Wole Soyinka condemns how government handled farmer-herder crisis

Wole Soyinka, a Nobel laureate, has criticized how the federal government is handling the farmer-herder dispute.

The literary legend questioned why the government had not yet outlawed the cattle group, Miyetti Allah, while it had outlawed the Indigenous People of Biafra, a group seeking the secession of the South-East from Nigeria, in an exclusive interview with Channels Television's NewsNight, a pre-recorded program that airs every Monday.

He stated that in order to comprehend current security concerns, Nigeria must constantly keep its history in context.

“My temperament does not accept that anyone should chase me out of my God-given earth. So, it’s a temperamental thing as well,” Soyinka said.

“The idea that you can unleash terror on me because you want my little patch of territory or you want my soul, that is, you want to subjugate me, you want to turn me into a slave. Well, I would sort that out first.

“And then, I’ll make up my mind whether I want to leave. So each outrage, unfortunately, has the opposite effect. Whether the outrage is taking place in Benue, Kaduna, or is taking place in Owo. Or whether it is taking place right here on the (Ogun state) border – we’ve been subjected also to this lunacy, of the subjugation mentality which some minority people hold. And I find it very difficult to accept to be chased out of my entitled portion of the earth.

“Many people just either do not know the history or do not understand the purpose of history. And then there’s a different group also who are very selective about history; they know how to distort or misuse history.

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