He advised the NIM to be vigilant in guarding its own identity.
“Prowling around you already are those recurrent interlopers whose sole aim is to hijack your efforts or infiltrate your rank with their stooges,” Soyinka said in his speech read by NIM’s DG Wale Okunniyi at the national summit of the movement in Abuja on Wednesday.
The literature professor described the hijackers as experienced spoilers who are part and parcel of the very predicament NIM is trying to alleviate.
He warned that such politicians should not be allowed to join the NIM.
The movement was co-founded by a former Nigerian Bar Association President Olisa Agbakoba and Abduljalil Tafawa-Balewa in February.
But it has been sucked into the Nigerian Coalition Movement founded about the same time by former President Olusegun Obasanjo who was in office for the first eigth years of the PDP’s 16-year rule in Nigeria.
Obasanjo early in February roiled up the APC government by publishing a 13-page missive detailing the failures and marginal successes of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
He emphasised the need for a third force that will muscle out the ruling APC and the opposition PDP.
The third force revolves atound him.
The Coalition, as it’s known, has been recruiting scores of old politicians, presidential wannabes, and hundreds of Obasanjo’s yesmen since its launch in February.
Soyinka, referring to some geriatrics suffering from “Messianic complex”, said these old politicians like to distort history in their desperate need to blur out their past roles in ruining the nation.
“They are adept at distorting history in order to acquire a false, sanitised identity,” he said, adding they will do anything to remain in power directly or indirectly.
“Judgment awaits them and the present should not grant them space,” he said.
However, Agbakoba (SAN) said the movement’s pre-occupation is the 2019 election—where it hopes to displace the two dominant parties.
“If you agree, it means we will be leaning on ourselves heavily. We cannot do it alone,” he told the audience at the summit.
His counterpartTafawa-Balewa also emphasised the fact that the more they are, the merrier, noting the movement is open to persons of like minds.
According to Agbakoba, the target of the NIM in 2019 is the 30 million Nigerians between the ages of 18 and 40.
While he admitted it’s going to be a rough fight to displace the biggies, he still believes Nigeria breaking free is possible.
He compared Nigeria with a big company which has 200 million shareholders, but less than 1,000 are active.
“The people holding you bondage are not many. So, we have to break this bondage by participating in the affairs of this nation,” the lawyer said.