Following the denial by Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka that he never made the disparaging comment about the Igbo as widely reported, the originator of the news, online news portal – TheCable, has tendered an unreserved apology.
Soyinka was quoted by the news platform while delivering a lecture titled ‘Predicting Nigeria, Electoral Ironies’ at Harvard University Hutchins Centre for African and African American Research in the United States last week, as describing Igbos as people who vote based on their stomach and suffer from incurable money mindedness.
The report also claimed he described the voting pattern in the South East geo-political zone during the last general elections as politically naïve.
In a terse statement on Wednesday, the Nobel Laureate while rejecting the ‘despicable concoction’ vowed to take further action once the source of the news item is verified.
Read the statement signed by management of Cable Newspaper below:
“The management of Cable Newspaper Ltd, publishers of TheCable, would like to make the following statement concerning our report on the lecture by Professor Wole Soyinka at the Harvard University Hutchins Centre for African & African American Research.
“Soyinka was quoted to have made derogatory remarks about the Igbo over their voting pattern in the March 28 presidential election. He has since denied the offensive quotes attributed to him.
“After an in-house investigation, we have come to the conclusion that the story misrepresented the views expressed by Soyinka in the question-and-answer session after his lecture.
“We take full responsibility for the inaccuracy and promise that we will continue to strive to improve our standards.
“Also, we wish to reiterate that we take our professional responsibilities very seriously, as our readers can attest to. We hereby offer an unreserved apology to Soyinka, Ndigbo and our readers”.
