Some people trying to use me to start tribal war —Soyinka

Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, in Lagos, on Tuesday, raised the alarm that some people are trying to use him to start a tribal war in the country.

This was as he castigated the social media on reportage of the wedding of his son, Tunlewa, to Nneka Ekechukwu, which took place in June.

Soyinka bared his mind at the Freedom Park, during the presentation of two books, “Between Defective Memory and the Public Lie” and “Green Cards, Green Gods,” under intervention six and seven series.

“There are people who think they can use me to start a tribal war in this country,” Soyinka said, recalling that such was not the first attempt as a lecture he delivered in Harvard two years ago was deliberately misreported to achieve such dastardly aim.

Soyinka, while condemning the reportage of the said wedding by the social media, said some people were trying to get at him by painting the wedding in bad light.

According to him, his son and Nneka had become victims of other people’s viciousness, querying whether it was a crime now for people to get married.

He decried the reports which put his son’s age at 20, marrying a 30-year old woman, describing it as a pure lie.

The Nobel laureate said “Tunlewa is 27 years old while Nneka is 26.”

Soyinka further accused the social media of concocting another lie that he refused to attend his son’s wedding in the first place and that he had to be persuaded to do so, describing the report as offensive.