₦airaland Forum

Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka has slammed President Bola Tinubu’s nationwide address to Nigerians regarding the ongoing protests across the country.

In a statement released on Sunday, Soyinka expressed his disappointment and concern over the government’s handling of the protests.

Soyinka noted that the presidential address outlined the government’s remedial actions since inception but fell short in addressing the way the protest was managed.

He condemned the use of live bullets and tear gas against peaceful protesters, describing it as a “retrogression” that takes the nation back to colonial-era acts of disdain.

Soyinka said, “I set my alarm clock for this morning to ensure that I did not miss President Bola Tinubu’s impatiently awaited address to the nation on the current unrest across the nation.

“His outline of government’s remedial action since inception, aimed at warding off just such an outbreak, will undoubtedly receive expert and sustained attention both for effectiveness and in content analysis. My primary concern, quite predictably, is the continuing deterioration of the state’s seizure of protest management, an area in which the presidential address fell conspicuously short.

“Such short-changing of civic deserving, regrettably, goes to arm the security forces in the exercise of impunity and condemns the nation to a seemingly unbreakable cycle of resentment and reprisals.

“Live bullets as state response to civic protest – that becomes the core issue. Even tear gas remains questionable in most circumstances, certainly an abuse in situations of clearly peaceful protest. Hunger marches constitute a universal S.O.S, not peculiar to the Nigerian nation. They belong indeed in a class of their own, never mind the collateral claims emblazoned on posters.

“They serve as summons to governance that a breaking point has been reached and thus, a testing ground for governance awareness of public desperation. The tragic response to the ongoing hunger marches in parts of the nation, and for which notice was served, constitutes a retrogression that takes the nation even further back than the deadly culmination of the watershed ENDSARS protests.

“It evokes pre-independence – that is, colonial – acts of disdain, a passage that induced the late stage pioneer Hubert Ogunde’s folk opera BREAD AND BULLETS, earning that nationalist serial persecution and proscription by the colonial government.”

Soyinka noted that the “nation’s security agencies cannot pretend unawareness of alternative models for emulation, civilized advances in security intervention”.

He said, “Need we recall the nationwide 2022/23 editions of what is generally known as the YELLOW VEST movement in France? Perhaps it is time to make such scenarios compulsory viewing in policing curriculum. In all of the coverage that I watched, I did not catch one single instance of a gun leveled at protesters, much less fired at them even during direct physical confrontations.

“The serving of bullets where bread is pleaded is ominous retrogression, and we know what that eventually proves – a prelude to far more desperate upheavals, not excluding revolutions.

“The time is long overdue, surely, to abandon, permanently, the anachronistic resort to lethal means by the security agencies of governance. No nation is so under-developed, materially impoverished, or simply internally insecure as to lack the will to set an example. All it takes is to recall its own history, then exercise the will to commence a lasting transformation, inserting a break in the chain of lethal responses against civic society.

“Today’s marchers may wish to consider adopting the key songs of Hubert Ogunde’s BREAD AND BULLETS, if only to inculcate a sense of shame in the continuing failure to transcend the lure of colonial inheritance where we all were at the receiving end. One way or the othetinubu’svicious cycle must be broken."

Massiveglory:
E bi like says the spirits of tbe land of Nigeria don slap pa soyinka to reset.

Never4getU:
As expected.. people from other side will come and throw mud now

lyndire:
The professor is alive!

SisterAnn:
Blind men all of you. What did he really say? This rubbish post is as tasteless as tinubu's speech this morning.
He never critiqued the failure of the speech to address the demands of protesters. He never acknowledged tinubu's failure in reassuring the citizens of his commitment to better things. Wolysco Yinka just needed to be seen as still having breath of life as many already adjudged him brain dead. You cannot talk while you are eating. Soyinka should continue eating.

VinnyBaba:
Na now Day Break?

He just spoke merely to remove SHAME from his head.

Massiveglory:
E bi like says the spirits of tbe land of Nigeria don slap pa soyinka to reset.

Massiveglory:
E bi like says the spirits of tbe land of Nigeria don slap pa soyinka to reset.

Mace0lane:
He was never dead he was just bidding his time to see if Tinubu know exactly what he was doing , if Tinubu meant well for the populace even with this message I believe he being a lot cautious not speaking directly to the failing of the Tinubu administration because no one knows what economic impact recovery or any possible verb is action my lead.

The long the evidence of Tinubu takes to materialize the more those supporting him will voice out concerns on such action this negates the extremely foolishness of the average Igbo obidient that want Tinubu condemned simply because they lost the election not minding is his action will have a y positive or negative action on the economy n the populace at large.

Massiveglory:
E bi like says the spirits of tbe land of Nigeria don slap pa soyinka to reset.