Nigeria Is On The Brink Of Another Civil War -Soyinka

VIDEO: Nigeria Is On The Brink Of Another Civil War -Soyinka

Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has described the spate of insecurity in the country as a great cause for concern that should be addressed urgently, warning that the country is on the brink of a second civil war.

Professor Soyinka, at the Bola Tinubu Colloquium on Thursday, described the situation as alarming, calling for dialogue of all stakeholders before things spiral out of control. He also decried President Jonathan mien on the issue.

Mr. Soyinka particularly faulted the way President Goodluck Jonathan appears to be treating the threat posed by the Boko Haram insurgency.

“Let’s face it. This nation is on the brink. There are those who don’t understand this, who won’t accept this. I feel very sorry that they will wake up and find out that we have fallen over the brink. It is not what we envisaged during our struggle for independence,” Mr. Soyinka said.

“It is not what we envisaged when we struggled to overthrow dictatorship and install the rights and dignity of human beings and citizens in the society. But, whether we like it or not, it has come upon us.

“My problem with the government right now, especially the President of this nation, is that he doesn’t seem to realise it.

“He has not taken the people of this nation into confidence. By now, it is my belief that the President should be addressing the nation – and in great details – explaining why, if he agrees, that this nation is at war and that certain things have to be done to ensure that we pull back from this second round of what is moving towards a civil war. That, of course, is if he and his government accept this.

“By now, we should be tightening our belts in many different directions. By now, we should never have persuaded ourselves to see what is happening in the North as being confined in the North. It has been obvious all along that this is not a Northern affair alone; no!

“I read in the papers the other day that some cells have been found, trying to blow up Lagos. My reaction was what is new about that?, We have said this ages before on various lecture podia, that wait a minute, it is happening there, but believe me, it is happening every where.

“And this consciousness should have been imparted to Nigerian citizens from the very beginning, at least two years ago. So that everyone understands that the problem we are facing right now is not just regional. It is national, it is a humanistic problem.

“I remember the four horsemen of the apocalypse. I can’t remember precisely what they were, but I know they were plagues. There is the fifth. And it is called Boko Haram. That is the kind of language that the leadership of this nation should be imparting to Nigerian citizens today,” Soyinka said.

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