Soyinka slams Fayose

As New Telegraph clinches another award

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, Wednesday night went personal against the Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, calling him a ‘tout’.

Soyinka was reacting to what he described as Fayose’s attack on judges shortly before his swearing-in as the governor of the state.

He also called on ‎ President Muhammadu Buhari to stop impunity in the country especially by the nation’s security operatives.

The Nobel Laureate was the keynote speaker, Wednesday, at the ‎10th anniversary of the annual Wole Soyinka Award for Investigative Reporting by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism.

According to Soyinka, the Nigeria Military in particular is in the habit of assaulting ‎and harassing members of the public. He said that the spate of the assault does not depict the country as a democratic country.

Soyinka insisted that the report of the enquiry into the recent attack on the BRT buses by soldiers in Lagos must be made public, saying the claim by the authorities that the matter had been dealt with militarily was not tenable.

He also called on government to ensure that the nation’s laws are respected, including the order of the courts. He challenged security operatives not to take laws into their own hands.

He said: “There must be an end to unlawful detention. If the court has granted someone a bail, it must be honoured, I don’t care what the offence is.

“Anybody or institution that does this can only be compared to that tout in Ekiti. That Fayose, he is a tout. He descended on the judges and attacked them openly without any consequence.”

Meanwhile, New Telegraph’s cartoonist, Chukwuemeka Emenike was the runner-up at the award ceremony in the editorial cartoon category which was won by Asuquo Etim Bassey of Business Day.

Emmanuel Ogala of Premium Times was the overall winner with his entry entitled; ‘Investigation: Jonathan, Alison-Madueke, Tunde Ayeni named in oil contracts that cost Nigeria multibillion naira’.

The Print category was one by Adekunle Yusuff of The Nation Newspaper while the Photo category was won by Ikechukwu Ibe of Daily Trust Newspaper.