Prof Wole Soyinka: Soyinka condemns Buhari, El Rufai’s handling of Southern Kaduna killings.

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• Soyinka condemns Buhari, El Rufai’s handling of Southern Kaduna killings.
• I'm pro-Biafra -Soyinka.

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Soyinka condemns Buhari, El Rufai’s handling of Southern Kaduna killings

Written by Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief

~Vanguard Nigeria. Sunday, January 8, 2017.

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka has condemned the manner President Muhammadu Buhari and Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir el Rufai handled the mass killings in Southern Kaduna.

Indigenes of Southern Kaduna claimed that more than 800 innocent and defenceless people, mostly women, children and the elderly were brutally murdered and whole villages burnt down by suspected Fulani herdsmen without the state and federal governments doing anything concrete to stop them, until much havoc had been done.

He spoke at the launch of the book, Religion and the Making of Nigeria, in Abuja, Thursday.

His words, "Religion in the history of this continent has been a disastrous venture, a disaster in many zones and continues to be even so today. In this very nation in Southern Kaduna, over 800 souls were brutally extinguished suddenly while the issue of grazing lands versus farming is unquestionably part of the conflict, it is equally undeniable that religious differences have played crucial role in the conflict.

"And yet some weeks before the latest outrage, the governor of that state was quoted to have claimed that peace was nigh since he had sent funds to the earlier wave of killers and they had agreed to end their killing spree.

"What astonished me was not the admission by the governor but the astonishment of others at such governmental response to atrocity. There was nothing new about it. Has appeasement to religious forces not become a Nigerian face of justice and equity?

"First lethargy and then appeasement. Wasn't Boko Haram's Muhammed Yusuf not a beneficiary of appeasement in a similar fashion?

"Southern Kaduna has reminded us once again that the monster always lying waiting to pounce under the guise of religion.

"If you ask why General Buhari did not act fast enough when these events take place, which degrade us as human beings, well it is perhaps he has been waiting for the governor of that state to send money to the killers first for them to stop the killing."

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 I'm pro-Biafra -Soyinka
Written by Philip Nwosu
The SUN Nigeria. Friday, July 15, 2016

Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka

Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka has, again, explained his support for Biafran agitators.

Soyinka said the Igbo people have been so wronged that they have no choice than to consider opting out of Nigeria.

Prof. Soyinka spoke on Al Jazeera, yesterday where he shed light on his support for Biafra agitators.

"I am very much pro- Biafra because I recognise that the Igbo have been wronged desperately.

"They have been brutalised in a way that justifies their feeling that they were not part of the nation.

"Let me also say this, Biafrans are not entirely innocent in this affair. They were not, but the unleashing of such venom, such devastation on them as a people, was sufficient to justify their decision not to be part of the nation.

"I was pro-Biafran in the sense that I felt that they needed justice."

Soyinka denied he was a troublemaker, especially in the Biafran crisis, but added, "I grew up in certain circumstances being very conscious politically, in this very Abeokuta; my mother was involved in the politics, my aunt, Mrs. Funmilayo Ransome Kuti was a leader...


"I grew up among political arguments on issues that concern humanity and I find that basically gravitated towards recognising the basic worth of human beings.

"Something I disagree when they call me a patriot because I don't agitate on some certain entity called a nation; I agitate on humanity."

He criticised the removal of History and teaching of the Biafran crisis in schools.

"Officials do not want to confront their own history, especially the history in the making of which they feel uncomfortable but, if you do not confront your past, you are going to mess up your future."

On Boko Haram and the breakup of Nigeria, he said ironically, Boko Haram might be part of the reasons Nigeria may stay together.

Soyinka said a few years ago, he would have agreed that Nigeria would break, but, now that a section of the country is in trouble, there is some kind of pulling together. He added that the conscience of many Nigerian has been awakened such that they cannot abandon that section of the country.

He urged Nigerians to recognise the plurality of Nigeria, how it came together and begin to devise and adopt a method of governance which cannot only be of massive decentralisation. "That way, we can stay together. If we continue to have a centralist government, then, Nigeria is on the brink."