Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka says President Muhammadu Buhari’s media aide Garba Shehu is a propagandist whose clear mission is to distract public attention from the complex issues of health.
Shehu had urged Nigerians to ignore Soyinka’s comments on the lockdown order declared by Buhari to curtail the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in the country.
The Nigerian leader locked down Lagos, Abuja and Ogun.
But Soyinka said in statement that Nigeria was not in a war, demanding answers on whether Buhari had such powers to declare lockdown.
However, Shehu, speaking on behalf of the Presidency, said Soyinka was not an authority in science and as such should not be taken seriously.
“Professor Soyinka is not a medical professor. His qualifications are in English literature, and his prizes are for writing books and plays for theatres. He is of course entitled to his opinions – but that is exactly all they are: semantics, not science. They cannot – and should not – therefore be judged as professional expertise in this matter in any shape or form,” Shehu said.
Responding on Thursday, Soyinka said Shehu was a paid propagandist doing the bidding of a clueless administration.
He said, “Mr, Shehu Garba failed to mention a most important profession in which I am confirmed: Alarmist. Unpaid. It’s a universal function of humanity even in the midst of the worst of crises.
“To save me the trouble of responding to the mind boggling irrelevances of paid errand voices, a professional colleague kindly sent me an affirmative article in the New York Times.
“You will understand that I cannot take issues with a propagandist whose clear mission is to distract public attention from the complex issues of health – both the physiological and the mental.”
