PHOTO:Wole Soyinka slams Buhari over Herdsmen, calls 'too slow'!!! LOL
According
to a media report, Nobel Laureate,
Professor Wole Soyinka following the steps of other prominent Nigerians, have
also given his voice to the helpless Nigerians being killed daily by senseless ‘herdsmen’.
In his address to the National
Conference on Culture and Tourism, Soyinka said the Buhari -led government have been too slow to nip the menace in the
bud, and if not careful, could snowball into something big even bigger than the
Boko Haram the country is currently facing .
Soyinka
said:
“I have yet to hear this government articulate
a firm policy of non-tolerance for the serial massacres that have become the
nation’s identification stamp.”
“I
have not heard an order given that any cattle herders caught with sophisticated
firearms be instantly disarmed, arrested, placed on trial, and his cattle
confiscated. The nation is treated to an eighteen-month optimistic plan which,
to make matters worse, smacks of abject appeasement and encouragement of
violence on innocents.
I have yet to
encounter a terse, rigorous, soldierly and uncompromising language from this
leadership, one that threatens a response to this unconscionable blood-letting
that would make even Boko Haram repudiate its founding clerics.
“When
I read a short while ago, the Presidential assurance to this nation that the
current homicidal escalation between the cattle prowlers and farming
communities would soon be over, I felt mortified.
“He
had the solution, he said. Cattle ranches were being set up, and in another 18
months, rustlings, destruction of livelihood and killings from herdsmen would
be ‘a thing of the past’. 18 months, he assured the nation. I believe his
Minister of Agriculture echoed that later, but with a less dispiriting time
schema.
“Neither,
however, could be considered a message of solace and reassurance for the
ordinary Nigerian farmer and the lengthening cast of victims, much less to an
intending tourist to the Forest Retreat of Tinana in the Rivers, the Ikogosi
Springs or the moslem architectural heritage of the ancient city of Kano. In
any case, the external tourists have less hazardous options.”
Recalling
with nostalgia how he – in the company of the late Segun Olusola – journeyed
across Nigeria in the pre-war 60’s, mostly out of curiosity,
Soyinka said: “But now, would the young
adventurous set out to visit the mystery caves of Anambra and its alleged
curative pools from mere interest?
“They
would think twice about it. It is not merely arbitrary violence that reigns
across the nation but total, undisputed impunity. Impunity evolves and becomes
integrated in conduct when crime occurs and no legal, logical and moral
response is offered.”
Narrating
his experience with cattle herders, right at his doorstep, recently,
he said: “I returned from a trip outside the
country about to find that my home ground had been invaded, and a brand-new
‘Appian way’ sliced through my sanctuary.
“That
‘motorable’ path was made by the hoofed invaders. Both the improvised entry and
exit are now blocked, but interested journalists are invited to visit.
“In
over two decades of living in that ecological preserve, no such intrusion had
ever occurred. I have no idea whether they were Fulani or Futa Jalon herdsmen
but, they were cattle herders, and they had cut a crude swathe through my
private grounds.
“I
made enquiries and sent alerts around, including through the Baale of our
neighborhood village. There has been no repeat, and hopefully it will remain the
first and last of such invasion. What it portends however is for all thinking
citizens to reflect upon, and take concerted measures against.”
His
words: The leadership of any society cannot stand idly and offer solutions that
implicitly deem the massacres of innocents mere incidents on the way to that
learning school.
“For
every crime, there is a punishment, for every violation, there must be
restitution. The nomads of the world cannot place themselves above the law of
settled humanity.”
Comments
Post a Comment