Soyinka spoke on the Bristish Broadcasting Corporation programme,Appraising the anti-graft battle, Soyinka said: ”We have this issue of corruption, which is… and I frankly despise those who try to trivialise it in Nigeria simply because they don’t like the face of the man who is behind it.
He said the President should have learnt from the past by nipping in the bud the clashes between herders and farmers. Soyinka said: “Gen. Buhari didn’t really win…, he won by default, because it was impossible to continue with Jonathan. Yes, I did use that expression, born-again democrat. The reason I used that expression is because when somebody compete in an election first time, second time, third time, fourth time and persists, he must believe in democracy.”
Reflecting on his detention in the 60s and how he wrote on toiletries, Soyinka said: “Yes, it was a solitary confinement. I was deprived of books – writing materials. So, I had to create my own world. So, toiletry paper became my template in which I could create the micro world in which I lived. He said: “I compare today with the dreams, aspiration that we had in those days when we considered ourselves as the ones going to lift the continent to world standard and make it competitive anywhere. But that has not happened.”