The Cable Newspaper Apologises To Wole Soyinka For Their False Story About Him Attacking Igbos.

The cable newspaper few days ago reported that Wole Soyinka made some derogatory statements about the Igbo people during a question and answer time after delivery lecture at the talk titled '‘Predicting Nigeria, Electoral Ironies’ at the Harvard University Hutchins Centre for African & African American Research, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Wole Soyinka himself refuted the report saying 'Only a moron will believe such crap'

I personally didn't carry the story when The Cable broke it because I wasn't sure about the story. I couldn't find a video of it or any video-graphic traces of the lecture. However I found a convincing statement by someone at the talk, so I concluded the report might be hearsay, so I passed on it. I was right afterall. The Cable just apologised to Wole Soyinka.

The Cable's Apology

"The management of Cable Newspaper Ltd, publishers of TheCable, would like to make the following statement concerning our report on the lecture by Professor Wole Soyinka at the Harvard University Hutchins Centre for African & African American Research. Soyinka was quoted to have made derogatory remarks about the Igbo over their voting pattern in theMarch 28 presidential election. He has since denied the offensive quotes attributed to him.

After an in-house investigation, we have come to the conclusion that the story misrepresented the views expressed by Soyinka in the question-and-answer session after his lecture. We take full responsibility for the inaccuracy and promise that we will continue to strive to improve our standards. Also, we wish to reiterate that we take our professional responsibilities very seriously, as our readers can attest to. We hereby offer an unreserved apology to Soyinka, Ndigbo and our readers. Signed: Management of Cable Newspaper Ltd

 Passazhir's Statement Debunking The Cable's story.

I was actually at this talk, and think the author of this piece might have actually been the guy standing directly in front of me, recording the talk, who asked Mr. Soyinka whether he considered the Biafran War genocide, and whether the Igbos have the right to independence (to the second question, for the record, Mr. Soyinka acknowledged that at least in principle they do). In any case, I don’t recall Mr. Soyinka saying these specific things about the Igbo, though of course it’s not impossible that my memory is faulty (and I do remember him making the quoted comments about Goodluck Jonathan and Buhari). Regardless, I don’t think this selective quotation of snippets from the talk gives a fair and accurate representation of its substance. Because while Mr. Soyinka did criticize the Igbo political scene, he did this in the course of a verbal tour of the entire country–the North, the Delta, the West, including even the Yorubas, as well as the Igbos–excoriating factionalism, tribalism, corruption and venality in each one. I didn’t at all get the sense that he was singling out the Igbos; rather, he was simply subjecting them to the same criticism he subjected all the major regions and tribes to. Nor were most of his remarks generalized criticisms of large groups–the majority of them, or at least the ones that stand out in my mind, were leveled at specific individuals and institutions. The very harshest, as I recall, were reserved for Gen. Obasanjo (who is Yoruba btw), Patience Jonathan and Boko Haram. So you would really need to see a much more substantial sampling of his remarks at the talk in order to fairly evaluate the context of what he said.