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Lagos At 50: Soyinka debunks media reports

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka says claim in some quarters that the Lagos at 50 celebrations will run for 365 days is dishonest and a dangerous trend.

Soyinka, who is the Co-chairman of the Lagos at 50 Celebration Planning Committee, denounced reports in the media that the celebration would run for 365 days.

Speaking at a news conference in Lagos on Wednesday, Soyinka the celebration was a series of socio-cultural and political events lined up by the Lagos State Government to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the creation of the state.

The Nobel laureate told newsmen that some group of people had put out a paid advertorial in newspapers with misleading information about the scope of the “Lagos at 50” celebration.

He said the claim being laid against the celebration that it would run on each day for a whole year was “dishonest” and a “dangerous trend,’ saying there was no time the planning committee put out information that events for the celebration would run for everyday for a year.

“If Governor Ambode wanted to celebrate the whole year round, I’ll carry a placard and ask for him to be impeached,” he said.

Soyinka added that rather than spread falsehood about the scope of the celebration, people should wait until events were proposed and advertised.

“We have our projections and we have asked the government to tell us what they think,” he said.

He also said that the opposition to the composition of the committee might be as a result of the wrong insinuation that the committee had “a pot of gold” from which to celebrate the whole year round, explaining that apart from funds provided for the inauguration of the committee, no fund had been disbursed to the committee so far.

He said part of the job of the committee was to help raise funds for the celebration, assuring that the operations of the committee would be done with utmost transparency.

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