Yoruba socio cultural group, Afenifere, says Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka’s opinion that the herdsmen crisis in the Southwest may lead to another civil war is correct. The National Publicity Secretary of Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin, made this known while speaking with media men.
Soyinka had said, “We may enter a phase of serial skirmishes which may get more and more violent and develop – I hate to use the word – may develop into a civil war and a very untidy and messy one at that. That is my biggest fear.” Oyo and Ondo states have been in the eye of the storm lately over security challenges and the moves to check the activities of killer herdsmen.
A popular Yoruba rights activist, Sunday Adeyemo, well known as Sunday Igboho, had issued a seven-day notice to quit to herdsmen accused of crimes in the Ibarapa area of Oyo and enforced same.
Governor Rotimi Akerdolu of Ondo State also said herdsmen must register with the state government or vacate the state forest reserves. When asked whether the Nobel Laureate and others with similar comments were beating the drum of war, the Afenifere spokesman said, “The Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, is (well-) known. You cannot say that he is beating the drum of war or he is an alarmist. People are painting the reality that is on the ground. If what is happening in the South-West today, let’s say some Yoruba boys had gone to do one per cent of that in the north, there would have been a war in this country by now. Mr Soyinka said Sunday Igboho had responded to the herders crisis “in the way he knew best.”
It will be recalled that the Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, has said President Muhammadu Buhari’s silence on the ‘illegal’ activities of herders across Nigeria shows that he is complicit.
Mr Soyinka said he wonders why Mr Buhari has failed to address the nation especially as the buck stops at his desk. He said the current situation particularly across the country, particularly in the Southwest, may develop into a civil war.
The Professor of Comparative Literature and Nobel Prize winner for Literature in 1986 disclosed this while speaking with BBC pidgin.
He pledged to support whatever decision is taken to secure people’s rights to live in dignity. “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.
“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 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.”
In his interview, Mr Soyinka said the first solution to the recurring menace is for Mr Buhari to address the nation on the level on insecurity and the way forward.
He noted that the president should say openly “that 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 and I am warning a business people in the food commodity, all cattle reared, 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.”
Mr Soyinka said he expects nothing else at this stage from Mr Buhari than the statement he suggested.
“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 head of their leaders and they are talking about accepting the decision of governors and agreeing to obey