₦airaland Forum

For weeks, many people have wondered where Nobel Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka stands on the accusation of genocide against Igbos by the Nigerian Government during the 1967-70 civil war leveled by Prof. Chinua Achebe in his war memoir, There Was A Country.

Well, Soyinka (shown in photo) has finally spoken his mind and, interestingly, he agrees with Achebe that Biafrans, the bulk of whom were Igbos, were victims of genocide during the war.

In an interview he granted Britain’s authoritative Telegraph, the Nobel Prize winner described Biafrans as “people who’d been abused, who’d undergone genocide, and who felt completely rejected by the rest of the community, and therefore decided to break away and form a nation of its own.”

In the interview published last Friday, the interviewer Peter Godwin asked: “Professor Soyinka, you’re not an ivory-tower kind of writer. You are not a stranger to danger, and in fact you’ve been imprisoned on at least two occasions, once in solitary confinement. Can you tell me what that was like?”

Soyinka’s reply: “Writing in certain environments carries with it an occupational risk. When I was imprisoned, without trial, it was as a result of a position I took as a citizen. Of course I used my weapon, which was writing, to express my disapproval of the (Biafran) civil war into which we were about to enter. These were people who’d been abused, who’d undergone genocide, and who felt completely rejected by the rest of the community, and therefore decided to break away and form a nation of its own. Unfortunately, the nature of my imprisonment meant that I couldn’t practise my trade because I was in solitary confinement for 22 months out of the 27, and I was deprived of writing material. So I had to somehow break through the barriers, smuggle in toilet paper, cigarette paper, scribble a few poems, pass messages outside. I was able to undertake exercises to make sure that I emerged from prison intact mentally.”

The interview, which centred of Soyinka’s speech delivered last week at the Hay Festival in Mexico, was entitled “If religion was taken away I’d be happy”. In it, Soyinka condemned religious militancy and declared that now is the time to tackle Boko Haram, the Islamic militants who have been fomenting trouble in Nigeria.

News Express recalls that Prof. Achebe in his war memoirs subtitled ‘A Personal History of Biafra’ accused wartime Head of State Gen. Yakubu Gown and his Vice-Chairman and Finance Minister, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, of carrying out genocide against Igbos. The claim has been generating a lot of controversy, with many Yoruba commentators accusing Achebe of twisting history.Source News Express

The Rivers State Command of the Nigerian Police Force has just announced the arrest of the wanted Prime Suspect in the killing of the Aluu 4. Coxson Lelebori Lucky, alias 'Bright', a student who owed the Aluu 4 some money had set them up to be killed by raising a false alarm to the community that they were armed robbers according to the police. He subsequently took to his heels when investigations confirmed his involvement in their barbaric murder. He was declared wanted yesterday and was arrested only hours ago in Port Harcourt.

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The Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Abubakar Ibn Umar Garbai El-Kanemi and the state's deputy governor had a close shave with death today as a suicide bomber detonated his bomb just meters from where both were.

The incident happened around 2:15pm, immediately after Friday prayers at the mosque in front of the Shehu's palace. Witnesses said a youth of about the age of 15 was noticed walking towards the two dignitaries.

However, the suspicious manner in which he was approaching them immediately drew the attention of the security men guarding the Shehu who quickly tried to shield him. In the process, the bomb went off, killing at least 10 other people in the vicinity and critically wounding two of the soldiers.

JTF spokesman in the state, Lt. Col. Sagir Musa confirmed the incident but said only 5 people were killed and 6 others, including the two soldiers, wounded by the blast.

SOURCE:DAILY TRUST

The area around the Shehu's palace has been cordoned off and more soldiers have been deployed to the scene.

More details soon.

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan today in Kaduna commissioned a bullet-proof vest production factory at the Defence Industry Corporation of Nigeria (DICON). Mr. Jonathan also visited Jaji under tight security.

Muhammadu Buhari has faulted the 2011 elections and warned of a likely revolution should there be any rigging in 2015 general election. What is your take on his statement?

Buhari said that he won the 2011 elections, and after the Supreme Court verdict, he said that his supporters were not allowed to vote in the southern part of the country, which means in the west, south-south and south-east. He also said that his supporters in the north were chased away by soldiers.

