Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka has slammed the inability of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration for not stopping unrelenting violence being perpetrated by Fulani herdsmen to the refusal of the Federal Government to arrest and punish the herders for the serial killings across the country.
The renowned playwright described as a promotion of “undisputed impunity” the failure of the government to offer “legal, logical and moral response” to the spate of killings by the cattle rearers.
In his speech tilted, ‘The Killing Culture of the Neo-Nomadic’, which was presented at the National Conference on Culture and Tourism in Abuja on Thursday, Soyinka stated that it was shocking that the government had yet to make a terse statement against the killings done by the herdsmen.
Admitting that Boko Haram insurgents might no longer be as potent as the militants used to be, Soyinka argued that the terrorists already had worthy successors in the herdsmen, whom he alleged recently “invaded” his country home in Abeokuta while he was away. He said, “It is not merely arbitrary violence that reigns across the nation but total, undisputed impunity. Impunity evolves and becomes integrated in conduct when crime occurs and no legal, logical and moral response is offered.
“I have yet to hear this government articulate a firm policy of non-tolerance for the serial massacres that have become the nation’s identification stamp. I have not heard an order given that any cattle herders caught with sophisticated firearms be instantly disarmed, arrested, placed on trial, and his cattle confiscated.
“Recently, however, I returned from a trip outside the country about to find that my home ground had been invaded, and a brand-new, Appian way sliced through my sanctuary. That motorable path was made by the hoofed invaders. Both the improvised entry and exit are now blocked, but interested journalists are invited to visit.”
He added, “In over two decades of living in that ecological preserve, no such intrusion had ever occurred. I have no idea whether they were Fulani or Futa Jalon herdsmen but, they were cattle herders, and they had cut a crude swathe through my private grounds. “I made enquiries and sent alerts around, including through the Baale (community head) of our neighbourhood village.
There has been no repeat, and hopefully it will remain the first and last of such invasion. What it portends however is for all thinking citizens to reflect upon, and take concerted measures against.” Soyinka condemned the promise of President Muhammadu Buhari to end farmers-herdsmen clashes and arbitrary ranching across the country in 18 months, saying this was tantamount to appealing to the violent herders.
The playwright added, “The nation is treated to an 18-month optimistic plan which, to make matters worse, smacks of abject appeasement and encouragement of violence on innocents. Let me repeat, and of course I only ask to be corrected if wrong: I have yet to encounter a terse, rigorous, soldierly and uncompromising language from this leadership, one that threatens a response to this unconscionable bloodletting that would make even Boko Haram repudiate its founding clerics.”
