Ebun Francis || Renowned playwright and Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka on Thursday called on President Muhammadu Buhari to address the security needs of Nigerians and bring to an end the unwanted clashes between farmers and herders that has killed thousands of Nigerians.
The Nobel laureate slammed the President over his “inability to get justice” for victims of clashes between farmers and herdsmen and Boko Haram insurgents while delivering the keynote paper at a dialogue organised by Ripples Centre for Data and Investigative Journalism in Lagos on Thursday.
According to Soyinka what we need now is justice and not sympathy and rather than visiting the affected areas, Buhari should speak to people’s security needs, and bring perpetrators to book.
He said, “I get impatient when I hear things like Buhari has failed to go and sympathise with the people of Benue, with the people of Nassarawa, with the people of Dapchi or wherever.”
“Who needs sympathy? Is it sympathy that will reorder their broken lives? Is sympathy the issue? We are speaking here of one commodity that is fundamentally human deserving, justice.
”We are speaking here of a President that will respond with massive action and not showing up at the arena of human desecration to shed an unjust tears, but give orders that the bloodthirsty terrorists are brought to book,,.
“There should an internal measure to avoid a repeat. We are speaking here of a president that will respond with massive action and not showing up at the arena of human desecration to shed any unjust tears, but give orders that the bloodthirsty terrorists are brought to book.”
Soyinka said failure on the part of government has been the reason the country is yet to get over the security challenges.
In the past weeks, President Buhari has visited Taraba, Benue and Yobe states and is expected to still visit Rivers and Zamfara states to commiserate with victims of terror attacks and related killings.