But the same Buhari won in Kano, Sokoto where soldiers were supposed to have chased away his supporters. He won in Kebbi, Zamfara, Jigawa, Yobe. He won in Nasarawa, Gombe. Yet he said his supporters were chased away. Then after being chased away, who won the election there? By his own submission that means INEC might have rigged the election for him since his supporters were chased away by soldiers.

Are you saying that Buhari is not a democrat going by his comments?

No, it is not the issue of being a democrat. It’s the issue of self-gratification, because what he is saying is beyond human comprehension.

How do you rig election, where we won he said there was no election.

Then how did we win? He won in the entire north yet he said he didn’t win, that his supporters were chased away, they were not voting him. So what is the purpose?

What is your interpretation of the Hausa idiom which Buhari used in his statement on 2015 elections?

Kare jini biri, jinni, this is Hausa proverb which simply means that if dog keeps on pestering the monkey, one day the monkey will fight back and both will sustain bloody injuries. Buhari has taken the Hausas hostage. He can’t go to the south and ask them to fight for him; he can’t go to the west and ask them to fight. Will Bakare fight for Buhari in the west? Will people in the east fight for Buhari because he loses an election? Even the Idomas, people from the middle belt will they fight for Buhari because he lost an election? Who are those he is asking to fight? The Hausas. So the rest of Nigeria is wishing us luck on how we are killing each other. From what he said it means Hausas should be killing one another. I don’t see any Igbo man dying because of Buhari, not even Tony Momoh the CPC chairman or Bakare the pastor, I don’t see them dying because Buhari did not win an election. Even the Yorubas cannot die for Buhari. He is asking the Hausas to kill one another.

How can Nigeria organise credible elections in future so that Buhari’s fears could be assuaged?

What is credible election by your own definition? In 2011 elections, there were three major candidates; we have Jonathan, Buhari and Ribadu. Are you saying that Ribadu won the election or that he was rigged out? Are you saying Buhari was rigged out of the election? And because they are scared of election. So the 2011 election would have been fair if Buhari had won the election, that’s the logic. Go to the south-south or go to Ihiala in the south east, ask them of Buhari, they will tell you that they don’t know him. We know Buhari as a coupist. These are facts. It is the Hausas in the north that are dying for Buhari and therefore, if you don’t support him you are dead, if you don’t vote for him they will lynch you because today we have become his prisoners. I want to see where a Birom man or Igbo man will say he wants to die for Buhari. If you are talking about a Nigerian president, then it will be for all Nigerians and he should have passionnationwide.

There is this agitation by kinsmen of President Jonathan urging him to contest in 2015 and that nobody can stop him. What is your take on that?

Those who are talking about Jonathan now have no idea how he became a vice president and how he became the president and what transpired within the governors to make him the president. So people are talking about Jonathan the finished product and not the raw material. And they are free to appropriate him, to localise him. Was that how he emerged, were they the ones who voted him, were they the ones who made him the VP. These people, who are now talking, were they the ones who made him the vice president, had they any input. When he became the president, had they any idea that he was going to run in 2011. We will not allow anybody to appropriate or create a local president for their own locality; we are looking for the Nigerian president. Not president of the Nigerian Hausas, the president of the Nigerian Yorubas, the president of the Nigerian Igbo, the president of the Nigerian Urhobos or the Munchis. We are looking for a Nigerian president whether Yoruba or Igbo.

Does Jonathan have these qualities you have mentioned?

Jonathan is a president of Nigerian consensus. Nigerians made him. Jonathan symbolizes Nigeria because he is a creation of all Nigerians across all divides. Jonathan is not the president of the Urhobos, Jonathan is Nigerian president and therefore nobody should appropriate him. Now whatever is going to happen by 2015 is going to be by the same Nigerian consensus.

Former vice president Atiku Abubakar said zoning was dead in PDP, is his views in line with the party’s manifestoes?

You see, democracy has a universal definition but then it has no universal application. The application of democracy is beyond the definition. When you are talking of zoning or no zoning, Nigeria is a democracy and should be able to apply democracy to her comfort. Zoning is a kind of mechanism. The application of zoning is based on the existing realities.