Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has strongly condemned the plans by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to set up ranches and grazing reserves as a response to the escalating spate of killings by Fulani herdsmen across communities in the nation.
He said that the the government was yet to articulate a firm policy of non-tolerance for the serial massacres taking place in the country. Soyinka noted while delivering an address, entitled: “The killing culture of the neo-nomadic” to the National Conference on Culture and Tourism, on Wednesday, remarked that impunity evolved and became integrated in conduct when crime occurred and no legal, logical and moral response was offered.
He noted that the Buhari government has encouraged the Fulani herdsmen’s act of terrorism by failing to squarely address the impunity and arbitrary violence unleashed on the innocent.
“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 blood-letting that would make even Boko Haram repudiate its founding clerics,” Professor Soyinka said.
Speaking on the proposed FG solution to set up cattle ranches across the country, Soyinka remarked as follows;
“When I read a short while ago, the presidential assurance to this nation that the current homicidal escalation between the cattle prowlers and farming communities would soon be over, I felt mortified. He had the solution, he said. Cattle ranches were being set up, and in another 18 months, rustlings, destruction of livelihood and killings from herdsmen would be ‘a thing of the past’. Eighteen months, he assured the nation.
“I believe his Minister of Agriculture echoed that later, but with a less dispiriting time schema. Neither, however, could be considered a message of solace and reassurance for the ordinary Nigerian farmer and the lengthening cast of victims, much less to an intending tourist to the Forest Retreat of Tinana in the Rivers, the Ikogosi Springs or the Moslem architectural heritage of the ancient city of Kano. In any case, the external tourists have less hazardous options.
“But now, would the young adventurous set out to visit the mystery caves of Anambra and its alleged curative pools from mere interest? They would think twice about it. It is not merely arbitrary violence that reigns across the nation but total, undis-puted 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 herdsmen caught with sophisticated firearms be instantly disarmed, arrested, placed on trial, and his cattle confiscated.
The Nobel laureate further stated that insecurity was the inability of any vacationist to let go completely, relax or submit oneself completely to the offerings of a new environment; the sounds, sights, smells, textures and taste, adding that there was no ambiguity in the mind of the enemies of cultures they make no bones about their detestation “call them Taliban, Daesh or Isis, al Shabbab or Boko Haram. Their hatred is pathological and impassioned to a degree that goes beyond the pale, beyond insanity and sadly beyond cure. The duty of governance towards such retrogressive outbreaks remains unambiguous.
“After Boko Haram, what next? In fact, at this moment, Boko Haram has no ‘after’ since it is by no means ended, no matter what technical expressions, such as “militarily degraded’ means. But let us assume indeed, that we are already in the past of Boko Haram. It is now clear that the succession is already decided, the ‘vacated’ space is already conceded and that the new territorial aspirants are already securely positioned. The entire nation appears to be theirs without a struggle and the continuity of an established Nigerian necropolis north to south and east to west is being consolidated,” he said.
Professor Soyinka explained that it was close to a year that he attempted to utilise the Open Forum platform of the Centre for Culture and International Understanding, Osogbo, to launch a national debate on the topic: ‘Sacred cows or sacred right’, adding that the signs were already clear and the rampage of impunity was already manifesting a cultic intensity of alarming proportions.
“For reasons which are too distasteful to go into here, the forum did not take place. We were already agreed that General Buhari be invited to give a keynote address, based on his long experience in such matters as former Head of State and as a cattle rearer himself, who might be be able to penetrate the mentality of this ‘post-Boko Haram pestilence’. That challenge remains open, but should now involve this gathering, which surely includes tourist and educational agencies. They should join hands with human rights organisations, the Ministry of Agriculture, farming and local vigilante associations, among others. It is a gauntlet thrown down to be picked up and urgently, by any of the affected or troubled sectors of society, or indeed, any capable and interested party at this conference. The CBCIU is prepared to collaborate,” he stated.
Professor Soyinka concluded by calling on the government not to watch idly as innocents continue to be massacred, but to teach herdsmen that for every crime, there was a punishment.
“Herdsmen, let us appreciate, are perhaps humanity’s earliest known tourists. They must be taught, however, that there is a culture of settlement and learn to seek accommodation with settled hosts wherever encountered.
“The leadership of any society cannot stand idly and offer solutions that implicitly deem the massacres of innocents mere incidents on the way to that learning school. For every crime, there is a punish-ment, for every violation, there must be restitution. The nomads of the world cannot place themselves above the law of settled humanity,” he concluded.
The post Soyinka calls grazing reserves an “encouragement of violence on innocents” appeared first on The Whistle.
No comments: