*Queries FG Over Exemption Of Miyetti Allah From Proscription
*Says Those Saying I Installed Buhari Talking Rubbish
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Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, has said that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was punished at the recent Osun State Governorship Election for committing a “sacrilege” against a slain former Minister of Justice, Bola Ige; and those who represent his ideals.
The foremost playwright made the comment when he spoke on Channels Television’s NewsNight, a pre-recorded interview aired on Monday.
“When the results began to come in, I had just returned (from overseas). It was like a welcome present because I saw that party (APC) being punished for that act of sacrilege,” he said.
Soyinka said the APC committed sacrilege against Ige by elevating one of those indicted in the murder of the former justice minister as a national executive of the ruling party. The octogenarian, however, did not mention the name of the said suspect.
Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) defeated the incumbent Osun State governor, Gboyega Oyetola, who ran on the platform of the APC in the just-concluded governorship election.
Soyinka had immediately said that the voice of Ige resounded from the grave in the 2022 governorship election in Osun.
He said the APC and the PDP have recorded so many inter-marriages and are polluted.
Soyinka said: “The two parties (APC and PDP) have become very confusing to start with. Members have moved across so much…there has been so much inter-marriage and the bloodline has diluted in many aspects, being polluted in many aspects. It even got to a stage where a prominent member of the APC actually articulated the sentiment of: ‘Oh, come and join us and your sins will be forgiven’.”
“It didn’t surprise me too much that somebody who has been so heavily implicated in the death of a prominent member of that party, Bola Ige, he is a founding member, that his memories should be so thrashed by consulting one of the prominent figures who featured in the events – forget whether he was innocent of the actual crime or not – was heavily implicated in the humiliation of that individual, that founding member of that party who was also the minister of justice of this nation.
“To actually catapult one of those crime suspects and proven contributors…and to find that that person has been given a position in that party (APC), in governance, and after the President (Muhammadu Buhari) had actually inaugurated a re-examination of that episode amongst other crimes, that is quite a bit of shock. And I mentioned at a time, that is a bit of sacrilege. And remember, this Osun is Bola Ige’s state.”
Ige, a justice minister under the government of then President Olusegun Obasanjo, was assassinated on December 23, 2001, at his Ibadan residence in the Oyo State capital.
The literary icon wondered why the Federal Government was yet to ban cattle group, Miyetti Allah, while it had proscribed the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a group seeking the secession of the South-East from Nigeria.
He said Nigeria must always put the country’s history in perspective in order to understand security challenges.
Soyinka said, “My temperament does not accept that anyone should chase me out of my God-given earth. So, it’s a temperamental thing as well.
“The idea that you can unleash terror on me because you want my little patch of territory or you want my soul, that is you want to subjugate me, you want to turn me into a slave. Well, I would sort that out first.
“And then I’ll make up my mind whether I want to leave. So each outrage, unfortunately, has the opposite effect. Whether the outrage is taking place in Benue, in Kaduna, or is taking place in Owo. Or whether it is taking place right here on the (Ogun state) border – we’ve been subjected also to this lunacy, of the subjugation mentality which some minority people hold. And I find it very difficult to accept to be chased out of my own entitled portion of the earth.
“Many people just either do not know history or do not understand the purpose of history. And then there’s a different group also who are very selective about history; they know how to distort or misuse history.
“Take for instance when the incursion of the Fulani herdsmen began, the Miyetti Allah spokesman said, I think it was in Borno, we once ruled this place, and we can take back our land anytime we want. I remember that statement; I’ve never forgotten.
“In the midst of the trauma of these people, somebody comes gloating and then citing selective portions of history. I said this person should be arrested and locked up, who says he wants to repeat his history of conquest – he’s admitting either knowledge, before or after, or support, anyway? Isn’t there anything like hate speech anymore?”
He also slammed those criticising him for “installing” former military head of state, Muhammadu Buhari, as Nigeria’s President in 2015.
The octogenarian spoke on Channels Television’s NewsNight, a pre-recorded interview aired on Monday.
“When people talk about Wole Soyinka installing Buhari, they are talking rubbish; they don’t know what they are talking about. They are talking from ignorance. When I think of the governed themselves, I asked myself, ‘What am I doing among these people that they don’t understand that if somebody misrules, you have a right to tell people not to vote for him?’ And it is their business after that who they vote for but they have the option of spoiling their votes.
“So, when I hear Wole Soyinka was the one who installed Buhari and he should apologise to the nation, I say, ‘Your parents should apologise to the world for inflicting morons like you on the world.’”
The foremost playwright said the accumulation of negativity from the governing and the governed sometimes makes him stay away from commenting on governance.
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