‘Soyinka told me to prepare for war on my autobiography’ Akande

Nobel Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka foretold the controversies being generated by ‘My Participation’, the autobiography of ex-Osun State Governor Chief Bisi Akande. Akande, in his preface to the book, narrated how he met Soyinka in Glendale, California and he told him: “With that book, Bisi, be ready for war!” Soyinka, in his foreword to the book, said: “There are books whose very handling must be done with heavily insulated gloves since, virtually every page sizzles with contradictions between attestable reality and impudent claims, attempts to cover past crimes and dodge responsibilities. Not so, this contribution from the Wise One of Ila-Orangun. “If there is any sizzling, it is simply the fire of truth’s passion that leaps at the reader from between the covers. Akande’s fire prurifies, being a flame of illumination carried over from real life to brighten the pages of saga of service to Nigerian humanity.” Aside Soyinka, Ambassador Dapo Fafowora also observed that the revelations in the scripts might provoke litigations. “He quickly constituted a committee of our children: Oluwafemi Akande, Esq., Oyewole Akande, Esq, and Ayobamidele Akande, Esq who are lawyers to have a second look at my presentation of facts,” Akande wrote in the preface.

Among many revelations, Akande claimed that the nonagenarian Afenifere leader Chief Ayo Adebanjo’s Lekki home was built for him by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He also said President Muhammadu Buhari reneged on his promise to make Tinubu his running mate in 2015. He also had harsh words for former President Olusegun Obasanjo and ex-Deputy Governor Iyiola Omisore. He added that N-PDP members snatched the leadership of the National Assembly in 2015. The author also revealed how former Vice President Atiku Abubakar was nearly stopped from joining the then fledging APC by his former colleagues in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who had decided to team up with the new party in 2012 ahead of the 2015 elections.