The approach of Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari to killings by
herdsmen has come under scrutiny from one of the country’s leading light,
noble laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka.
Soyinka believes that Buhari’s government has not shown the requisite will
needed to end the violence perpetuated by the herdsmen across the country.
In an address to the National Conference on Culture and Tourism on April
27, Soyinka urged the federal government to be more proactive in curbing
the activities of herdsmen.
“I have yet to hear this government articulate a firm policy of
non-tolerance for the serial massacres have become the nation’s
identification stamp. I have not heard an order given that any cattle
herders caught with sophisticated firearms be instantly disarmed,
arrested, placed on trial, and his cattle confiscated. The nation is
treated to an eighteen-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,” Soyinka said.
Adding that, “It is now close to a year since I attempted to utilize the
Open Forum platform of the Centre for Culture and International
Understanding, Oshogbo, to launch a national debate on the topic – SACRED
COWS OR SACRED RIGHTS.
“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 etc. 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.