Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has reacted to the recent gale of defections that hit the All Progressives Congress,APC .
The ruling party has lost over 50 top members within one week, with the most recent being the defection of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Governor Ahmed Abdulfatah of Kwara and Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State have also announced their defection.
Reacting, Soyinka said he did not “believe anyone who decides to leave a party should be crucified for making such decision.”
The playwright said this at the presentation of his new book in Lagos “Who Is Watching The Watchmen?” on Thursday.
He also faulted some of the events that played out in Benue State recently, especially the reactions that trailed the defection of Governor Samuel Ortom.
According to him, he wrote a letter to Ortom where he made his position on the governor’s defection clear.
He said: “My position is clear on the challenges facing your state. As the leader of a state that experienced attacks, you have a right to seek the promise of an alternative means of security for your people because they remain your primary responsibility.
“We are all free over the actual choice of an alternative destination but no one can deny the inalienable entitlement to such action, especially when they are provoked by disillusionment and sense of impotence under existing association.
“I am not campaigning for any party. That is my position on those that leave their party to another. They do it for all kind of reasons. And I do not believe that Ortom, the governor of one of the states, should be crucified by any power or force for taking decision.’’
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