Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has admonished those alleging that he forged his academic records to come forward with evidence and substantiate their claims.
Soyinka issued the admonition on Friday in a statement titled “A Moral Call to Amoral Conscripts”, after an online publication (not Within Nigeria) called into question the authenticity of his academic records.
The literary arbiter asked those behind the allegation of his purported fraudulent academic documents to submit all evidence to the EFCC, ICPC and the Directorate of Prosecutions.
He asked the accusers to submit their proofs within 30 days for investigation, adding that he will strip himself of all the titles and honours that had been bestowed on him over the years if found guilty of the allegation.
Soyinka disclosed that the documents being circulated by his traducers were also used by former Nigerian dictator, General Sani Abacha, to discredit him in the 90s.
Read the full statement below.
“A document of unmatchable scurrility, last encountered during General Sani Abacha’s global campaign of calumny against opponents of his despotic, infernally venal and homicidal reign, is back in circulation. Duly modified to suit a debased internet culture, it is making its grimy rounds ironically under the auspices of a democratic political party, supposedly dedicated to an ethos of freedom of opinion and expression. The contents of that script are attributed, as before, to the scholastic industry of a Bristol schoolteacher.
“While awaiting a decision from my lawyers whether or not to dignify the current sponsors of this mouldy tract with legal action, I wish to state in advance that I voluntarily waive all protection under the statute of limitations, and insist that the laws that govern fraudulent academic claims be invoked and applied to these allegations to the uttermost limit. I also declare, in advance that, if found culpable, I shall strip myself of any titles and honours I may have garnered in my entire career, from the most obscure to the most coveted.
“In return, I expect the purveyors of this sordid material to submit all evidence, however minuscule, to the nation’s investigative agencies – Directorates of Prosecutions, EFCC, ICPC, plus affected institutions and others – within the next thirty days. Failing this elementary service in public interest within the stated time, and/or If such allegations are yet again proven baseless, thus indicating that their sponsors can boast of neither honours to their careers nor honour to their births and origins, then, as a token of moral recompense, they should undertake to jump off the bridge of the symbolic River Niger, provided with life jackets to ensure a life of remorse after this ritual purgation, but chained to one another in a commendable unity of purpose.
“This is being copied to the Academic Staff Union of Nigeria, Pan-African Writers Association, Accra, Nigeran Association of Authors, the Nobel Foundation, Stockholm, the University of Leeds, the alleged Bristol Primary Source and his school, and the infested media.”