Wole Soyinka, Africa’s first
Nobel laureate, has described the current clash between herdsmen and farmers as
history repeating itself.
In 2018 alone, over 80 people
have been killed across Benue state, with Kaduna also recording deaths from
herdsmen crisis.
In an article released on
Wednesday, the scholar likened the situation to what happened with Boko Haram
during the Goodluck Jonathan administration.
He called on President Muhammadu
Buhari to act and save lives.
LIVING IN DENIAL
According to Soyinka, President
Muhammadu Buhari and his government are in denial like former President
Goodluck Jonathan refused to accept that schoolgirls had been kidnapped from Government
Secondary School, Chibok, Borno state.
Jonathan had first thought that
the reports of the kidnap of 276 girls were not real. It took two weeks for him
to act.
“President Muhammed [sic] Buhari
and his government – including his inspector-general of police – in near
identical denial, appear to believe that killer herdsmen who strike again and
again at will from one corner of the nation to the other, are merely
hot-tempered citizens whose scraps occasionally degenerate into “communal
clashes”
“The marauders are naughty
children who can be admonished, paternalistically, into good neighbourly
conduct. The sustained, killing monologue of the herdsmen is what is at issue.
It must be curbed, decisively and without further evasiveness.
“Yes, Jonathan only saw ‘ghosts’
when Boko Haram was already excising swathes of territory from the nation space
and abducting school pupils. The ghosts of Jonathan seem poised to haunt the
tenure of Mohammed Buhari.”
‘COW’S LIFE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS’
Soyinka said Nasir el-Rufai,
governor of Kaduna state, claimed to have traced herdsmen to locations outside
Nigeria and paid them “reprisals for some ancient history and the loss of
cattle through rustling” to cure their “homicidal urge.”
The brilliant writer said at the
time el-Rufai’s comment was: “No life is more important than another” but at
the moment, the statement “needs to be adjusted, to read perhaps – apologies to
George Orwell: ‘All lives are equal, but a cow’s is more equal than others’.
Soyinka faulted the “clamorous
absence” the Buhari administration.
“I could only call to mind a
statement by the same El Rufai after a prior election which led to a rampage in
parts of the nation, and cost even the lives of National Youth Service corpers.
They were hunted down by aggrieved mobs and even states had to organize rescue
missions for their citizens,” Soyinka said.
“Countering protests that the
nation owed a special duty of protection to her youth, especially those who are
co-opted to serve the nation in any capacity.”
WE MIGHT BE INVITING STARVATION
The ‘Lion and the Jewel’ writer
said the current situation is promising the plague of starvation that affected
some countries in Africa where farmers were expelled from their farmlands.
“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 – saboteurs, since their conduct subverts the efforts of
others to economically secure their own existence, drives other producers off
their land in fear and terror,” he said.
“This promises the same plague of
starvation that afflicts zones of conflict all over this continent where
liberally sown landmines prevent farmers from venturing near their prime
source, the farm, often their only source of livelihood, and has created a
whole population of amputees.”
HERDSMEN HAVE DECLARED WAR ON NIGERIA
While commending Audu Ogbeh’s
vision of creating ranches and cattle colonies, Soyinka sad the present
national outrage is about how they are getting away with their actions.
“It rejects the right of any set
of people, for whatever reason, to take arms against their fellow men and
women, to acknowledge their exploits in boastful and justifying accents and, in
effect, promise more of the same as long as their terms and demands are not
met.
“In plain language, they have
declared war against the nation, and their weapon is undiluted terror. Why have
they been permitted to become a menace to the rest of us? That is the issue!”
IPOB DIDN’T COME THIS FAR
He said while the government was
quick to declare the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) a terrorist organisation,
it has treated the killings by the herdsmen like they are “the norm.”
The Nobel laureate wondered why
President Muhammed Buhari “appears to believe that killer herdsmen who strike
again and again at will from one corner of the nation to the other, are merely
hot-tempered citizens whose scraps occasionally degenerate into ‘communal
clashes”.
“I am not aware that IPOB came
anywhere close to this homicidal propensity and will to dominance before it was
declared a terrorist organization. For the avoidance of doubt, let me state
right here, and yet again, that IPOB leadership is its own worst enemy”he said.
“However, as we pointed out at
the time, the conduct of that movement, even at its most extreme, could by no
means be reckoned as terrorism.
“By contrast, how do we
categorize Myeti? How do we assess a mental state that cannot distinguish between
a stolen cow – which is always recoverable – and human life, which is not?”
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