By Seyi Odewale
Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, has queried the Federal Government’s selective decisions of leaving out some pressure groups and banning others perceived to be threatening the corporate existence of the country.
Soyinka, who expressed this view in a pre-recorded interview aired on the Channel Television’s NewsNight yesterday said the Federal Government was being selective in its approach to insecurity ravaging the nation, adding that the motive of the insurgents goes beyond mere apathy to western education, but incursion and illegal occupation of territories, which are being resisted by the owners.
He said, “The idea that you can unleash terror on me because you want my little patch of territory or you want my soul, that is, you want to subjugate me, you want to turn me into a slave. Well, I would sort that out first.”
According to him, the government could not take decisive steps against some socio-cultural tribal groups that were heating the polity that led the nation to experience the parlous state of insecurity the country has been through in recent times.
He wondered why the government was yet to ban the Fulani cattle group, Miyetti Allah, while it had long proscribed the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a group seeking the secession of the South-East from Nigeria.
According to him, Nigeria must always put the country’s history in perspective to understand its security challenges, noting that each grievance will automatically have an opposite reaction from those aggrieved.
He said, “Whether the outrage is taking place in Benue, in Kaduna, or is taking place in Owo. Or whether it is taking place right here on the (Ogun State) border – we’ve been subjected also to this lunacy, of the subjugation mentality, which some minority people hold. And I find it very difficult to accept to be chased out of my entitled portion of the earth.”
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“Many people just either do not know the history or do not understand the purpose of history. And then there’s a different group also who are very selective about history; they know how to distort or misuse history.”
Soyinka cited an example of the Fulani herdsmen’s incursion into other people’s territories and the Miyetti Allah’s justification of the act. “Take for instance when the incursion of the Fulani herdsmen began, and the Miyetti Allah, their spokesman said, I think it was in Borno, we once ruled this place, and we can take back our land anytime we want. I remember that statement; I’ve never forgotten,” he said.
He averred that people’s loss of sense of history, lack of it or their being selective has been largely responsible for the intractable insecurity ravaging the country. “During the trauma of these people, somebody comes gloating and then citing selective portions of history. I said this person should be arrested and locked up, who says he wants to repeat his history of conquest – he’s admitting either knowledge, before or after, or support, anyway.
He, however, asked if there was still a law against hate speech, which has been largely responsible for the way Nigerians live together. “Isn’t there anything like hate speech anymore? Why are you proscribing IPOB without proscribing Miyetti Allah?” he asked.
