Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, says the audio file which
purportedly captured some Peoples Democratic Party leaders
giving orders to a general to rig the June 21, 2014
governorship elections in Ekiti State must be investigated by
the Independent National Electoral Commission and the
Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences
Commission.
Soyinka said this in a statement while reacting to a front page
advert in the PUNCH sponsored by Ekiti State Governor,
Ayodele Fayose, in which the governor discredited the
authenticity of the tape based on a report by the US that the
Ekiti governorship poll was transparent.
The playwright said the issue was too weighty to be
dismissed without being investigated.
He said since Fayose had referenced the US report, the
Federal Government could also call on the US to assist in
investigating the tape.
Soyinka said no one would lose anything by investigating the
tape since it was the job of law enforcement agencies to
investigate matters of state.
He said, “For those who have nothing to hide, disrobing lies
and forgeries and reinforcing truth is regarded as part and
parcel of the obligations we owe democracy. The audio could
well be one of such forgeries. We are daily inundated with
allegations, evasions, distortions, image plundering and image
laundering, all under the permissive canopy of electoral
proceeding.
“Once in a while, however, we encounter exposure of an
exceptional dimension that appears to strike at the very root
of democracy, questions the validity of an entire electoral
system and even erodes confidence in the integrity of the
state. Such an event need not be regarded as a repudiation of
the formal mechanics put in place by an electioneering agency
such as INEC, but nonetheless extends the scope of its
responsibilities, including its projection of looming hazards of
future electoral exercises.
“This is why, in the absence of a Constitutional Court or its
equivalent, one is left with no other course than to call on
INEC to also take formal charge of the recorded incident of
this alleged conspiracy to pervert the course of democracy.
For those ‘who have nothing to hide,’ it is a call that deserves
unstinting support. They should not hesitate to assist in
calling on the same US expertise to assist us in exposing a
forgery.
“We are speaking here of a development that implicates not
only products, beneficiaries or would-be constitutional
guardians of the electoral process – that is, an elected
governor, a governorship aspirant, but also state agencies –
the military, two serving ministers – that is, members of the
Executive arm of government, one of them in charge of the
nation’s defence portfolio – and others.
“In addition to the logical role of the police, the nation’s
electoral commission should undertake an independent
investigation and make its findings known to the nation. Is
this perhaps something INEC can undertake while the nation
waits out its suspended electoral sentence? It only requires
repudiation – or validation – of the findings of an already
advanced forensic enquiry.”