Soyinka: I Hope Buhari Summons Courage To Declare Killer Herdsmen As Terrorists

Professor Wole Soyinka, has challenged Buhari to declare killer herdsmen as terrorists.

The Nobel laureate who spoke at the maiden edition of the Ripples Nigeria Dialogue in Lagos recently, 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.”