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Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has backed former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s submission that the Boko Haram insurgency was no longer about lack of jobs for the youths, but a full-blown ‘Fulanisation’ of West Africa, Islamisation of Africa and globally organised crimes.
The renowned poet, who spoke at the 2019 United Bank for Africa (UBA) African Day with the theme, Africa’s History Redefined: Our Past, A Path To The Future in Lagos, noted that Nigeria was descending into a horrendous abyss and “we should act fast to save the situation. Those who expound history from our schools should be taken away from history.”
His words: “This country is undergoing a horrendous descent into abyss, spiritually, morally, ideally even in the thought system. We are watching a huge mass of people descend into a state of brutality in the like of which we have never experienced in this country. If you go into the street and you say Africa must unite, what a man on the street would say is Mr. leader first get my people from kidnappers’ den, then come back to talk about unity.”
He expressed worry over the future of the country, adding that Nigerian children were growing up truncated because of the lack of history in its schools’ curriculum.
“If we look back to history and see how we can re-introduce our existence without external help, we might find solutions to these horrendous issues whether its starvation, healthy, psychological sanity or liberation in the real sense of the word because right now, we are in many instances, re-colonised internally by a number of forces,” he added.
Obasanjo had made the remark at the 2019 Synod of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) in Oleh, Delta State.
However, panelists at the UBA event called on African leaders to work towards the unity of the continent.
Besides Soyinka, other eminent Nigerians that constituted the panel include Tony Elumelu, who doubled as chairman; Ayo Obe (moderator); Samia Nkurmah from Ghana; Femi Kuti (Nigeria) and Prof. Djibril Tamsir Niane (Guinea).
They stressed that no meaningful progress and development could be recorded on the continent in the absence of peace and unity.