A claim made by former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, that Nigeria is more divided under President Muhammadu Buhari than ever before has resonated with Nobel Laureate and Activist, Prof. Wole Soyinka.
Soyinka broke his silence in a statement released on Tuesday entitled, “Between ‘Dividers-in-chief’ and Dividers-in-law,” saying, “we’re close to extinction.”
Recall Obasanjo had last Thursday said the country is slowly becoming a failed state and more divided under Buhari’s watch.
The New Diplomat had reported that in response, the presidency, in a statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Garba Shehu described Obasanjo as a ‘Divider-in-chief.’
But Soyinka who said he was not a fan of Obasanjo, following their cantankerous and quarrel-trading past, said he embraces “the responsibility of calling attention to any accurate reading of this nation from whatever source, as a contraption teetering on the very edge of total collapse.
“We are close to extinction as a viable comity of peoples, supposedly bound together under an equitable set of protocols of co-habitation, capable of producing its own means of existence, and devoid of a culture of sectarian privilege and will to dominate,” the renowned playwright said.
In parts, Soyinka statement read thus: “On Africa Day, May 2019, organised by the Union Bank of Africa, I similarly seized an opening to direct the attention of this government to warnings by the Otta farmer over the self-destruct turn that the nation had taken, urged the wisdom of heeding the message, even while remaining chary of the messenger. That advice appears to have fallen on deaf ears. In place of reasoned response and openness to some serious dialogue, what this nation has been obliged to endure has been insolent distractions from garrulous and coarsened functionaries, apologists and sectarian opportunists.
“The nation is divided as never before, and this ripping division has taken place under the policies and conduct of none other than President Buhari – does that claim belong in the realms of speculation? Does anyone deny that it was this president who went to sleep while communities were consistently ravaged by cattle marauders, were raped and displaced in their thousands and turned into beggars all over the landscape? Was it a different president who, on being finally persuaded to visit a scene of carnage, had nothing more authoritative to offer than to advice the traumatised victims to learn to live peacefully with their violators? And what happened to the Police Chief who had defied orders from his Commander-in-Chief to relocate fully to the trouble spot – he came, saw, and bolted, leaving the ‘natives’ to their own devices. Any disciplinary action taken against ‘countryman’? Was it a spokesman for some ghost president who chortled in those early, yet controllable stages of now systematised mayhem, gleefully dismissed the mass burial of victims in Benue State as a “staged show” for international entertainment? Did the other half of the presidential megaphone system not follow up – or was it, precede? – with the wisdom that they, the brutalized citizenry, should learn to bow under the yoke and negotiate, since “only the living” can enjoy the dividends of legal rights?”
