Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has said that former President Goodluck Jonathan committed some errors of governance because he was caged.
In an interview with Zero Tolerance Magazine, an in-house publication of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), he said “There were forces around Jonathan, which he himself did not understand and that is why I stressed that you’ve got to choose your circles of advisers very carefully when you are in charge. He was caged; things were going on that he did not know about.
“I will tell you one interesting aspect of what we discussed. I will reveal to you that Jonathan did not know that the nation had been compromised so badly in this telephone thing with the King of Morocco. I was the one who told him when we met over an issue and I said to him, ‘by the way, how is the King of Morocco? Jonathan didn’t know what I was talking about.
“When I mentioned the telephone issue, he thought I was talking about his campaign for AfDB managing director for which he was lobbying other heads of states. He said ‘I haven’t spoken to him in a long time’ and I said, ‘no, you spoke to him a few days ago.’ He said, ‘no, I intend to speak with him. I even asked my foreign ministry to link me up with him, because I am campaigning for a candidate but I haven’t spoken to the king of Morocco.’ Then I said to him, ‘you better go and read the newspapers of last week.’ And I can tell you he did not know.
“So you can imagine that the president did not know that a scandal had developed that involved a withdrawal of an ambassador!
“How can a public figure, an intelligent person like that come out to tell the public that corruption is not stealing?
“Jonathan committed some truly alarming errors of governance. He was propelling himself towards outright fascism.”