₦airaland Forum

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has advised the Federal Government to seek foreign assistance to end the killings in the country.

Soyinka gave the advice in Makurdi, the Benue State capital, as the 35th anniversary of Senator Suemo Chia’s novel, Adan Wade Kohol Ga, written in Tiv.

He said: “If the government cannot cope, it should not shy away from asking for international help.

“People are dying.
“This government cannot cope.
“Pease just ask for international help and I know they’re ready and willing to come to our aid.
“Instead of treating the country of its cancerous disease, rather it is ringworm that is being treated.
“The killings that are taking place in Benue and other states are targeted at ethnic cleansing and there is no any other word to describe it than that.”

Soyinka also faulted the narrative that the killer herdsmen were Libyans.

He asked: “Who brought them, who kept them and who funds them?”

The narrative was espoused by President Muhammadu Buhari when he met with President Donald Trump at the White House.

Soyinka said the fact that herdsmen “kill and occupy people’s communities” clearly “reveal their actual motive”.
He urged the Federal Government to give marching orders to the herdsmen that were occupying communities that were not theirs to vacate them in 48 hours.

He said: “We have to come together to probe the ugly situation so that the impunity which is going on in the country for long will stop.
“If the President had visited any community where lives were lost due to the killings perpetrated by the armed herdsmen and give warnings, the killings would have stopped since.”

According to Soyinka, the killings are sponsored by desperate politicians because of their selfish motives.

He said the killings are not sporadic but well-coordinated and the people behind the killings should be identified for prosecution.

He said the phenomenon was not new because it happened in Rwanda and other crisis-ridden countries “so Nigerians ought to have learnt from Rwanda to avoid the situation turning to an epidemic”.

The Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, thanked Soyinka for the solidarity visit, adding that he had told the world what the state was going through, particularly its security challenges.

Ortom said: “What is happening to us is not a hidden agenda because the herdsmen, through Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, had said at several fora that they want to take over the Benue valley.

“The attacks are also the continuation of the jihad, which was truncated by the Benue people in 1804.”

Ortom also deplored the latest case of the killing of people who attended the mass burial of two Catholic priests killed in the state alongside 17 other parishioners by herdsmen on Tuesday while returning home.

The burial took place at the Se Sugh Maria Pilgrimage Centre, Ayati, Gwer Local Government Area of the state.
Ortom said: “We will continue to demand for justice and believe that security agencies will live up to their responsibility by nipping the killings in the bud.”

Xscape1993:
He is one of my mentors before now. He has lost my respect already. This is a man I hold to a very high esteem, but one known drug baron and certificate forger he lost himself due trial sentiment...!

MadamExcellency:
Just like the people asked when King Saul was blown by the spirits. Is Wole Soyinka among the prophets?

Ortom said: “What is happening to us is not a hidden agenda because the herdsmen, through Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, had said at several fora that they want to take over the Benue valley.

Racoon:
The went to instigate the US to designate Nigeria CPC under the Obama administration. They belittle the Jonathan govt for involving SA mercenaries in decimating the terrorists the brought in.

Even this bigoted professor once advocated for foreign assistance. Today he is insulting Donald Trump. Today, everything evil they have ever did or supported have come back in full circle to hunt them

Gotocourt:
He's support his fellow brother

festacman:
Looking like at the end of the day, no matter how educated or exposed we are as Africans, our stomach and our tribes make us dumb.