Punish masterminds of unprovoked killings –Soyinka urges Jonathan

Posted by admin Latest Politics Thursday, April 28th, 2011

Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, has called on President Goodluck Jonathan to urgently address critical issues bordering on the Nigerian state, so as not to jeopardize the continuity of the federation. He said multifarious problems buffeting the nation must be addressed comprehensively, without which, an ominous fear and uncertainty would continue to loom over the nation.

Soyinka expressed his worries on Thursday, while speaking from the rooftop of a private residence in Victoria Island, Lagos. According to him, the culture of impunity in the country must be expunged to save the nation from doom.

He said repeated calls for a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) that would address issues affecting the country, were summarily rebuffed by cynics as attempts to break up the country, a situation that has plunged the nation in a web of crisis. Recalling his earlier comment on the worrisome trend in the country, he said: “…In Nigeria’s distorted version of the American high maintenance system, more than the national treasury is bled to death. Contenders die, their supporters also, in droves.

Their relations are not exempted. Some are kidnapped to exert pressure on their ambitious kins to step down. Ultimately, the democratic project also dies, as does the sense of nationhood, casualties of the manipulation of economic, ethnic, religious and economic disparities”. Soyinka, reputed for his fearless advocacy for democracy and good governance, urged the Jonathan administration to unravel the mystery of killings in the country, as he vociferously condemned the culture of some people being arrested and saved out of sight by influential personages.
Commenting on the just-concluded general elections, he said incident reports from his trusted source, Reclaim Naija, an independent and underground network that monitored the exercise, revealed an appreciable level of credibility, especially in the presidential election that was won by Goodluck Jonathan. According to him, aside the impressive voter turn-out, the elections were free and fair.

Soyinka said the figures announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) at the end of the collation did not differ in wide margin with independent reports by Reclaim Naija reporters, who posted their figures from the polling centres across the states. He said the ‘unbelievable killings and carnage’ that heralded the declaration of the winner of the presidential election in some states in the North were unnecessary. While decrying the culture of impunity orchestrated by successive governments, Soyinka urged the Jonathan administration to unravel the mystery of those unprovoked killings and bring the masterminds to book.

“…The killings were done on a non-existent foundation, carried out on a base of lies or even deliberate misinformation…the killings were planned before hand. I am convinced that the mayhem has been planned before hand”. While expressing shock ‘on the impunity and the note of glee in the decimation of humanity’, as demonstrated by the mobs spilling blood on the streets in protest of the results, he said the body language of the political leaders of those riotous places didn’t demonstrate any vestige of remorse.

He lamented that members of the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) were deliberately targeted for annihilation by vicious aggressors and vowed never to send his children to the North for the one year mandatory national service programme. Soyinka harped on the need for a code of common behaviour, which would prescribe punishment for those who violate that code for future co-existence of people from different areas in the country.
Soyinka recalled that he expressed confidence on Prof Attahiru Jega when he was appointed the Chairman of the electoral body. However, he noted that the INEC boss started on a minus level by inheriting the public wrath accumulated by the Maurice Iwu-led INEC. He urged the commission to improve on some observable lapses as reported by election observers.

Soyinka also rejoiced over the sacking of the ruling party in Ogun State, describing it as a good riddance of the empire of an estranged son and his political father. While he mockingly bid bye-bye to Governor Gbenga Daniel for his fatal loss at the poll, he commended the people of the state for embracing the wind of change.

-Sunwp_posts