See Why Professor Wole Soyinka Rejected The Centenary Award

The Nobel laureate said he rejected Nigeria's
centenary award bestowed on him because of the
inclusion on the honours list of the late Nigerian
tyrant, General Sani Abacha and other known
killers and looters of Nigeria's treasury.


In a rejection note headlined "The Canonisation of Terror", Soyinka observed that the inclusion of Abacha on the list does not only show a failure of
a moral rigour but it calls into question "the entire
ethical landscape into which this nation has been
forced by insensate leadership".


He reminded those who have forgotten so soon
that General Sani Abacha was a vicious usurper under whose authority the lives of an elected
president and his wife M.K.O and Kudirat Abiola
were snuffed out.

It was under Abacha, he said, that assassinations
became routine, that torture and other forms of
barbarism were enthroned as the norm of governance.