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+--- Thread: Soyinka asks Buhari to reveal health status, backs IPOB, others (/showthread.php?tid=2408)
Soyinka asks Buhari to reveal health status, backs IPOB, others - Mhiz Rebecca - 03-27-2017
Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has called on
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, 74, to reveal
the condition of his health after spending nearly two
months in Britain on medical leave.
Buhari and Soyinka
Soyinka, who spoke in an interview with AFP at Paris
Book Fair weekend, also said indigenous people had a
right to assert themselves as a distinct people, even
within a political and geographical zone anywhere in
the world.
“He’s ill, there’s no question, and I wish for heaven’s
sake that people in public positions would just be
honest.
“Illness is part of our existence. Buhari owes it to the
nation and I don’t know why he and his advisors are
being so coy about it,” Soyinka said.
Soyinka, who also noted that US President, Donald
Trump, exploited “latent xenophobia” to reach the
White House, said a people had a right to agitate for
self-autonomy within a geographical expression.
He was obviously reacting to the agitation for
declaration of independent state of Biafra in the South
East of Nigeria.
He said: “It’s not the real estate for me that defines a
nation or a people, no, it’s a history, a culture.
What is a crime within an artificial entity like Nigeria?
You have states being created which are not viable.”
Biafra unsuccessfully fought for independence in a
brutal three-year civil war — during which Soyinka was
imprisoned for nearly two years over allegations of
espionage.
Separatist sentiment has grown since the leader of the
Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, was
arrested in October 2015, sparking bloody clashes with
security forces.
The military denied an allegation by Amnesty
International in November that security agents killed
some 150 Biafra protesters in the past year.
Soyinka said: “I cannot accept the notion that people
have a right to kill other people because they want to
assert their identity… It it doesn’t cost anything to
recognise it.”
Ironically, IPOB threw its support behind Trump’s
presidential campaign in the belief he would recognise
their independence movement.
Soon after Britons voted to leave the European Union
in a referendum last July, the group pushed for its
own version of “Brexit” from Nigeria that it dubbed
“Biafrexit”.
He said President Donald Trump, exploited “latent
xenophobia” to reach the White House, decrying the
erection of walls, especially in people’s minds,
anywhere in the world.
He said: “He played to a latent xenophobic streak
which exists in all societies including mine,” said
Soyinka, who renounced his US green card upon
Trump’s victory in November over the Republican’s
anti-immigrant rhetoric. When I see that kind of
conduct… to gain power, I’m completely revolted.”
Soyinka, who was awarded the Nobel prize for
literature in 1986, said further: “To me a horrible
moment was to watch hundreds of thousands of
people actually applauding when (Trump) uttered
these sentiments” during the election campaign.
“I’m against the erection of walls, especially in
people’s minds,” the white-haired professor added. I’ve
never made any bones about it, whether it’s
happening in Nigeria” or elsewhere.”
Soyinka recalled when in 1983, faced with a steep drop
in oil prices, the Nigerian government, “to cover up all
its problems, decided to expel aliens”.
Some two million undocumented immigrants — mainly
from nearby Ghana — were given a few weeks to leave
the west African country, whose economy is driven by
vast oil resources.
“There were hordes of refugees in ramshackle lorries
going back to their home countries. Ever since, the
chequered jute bag used by travellers throughout west
Africa has been known as the “Ghana Must Go bag,”
Soyinka said.