Soyinka Talks Tough, Says Herdsmen Have Declared War On Nigeria
Lekan Paul
Posted On Jan 11, 2018
Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has said that the incessant killing of hundreds of people and destruction of farmlands in Benue, Taraba, Nasarawa and across the country by Fulani herdsmen is a declaration of war on the country.
Soyinka, in a statement titled “Impunity Rides Again,” condemned the boastful use of weapons by the cattle rearers and the menace they have caused to the nation.
The Nobel Laureate cautioned President Muhammadu Buhari to avoid falling into the same trap former President Goodluck Jonathan fell into with the Boko Haram sect, insisting that his government would be held complicit over the actions of the herdsmen.
His words: “Boko Haram was still at that stage of putative probes when cries of alarm emerged. Then the fashion ideologues of society deployed their distancing turns of phrase to rationalize what were so obviously discernable as an agenda of ruthless fundamentalism and internal domination. Boko Haram was a product of social inequities, they preached – one even chortled: We stand for justice, so we are all Boko Haram!
“We warned that – yes indeed – the inequities of society were indeed part of the story, but why do you close your eyes against other, and more critical malfunctions of the human mind, such as theocratic lunacy?
Now it is happening again. The nation is being smothered in vaseline when the diagnosis is so clearly – cancer!”
Soyinka also reminded the Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, who blamed the recent killings to neglect of the past that the herders freely admitted their actions in the case of Benue State in 2016, but justified them by claims that they lost their cattle to the host community.
His words: “No, no, not so, Audu! It is true that I called upon the government a week ago to stop passing the buck over the petroleum situation. I assure you, however, that I never intended that a reverse policy should lead to exonerating or appearing to exonerate mass killers, rapists and economic saboteurs.
