THE Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, has said that recurring herdsmen crisis may develop into a civil war if urgent steps are not taken by President Muhammadu Buhari to address it.

The Nigerian playwright, poet and essayist said this while speaking with BBC Pidgin in an interview on Saturday.

The 1986 Nobel Prize winner for Literature also said President Muhammadu Buhari’s silence on the ‘illegal’ activities of herders across Nigeria showed that he was complicit and not ready to stop criminal herdsmen.

President Buhari has been accused of not doing enough to tackle the menace of herdsmen across the country because he is Fulani and the grand-patron to the main herders’ association, Miyetti Allah.

“What do they expect of us now that the war is on our doorstep? Of course, there will be mobilisation and if we keep waiting for this to be centrally handled, we are all going to become, if not already, slaves in our land. That, to me, is personally intolerable. It is not an acceptable condition,” he said.

“And whatever it takes, I stand ready to contribute in any way and I have made my governor understand this, that we are here not just to live in but to live in dignity. Right now, our dignity is being rubbished. My forest is being taken over, it’s been shrinking, my normal hunting ground is shrinking. My family tells me that if I go in-depth again, they will have me institutionalised.”

Soyinka, in the interview, said Buhari’s first action in trying to find a lasting solution to the menace was for him to address the nation on how the situation would be addressed.

“Yes, I know I am the patron of the Cattle Rearers Association etc., and I am a cattle rancher myself and it is a business. And I do not run my business by killing people. I do not run my business by raping, by displacing, by torturing. I do not run my business by occupying land that does not belong to me… Whatever comes to you for illegal occupation, for trespassing on other people’s property is your business and I am ordering the army, I am ordering all the security forces to back citizens’ efforts in flushing you out.

“It is very late already, but it is not too late. This is a language that we expect from President Buhari and as much as that language does not come, I must consider him as quite complicit in what is going on because the buck stops at his desk.

“We may enter a phase of serious skirmishes which get more and more violent and may develop into civil war and a very untidy mercy one. That’s my biggest fear. Unless action is taken… I am very glad that the governors are coming together and are discussing in all seriousness. I’m happy they are pulling in groups like Miyetti Allah, obviously knocking some sense into the heads of their leaders and they are talking about accepting the decision of governors and agreeing to obey.”

The interview is coming days after Saleh Alhassan, national secretary of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, in an interview with Punch Newspapers, accused President Muhammadu Buhari of doing nothing for the Fulani herdsmen except to create enemies for them.

The Alhassan’s interview came on the heels of the controversy generated by Rotimi Akeredolu, Ondo State governor, who ordered herders to vacate the state forest reserves over rising insecurity in the state.

READ MORE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/herdsmen-crisis-may-develop-into-a-civil-war-soyinka/

But Buhari is seeing it as a game for now.

It has now become a serious issue because they've taken their terrors to South West, isn't it?

Had it been they were still operating in the North or even anywhere around South East, y'all would have kept mute, support and still worship them as usual. I truly do not care or feel pity with what they are doing over there.

NextD18:
It has now become a serious issue because they've taken their terrors to South West, isn't it?

Had it been they were still operating in the North or even anywhere around South East, y'all would have kept mute, support and still worship them as usual. I truly do not care or feel pity with what they are doing over there.

Ok

Mr Soyinka Buhari Would Never Accept He Is An Herdsmen And Start Calling His People To Order.
He Knows He Has Range For His Cattles And Cows So He Is Never Bothered If His People Are Threspassing Other's Territory.
Buhari Is Bent On Crippling Nigerian Youths Thats Why He Ban Cryto And The Rest So That We Can All Start Rearing Cow Because By So Doing We Wil Stop Attacking Fulani Herdsmen.

NextD18:
It has now become a serious issue because they've taken their terrors to South West, isn't it?

Had it been they were still operating in the North or even anywhere around South East, y'all would have kept mute, support and still worship them as usual. I truly do not care or feel pity with what they are doing over there.

Cry your own cry o. The Yoruba elders are already speaking out I don't know about yours.

Well,We in the south must unite to fight off herdsmen and also support our development as regions and nation's.
I don't think all this Yoruba-Igbo wars here on NL and social media is helping anyone.
But some paid BMC guys here can be irredeemable zombies as usual..

But who is going to fight this civil war

NextD18:
It has now become a serious issue because they've taken their terrors to South West, isn't it?

Had it been they were still operating in the North or even anywhere around South East, y'all would have kept mute, support and still worship them as usual. I truly do not care or feel pity with what they are doing over there.

Those people, _fucking cowards! If they had acted with boldness, Nigeria would not have been locked together like this. She would have been divided during the first Civil War.