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You Can’t Defeat B’Haram By Sitting In Aso Rock – Soyinka To Buhari
- Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has called for a national mobilisation to combat the menace of insecurity bedevilling the country.
Soyinka also said Nigeria’s sovereignty had been taken away by Boko Haram terrorists, bandits and other criminal elements.
In a direct reference to President Muhammadu Buhari, the Nobel laureate said the President could not end the country’s insecurity challenge, sitting down in Aso Rock.
Soyinka stated this on Saturday while featuring on an Arise TV programme monitored by Sunday PUNCH.
According to him, Nigeria has reached the “stage of desperation”.
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The government should be willing to “pay people to come and help us” in defence against Boko Haram insurgents, bandits, and other criminal elements.
Soyinka said, “There are those on whose shoulders must be placed the primary responsibility and that include some former Heads of State who refused to see the inevitability of what we are going through right now.
“I am very glad that the northern elite is now speaking up, boldly and practically, (and are also) now taking measures which they should have taken years ago.
They’ve moved beyond the unbelievable policies of actually paying killers to stop killing.
“You don’t appease evil, and we are dealing with evil; there is no other word, we are dealing with the proliferation, the enthronement of evil in society.
And unfortunately, we have encouraged its manifestation, its proliferation, its entrenchment.
“So, let them get away with the issue of sovereignty.
If they have to pay people to come and help us, then call them whatever you want.
“But I will prefer a general mobilisation in which people are trained, farmers especially are trained to work with the hoe in one hand and the gun in the other hand, ready to protect their lives, their harvests and the rest of us.
“We are not unique; history is full of those situations. I would like to see a national mobilisation. Let’s be practical.”
The PUNCH had earlier reported that at least 43 rice farmers were beheaded by Boko Haram terrorists in Borno State last November.
Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum, had consequently urged the Federal Government to engage mercenaries and the militaries of neighbouring countries, like Chad and Cameroon, to crush the over decade-old Boko Haram insurgency.
Soyinka added, “From a self-protective point of view, it is a common problem; it is a national, collective issue.
Don’t just sit there and think that you can solve it from Aso Rock; no.
So, it’s a collective issue. I’m not surprised some governors now say let us reach outside help; I have also said something.
Soyinka’s statement comes two weeks after the Bishop of Sokoto Catholic Diocese, Mathew Kukah, also accused the President of nepotism.
Meanwhile, Soyinka also warned that the Western Nigeria Security Network, otherwise known as Amotekun, must not transform into another form of the disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad.
The writer said Amotekun operatives must be trained in ethics to not end on the wrong side of history.
Soyinka said, “Community policing, like Amotekun, is a recognition of the fact that the civic part of the entire national polity has got to wake up in not just its defence but also survival.
“I have told them that anytime they want us to come and assist; we will come even if it is just on the ethical session so that as you are training them to defend us, we are also training their minds so that Amotekun does not become another SARS – very important. We must do everything together.
“It is about time the public examined itself; what are we made up of?
There is no excuse for the brutality that occurred in the wake of the noise, rumour or reality of people being shot at the Lekki tollgate.”
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