Many Nigerian writers have taken to social media to vent their ‘unhappiness’ with the presidency over its reaction to Prof. Wole Soyinka’s faulting of the lockdown order of the federal government.
President Muhammadu Buhari, on Sunday, ordered the lockdown of Abuja, Lagos and Ogun States in a bid to curb the spread of coronavirus in the country.
But Soyinka in a statement on Monday wondered if the president has the power to order such lockdown.
The Nobel laureate called on constitutional lawyers and lawmakers to clarify the legality or illegality of the lockdown.
On Wednesday, the presidency, in a response by the president’s media aide, Garba Shehu, condemned Soyinka for criticising the president’s action, saying he has no professional expertise in the matter.
The statement partly read, “Perhaps Wole Soyinka may write a play on the coronavirus pandemic, after this emergency is over. In the meantime, we ask the people of Nigeria to trust the words of our doctors and scientists – and not fiction writers – at this time of national crisis.”
However, reacting to the presidency, a former secretary-general, Association of Nigerian Authors, B.M. Dzukogi, chided the presidency that it ought to know that “it is the same route for art and science.”
He said science merely confirms art through empirical studies, adding that they are not inferior to each other.
Dzukogi said, “Before science was art. Art led the way to science. It was not called science before now. It used to be natural philosophers (observers of nature). It is the same route for art and science: observation, speculation and explanation. Science merely confirms art through empirical studies. You don’t speak as if one is inferior to the other.”
On his part, a professor of Literature, Tanimu A.N. Abubakar, submitted that the question had been resolved in the 17th century by Francis Bacon.
Also known as Lord Verulam, Bacon was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and as Lord Chancellor of England.
His works argued for the possibility of scientific knowledge based only upon inductive reasoning and careful observation of events in nature.
