Professor Wole Soyinka Announces That He Has Forgiven Former Military Head Of State, Yakubu Gowon, But Can Never Forgive Those Who Lied Against Him

Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has said that he has since forgiven former Military Head of State, Yakubu Gowon, Page 36 learnt.

Gowon, while serving as Head of State in 1967, arrested Soyinka, and locked him up in a confinement, when the Civil War started.

However, the Nobel Laureate told Channels Television on Thursday, that he holds nothing against Gowon, and has since forgiven him.

His words: “We (Gowon and I) communicate whenever possible, he came for my birthday in Abeokuta here. And when he started to apologise, he made a public apology, I said there is no need for it. The war, for me, is over.”

Wole Soyinka, however, said that the “ones I find difficult to forgive, are those who lied against me. I do not like liars; I just cannot stand liars”.

Speaking more on his relationship with Gowon, he recounted how the former Head of State even asked a former Ambassador to locate “me, so that anytime he was passing, I was in Europe and America then, so we could meet and talk.

“And I said, ‘any time’, but there is really nothing much to talk about.”

He added that when himself and Gowon later met at a Conference, they talked about the Nigerian Civil War.

“We hit it on very well, and we joked. The ice was broken, and since then, we have been friends.”

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