Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, has blamed the killings across Nigeria on the “failure” of President Muhammadu Buhari to “exact authority as at when due”. Soyinka lamented the cheapening of life under the lives of Nigerians under the Buhari-led government.
The Nobel laureate stated this at the official launch of his Interventions VIII series, entitled: “Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? (Who keeps watch over the watchmen?), Gani’s Unfinished Business,” at Freedom Park, Lagos on Thursday, August 2, 2018.
Soyinka said there were serious acts of mis-governance under the current administration, as there were lots of unforced errors being committed by Buhari.
There are acts of mis-governance under this administration. There are unforced errors and acts that are considered being stupid; failure to secure lives; languages of self-excusing, which were condemned in the past but resurfacing all over the place,” Soyinka said according to Vanduard.
He decried that the Buhari administration over “intolerable degrees of bloodshed” adding that there was “also, failure to exact authority when and as at when due which led to the killings.”
‘’There is cheapening of lives. The value of lives in the last year or so on is on a level we haven’t witnessed in the country for long time,” Soyinka said.
He called for the election of new generation of leaders to overhaul the system.
"This was one of the reasons it had become essential that we all embark on ground clearing for new generation of leaders and to make sure that in the process, we don’t bring back what we are just getting out from. That is one of the stupid acts that we could be held responsible by the coming generation,” he added.
Soyinka said an opportunity still exist for reforms and total overturn, saying whatever it would take to secure the nation and give the people a new sense of dignity and humanity, should be done.
The house in which Prof. Wole Soyinka lived on the campus of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife has been commissioned as a museum. The University authority honoured the Nobel Lauraete, Prof Wole Soyinka, with a museum named after him.
A storey building located in the heart of the university was the official residence of the playright as a lecturer in University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University.
The inauguration of the museum was part of the activities tagged “Ife festival of food and identity” by the Institute of Cultural Study of the university.
In his address at the occasion, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, represented by Mrs. Salamat Badru expressed the state gratitude to the university for the honor done to Prof. Soyinka, whom he described as the proud son of Ogun state.
He said:
“anything and everything Wole Soyinka simply excite us. Although Wole Soyinka goes beyond our state and indeed beyond the shores of Nigeria, nonetheless, we are pleased that he is one of those Nigerian figures that have helped to place our nation on the world map and, for the good reasons.”
“As for the Wole Soyinka museum, our association will go beyond today’s event. Ogun state will continue to identify and support this facility in a way that will guarantee its viablility and continued relevance and sustainability.”
Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has slammed the Nigeria Police Force, for seeking to stop the planned protest against government at all levels, by musician, 2Baba.
The Lagos Police Command and the Force Headquarters, Abuja, had “strongly advised” the musician to cancel the protests, scheduled to take place in Lagos and Abuja today, February 6th.
2Baba subsequently cancelled the protests on Saturday night, but his partners, Enough is Enough Nigeria, as well as other celebrities have decided to go on with the action.
Soyinka described the move by the police as undemocratic, “a deep embarrassment and a national shame”.
The article, which Soyinka sent to SaharaReporters read:
(On Saturday, February 4), the media offered the nation a space of relief when it carried the expected news of a mutual accommodation reached by the organizers of the demonstration planned for Monday February 6th. The theme in summary: public discontent with the state of the nation and its governance. From the beginning, the organizers had cited quite an extensive list of such areas of concern and demands for urgent attention.
To my personal consternation, (on Sunday) the same media countered that announcement with a stiff repudiation from the apex of the Police command – the office of the Inspector-General. It is such a huge disappointment, and a disservice to the cause of democracy, tolerance of dissent, and principle of inclusive governance.
An unnecessary but important reminder: the battle for the right of lawful assembly of citizens in any cause, conducted peacefully, has been fought and won several times over. It is time that this contest is gracefully conceded. It must be consolidated by its routineness as a choice of action at the front of any people’s democratic participation. This battle has been won legally, constitutionally, and even morally. It enjoys near global acceptance as one of the means of actualizing the protocols of a people’s Fundamental Human Rights.
It comes therefore as a deep embarrassment and a national shame that this latest attempt at denial of these protocols rears its head at a time when one of the largest gatherings of humanity is taking place in one of the former totalitarian states of Eastern Europe – Romania. Its size has been assessed as the largest in former Eastern Europe since the fall of the Berlin wall. It was triggered by the state attempt to water down the criminal code against corruption and has brought out hundreds of thousands of people into the streets and stadia, day after day, until the much-awaited announcement of the withdrawal of the obnoxious decree. This should resonate within the current Nigerian governance that has made the anti-corruption crusade its mantra.
The Police attempt to reverse the hands of the democratic clock is even more appalling at a time when open demonstrations are taking place all over the world against the policies of a recently elected president of the United States, whose democratic formula this nation allegedly serves as Nigeria’s adopted model.
Across numerous states of that federated nation, ongoing at this very moment, is the public expression of rejection of a president’s policy that has also pitted the Executive against the judiciary. We have heard of no preventive action by the police, nor arrests of demonstrators.
Again and again, efforts, both under military and civilian orders have been made to stifle the rights to freedom of expression by Nigerian governments – Buhari, Babangida, Obasanjo, Abacha, Jonathan… and now again, Buhari? These efforts have been, and will always be resisted. It is a moral issue, as old as settled humanity. It has been settled in other parts of the world. Nigeria cannot be an exception, not as long as her citizens refuse to accept the designation of second, even third-rate citizens.
I have sent a message to the Inspector-General of Police, through the Commissioner of Police, Lagos state, urging both to respect and safeguard the constitutional rights of the people. I hope that, even at this eleventh hour, legality and the democratic imperative will prevail. Finally, I shall be less than honest if I do not add the following, mostly directed as a warning to the very polity on whose behalf the democratic war is joined, again and again:
Minus a minuscule but highly voluble minority, mostly of pitiably retarded polluters of the common zones of public interventions, I do not know of any citizens of civilized community who do not subscribe to the fundamental Right of the Freedom of Expression in any form, as long as it is peaceful, and non-injurious to humanity. I would hate to conclude that the security agencies, or the government they serve, at this stage of national development and recent history, would choose to align themselves with such an unteachable minority.
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