Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has disclosed how he warned a former National Security Adviser on the potential threat posed by the influx of strange nomadic herders in Nigeria.
Speaking, Soyinka berated President Muhammadu Buhari over his controversial comment to ‘shock’ insurrectionists and vandals of electoral commission offices.
“Many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Nigerian Civil War. Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand,” Mr Buhari said, while warning against vandalism.
The statement, which many suggested to be a subtle threat of ‘genocide’, has been deleted by Facebook and Twitter, two social media giants, who claimed it violated their rules.
The federal government on Friday reacted angrily by suspending the operations of Twitter in Nigeria.
Reacting to the suspension order, Soyinka said the president should be called to order.
“When, however, a Head of State threatens to “shock” civilian dissidents, to “deal with them in the language they understand”, and in a context that conveniently brackets opposition to governance with any bloodthirsting enemies of state, we have to call attention to the precedent language of such a national leader under even more provocative, nation disintegrative circumstances.
“What a pity, and what a tragic setting, to discover that this language was accessible all the time to President Buhari, where and when it truly mattered, when it would have been not only appropriate, but deserved and mandatory!”
He also commented on prevailing security challenges occasioned by incessant killings and kidnappings.
Speaking on the alarming farmers-herders clashes rocking the country, Soyinka recalled a meeting he had with a former security adviser in London, during which he warned him about ‘strange’ nomadic herders ten years ago.
The Nobel laureate did not mention any name in his statement.
He said “it took him months to agree to meeting the ex-official in the United Kingdom”.
“It took that long only because I refused to meet him within the country, since it had become clear that the security forces, in addition to high levels of governance, had become infiltrated by the very vicious elements that have fully established and sustained a lethal dimension. I was not about to let myself be “sold out” to unseen forces in my eagerness to sound an oppressive warning.
“We eventually met in London. The records, I am certain, will be found in the National Security files and, in any case, I went accompanied.”
Soyinka said his mission was to “let him (ex-NSA) know that the nation was under siege and that the nomadic herdsmen that then threaded the forests were of a different breed from those whom we normally encountered in that environment that was also close to second home to some of us.”
Speaking further, the playwright said “the military general assured him that the military was aware of it”.
“That National Security Adviser assured me that the military was aware of this, and that his mission to the United States was to negotiate the purchase of spotter planes to patrol the forest routes. I retreated, satisfied, to my normal preoccupations.
“No, not entirely true – I did take other supplementary steps internally, including meetings with high level state officials in the West.”
He, however, lamented that “the same official was later accused of diverting resources meant to equip the military”.
“Now comes the rub! Imagine the chagrin, this past week or two, as revelations emerged, ten years after that meeting, of humongous amounts from oil resources being found in the US off-shore accounts of that pivotal figure of any nation’s security architecture! Is that an exceptional tale?
“Not in the least! He is not the first multi-starred general to be thus exposed, some even brought to trial. While Boko Haram was consolidating, a Nation’s Security Czar was also consolidating his nest egg with funds meant for elimination of a national scourge…”
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