yesterday spoke on pro biafra protests in
the South East and declared that they
cannot be defeated.
He said agitation is not a surprise to him, he also went ahead
to defended his choice of President
Muhammadu Buhari as a better candidate,
in the last presidential elections.
Soyinka Spoke on Channels Television last night,
He affirmed that agitation for Biafra will never
go away as Biafra is an idea.
He said: “I remember I wrote an article
during the war and I said at that time that
Biafra cannot be defeated. People
misunderstood what I was saying. I said
once an idea has taken hold, you cannot
destroy that idea. You may destroy the
people that carry the idea on the battlefield,
but, ultimately, it is not the end of the
story.”
He said instead of government issuing
threats to Biafran agitators, it should rather
go to the South East and find out why they
are agitating for another country and see
what it could do to remedy the situation.
“Go into that environment and ask what are
those things we can do to make you
content, to make you feel part of this entity.
Listen to some other Biafrans and ask them
why they want to stay. But, don’t go around
saying ‘the sovereignty of this country is
indivisible, it is not negotiable.’ That type of
language would only make matters worse,”
Soyinka said.
He added that the agitation for Biafra has
made it imperative for Nigerians to take yet
another look at restructuring the country.
On Buhari’s election, Soyinka said his
preference for the president, during
electioneering, was borne out of his
conviction that he was a better candidate.
He said
“At that time, we had reached the bottom. I
believed that if the country underwent
another four years under Jonathan, we
could be in trouble. I then looked at Buhari. I
talked to people They said he had changed.”
He also affirmed to have weighed the options,
knowing that the negatives on Buhari were
his excesses.
“I don’t like people who just jail others. Very
reluctantly, I weighed the option and was
convinced that the country would be better
under Buhari,” he said.
The Nobel Laureate said his conviction was
based on the fact that Buhari could not be
worse than Abacha, declaring: “I said if he
deviated, we will fight him. Look at what is
coming out , the rot. You can see we didn’t
make a mistake.”
From sun news online
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