“The Deceptive Silence of Stolen Voices” (January 2003) by Wole Soyinka has a plenitude of anecdotal evidence of electoral corruption, brutality and murder, handled by Soyinka in deliberately plain, baleful or excoriating prose: “[o]nly this Monday, the papers reported yet another act of murder [. . .] an aspiring Representative who was lured away by pretending supporters and bludgeoned to death. Women have not been spared, some have been shot”; or “[t]he constitutional right to two terms of office is not a mandatory sentence on the electorate” (emphasis added).
Dare Babarinsa's A House at War: The Story of Awo's Followers and the Collapse of the Second Republic (Spectrum Books, 2003) and Omo Omoruyi's testament about military government activities are starting points for Soyinka's consideration of electoral corruption and reform. “[B]ackwards as recollection” to the...
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Citation: McLuckie, Craig. "The Deceptive Silence of Stolen Voices". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 October 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=12864, accessed 05 December 2025.]
