Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka has berated President Muhammadu Buhari for threatening to deal with those burning public buildings and calling for insurrection in the “language they understand” as regards the Nigerian Civil War.
Soyinka said in a statement on Friday that although he does not hold brief for arsonists and killers whom the president was referring to, he did not think it was appropriate to make reference to the war.
He said, “When, however, a Head of State threatens to ‘shock’ civilian dissidents, to ‘deal with them in the language they understand’, and in a context that conveniently brackets opposition to governance with any bloodthirsting enemies of state, we have to call attention to the precedent language of such a national leader under even more provocative, nation disintegrative circumstances. What a pity, and what a tragic setting, to discover that this language was accessible all the time to President Buhari, where and when it truly mattered, when it would have been not only appropriate, but deserved and mandatory!
“When Benue was first massively brought under siege, with the massacre of innocent citizens, the destruction of farms, mass displacement followed by alien occupation, Buhari’s language – both as utterance and as what is known as ‘body language’ – was of a totally different temper. It was diffident, conciliatory, even apologetic. After much internal pressure, he eventually visited the scene of slaughter. His language? Learn to live peacefully with your neighbours. The expected language, rationally and legitimately applied to the aggressors, was exactly what we now hear – ‘I shall shock you. I shall deal with you in the language you understand’.
“That language was missing at the moment that mattered most. It remained ‘missing in action’ for years until a belated ‘Shoot at sight’ outburst. Too late, and of course, inappropriately phrased. The precedent had been set, the genie let out of the bottle, consolidating a culture of impunity that predictably spread its bloody stain all over the nation.
“Buhari’s recent deployment of this language is thus wrongly targeted, and tragically untimely.”
Soyinka affirmed that “the nation is already at war” and that the consequences could outweigh those of the 1967-70 civil war.
The nobel laureate revealed he secretly met with a former national security adviser in London over the security challenges in Nigeria.
“My mission was straightforward – to let him know that the nation was under siege, that the nomadic herdsmen that then threaded the forests were of a different breed from those whom we normally encountered in that environment that was also close to second home to some of us. We met. That National Security Adviser assured me that the military was aware of this, and that his mission to the United States was to negotiate the purchase of spotter planes to patrol the forest routes. I retreated, satisfied, to my normal preoccupations. No, not entirely true – I did take other supplementary steps internally, including meetings with high level state officials in the West,” he said.
