Inside Nigeria
Declare Herdsmen Terrorists – Soyinka
Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has challenged President Muhammadu Buhari to declare killer herdsmen terrorists.
Soyinka, who spoke at the maiden edition of the Ripples Nigeria Dialogue in Lagos, yesterday, said he was disturbed that the president was treating the killer herdsmen with levity, while those who have committed far less crimes were severely punished.
“We expect the president to have the courage to declare such monsters as terrorists and enemies of humanity with the same dispatch in which he declared the far less violent, albeit, disruptive IPOB terrorists. We expect a culture of even-handedness.
“I have always refrained from labelling the herdsmen as Fulani but since they have publicly come out to admit they are responsible for the killings, we can say they are Fulani herdsmen.
“An organisation has been rampaging the nation armed to the teeth and descending on innocent people. Their spokesman appeared on TV, unrepentant, distorting history, calling on a state government to rescind their laws and proceeding to defy such laws. They went ahead and threatened continuation of the same acts of degradation. The nation has been placed on the defensive simply because of the failing of governance.
“Have you ever encountered a more cynical rendition of the sequence of events when spokesmen of this same organisation came out to say the killings were taking place because of the laws which was made to stop the killings in the first place? I have not heard that the leaders of that group have been summoned the way those who do far less things would have been summoned. Nigeria is not the first country to experience natural disasters but this is not an excuse to take guns to destabilise other peace-loving people in their communities.
“While addressing the victims of the rampage of Fulani herdsmen, the minister of defence asked the victims what they wanted the herdsmen to do when the grazing routes for their cattle were being blocked and that minister is still in Buhari’s cabinet.
“I get impatient when I hear people say that Buhari failed to sympathise with victims in Benue and Taraba. Who needs presidential sympathy? Is it sympathy that will re-order their broken lives? We are talking about security of lives and property and bringing perpetrators to book. We expect the government to respond with massive punitive action when the fundamental security of a people is violated. We expect the president to immediately show up at the scene of these disasters and order his troops into action against these arrogant and blood thirsty people.
“When stung by the criticism that the president rather chose to attend a wedding in Kano instead of being present in Dapchi, presidential apologists said the wedding was a needed therapy for the trauma caused by the abduction of the schoolgirls in Dapchi. That statement is blasphemous. There were so many formula that would have been adopted to ensure that the couple had their wedding without the accompanying exhibition of lavishness so soon after a national tragedy. The nation was in mourning and Buhari would have told the couple that he was not obliged to be there,” Soyinka said.
Anonymous
March 16, 2018 at 10:47 am
Buhari to declare fulanis herdsmen terrorist is like declaring himself terrorist, so he can’t because he’s one among the herdsmen. #AFAU
Anonymous
March 16, 2018 at 10:10 am
Buhari is an official sponsor of Fulani headsmen terrorist group if not why he can’t declared Fulani headsmen a terrorist group?
Anonymous
March 16, 2018 at 8:33 am
You once declared him ,buhari holy, innocent, rained all manner of praise and worship ,put him in power, abused the former one chased him out, with all manner of weapons,media, physical and otherwise, you gathered your people from the west and successfully carried your deed, now you are dumbfounded, some like you are now starting to cry little by little, it’s a pity cos you people blindly led people into mess, and some now into early graves, cos of material, perishable goods and selfish gains, the only way Soyinka is Biafra nation Amen, go and put it in your collections in the bank,KANU told you Before now
Anonymous
March 16, 2018 at 8:16 am
Una never see anything ,buhari must finish his 8 years, una want change abi
Anonymous
March 16, 2018 at 8:08 am
Oga go and sleep, during GoodLuck Jonathan time you protested for fuel of 97per litre now is 145per litre in Buhari time and you didn’t protest, now you’re just talking and pleading. Why can’t you protest as you did during Jonathan time? Now you are begging the government that is supporting Fulani herdsmen killing to proscribe them a terrorist, you are one of the people who put us in this mess. Hypocrisy every where.
Anonymous
March 16, 2018 at 12:08 pm
Don’t mind him
Anonymous
March 16, 2018 at 7:55 am
Soyinka, is an immbecile, just like immbecelic oba afonja down to thiefnubu.
Anonymous
March 16, 2018 at 7:54 am
A WEAK AND BLIND PRESIDENT LEADING 180 MILLION PEOPLE. – Hope For Nigeria
**A Fantastically Corrupt Buhari Fighting Corruption, will not achieve anything. – UK PM
**The World Most Corruption leader in 2017 Fighting Corruption. – Transparency Int’l and World Media.
**Nigeria’s Most extravagant President Talking about spending cut for the Poor, while he and his folks’ lives large.
**Buhari Never accounted for N2.4trn Capital Budget in 2017, as Fasola said that No fund was released for capital projects for that year. Please Google this.
**A President who shielded the most corrupt in his govt and Nigerians that footed his campaign bill from trial by EFCC and only going for opponents and perceived enemies with trump charges.
**A President who see nothing wrong padding Budget in 2016, 2017 and 2018, yet he claims Mr Integrity.
**A President that lies about receiving trillions of Naira as income in 2017 and yet less than 40% of the budget was funded.
**A President that lies about increased Rice Production, yet 2017 Rice production was only 37% of Nigeria’s local Rice production in 2014 and Importation was at all-time high, mostly from Cotonou, Niger Republic and Chad.
**Mr Buhari that Spend $6m for Ear Treatment, $60m for an undisclosed illness in UK, His son paying $6.5m for treatment in Germany for his Bike accident, and about $150k to charter a Jet to fly him home, is talking about those that squandered Nigerian wealth.
**A President that imported Grass for Cows from Brazil that worth Millions of Dollars, while Millions of Nigerians barely eat in a whole day. These cows belong to individuals.
**A President that stayed 158days Overseas and a total of 259 days not going to his office in 2017 is talking of Re-election.
**A President who supported a terrorist group, the Herdsmen to be slaughtering his compatriots and is asking for re-election.
**A President that Allocated $1billion for Terrorist Herdsmen, but their victims, (that lost lives, Farmland, destroyed Classrooms) were ignored.
**Mr Buhari who released over 11,000 Boko haram members captured by our soldiers between 2012 to 2015, paying them compensation, recruiting some into our Military. Majority of them have gone back fighting and killing our men and women in Uniform.
**Mr Buhari who introduced HATE SPEECH in Nigeria, trying to criminalise Nigerians who talks about his corruption and wickedness in office.
**His weakness is everywhere and the reason his Ministers, Aides, Military, Police do not respect his orders. Because he is just WEAK.
BUHARI IS WEAK, INCOMPETENT, OUT-OF-TOUCH AND INSENSITIVE TO CONTINUE IN OFFICE.
Anonymous
March 16, 2018 at 12:07 pm
The worst is that, some people are not seeing all these u listed as facts