consequence of EndSARS movement – Wole Soyinka

Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka has insisted that the emergence of Mr Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), is a result of the consequence of the “EndSARS movement”.

The EndSARS movement was a peaceful protest against police brutality, held across Nigeria in October 2020.

Soyinka made this remark in an interview with Arise TV on Wednesday.

Recall that Obi finished third in the February 25 presidential election with 6 101, 533 votes.

He won in 12 States, the same as Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, who was declared the winner by the INEC and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who came second.

The former Anambra State governor also scored 25 percent of votes in 16 states.

But attributing Obi’s popularity to the EndSARS, Soyinka said, “For me, the emergence of the Peter Obi movement is the consequence of events like the EndSARS movement, and all this is done with a democratic spirit, persuasion, campaigning, mobilizing and sometimes even tutoring a prospective candidate,” Soyinka said.

“Whether or not my position at the time towards Atiku or Tinubu was correct or not is not important. What I am trying to tell you is that we acted out of conviction and therefore, we have absolutely no reason to appear even to be against any new generational possibility when the time for election came.

“I have been distressed, however, by this certain aspect of this movement and we have not come this way, made all the sacrifices to watch the entire procedure being jeopardized permanently with unpredictable consequences if we get to a situation where threatening language is being used.”