Rotimi Amaechi Deserves Praise For Challenging Tinubu To Uphold Democracy – Wole Soyinka

Bola Tinubu and Rotimi Amaechi

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has come out to say that former Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi, was bold to refuse to step down for President Bola Tinubu during the All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential primary contest of 2022.

He recently had his say while speaking at the 60th birthday celebration of Rotimi, and Nigerians have been reacting.

According to him, he loved how Rotimi Amaechi gave Bola Ahmed Tinubu a dose of his own medicine at the time, years after BAT did the same to Obasanjo when he tried to force a second term.

Wole Soyinka hailed Amaechi for displaying a consistent fighting spirit to uphold democracy in Nigeria.

His words, “The main reason I had to be here today is first of all that I admire Rotimi Amaechi’s fighting spirit. And it’s a very consistent one, and the most memorable for me, because I watched this event live on TV all the way from Abu Dhabi.

I wanted to see the drama of all the primaries going on during the election. I wasn’t really here but I said I want to watch this contest and I’m glad I did.

Because it gave me a great, most malicious pleasure, rascally if you like, pleasure — to see the incumbent president being given a dose of his own medicine.

Let me explain this. For somebody we knew as the last man standing when he fought to a standstill, a former president who was manoeuvring himself into a position of changing the constitution and obtaining a third term.

He keeps denying it but he and I know for a fact and so do others. And towards that goal, he was sort of emasculating the powers of the constituent elements of the federation. And by the end, this president was the last man standing, resisted that effort.

All the others had sort of cowed down because their statutory allocation had been stopped, contrary to the constitution.

But one man, he was the last man standing. Well, he obtained a dose of his own medicine from Rotimi Amaechi during the primaries. I enjoyed that very much.

While everybody was, you know, falling over one another conceding, there was one individual who got on the podium and said no, I’m not conceding.

I didn’t come all the way here to commit ‘lúle’. And that man was Rotimi Amaechi. And I said this is what democracy is all about.”

WOW.