Nobel
Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka has described as sickening for anyone to
canvass for a second term for President Muhammadu Buhari midway into his
first term, saying he did not want to be part of such a discussion...
Soyinka,
who spoke yesterday to newsmen at the Freedom Park in Lagos, equally
said those who claim that what Nigeria needed was just a restructuring
of the minds, were not stating the obvious.
He
had earlier addressed a press conference to unveil the participants of
an exchange programme organised by the Wole Soyinka Foundation in
partnership with Cedars Institute, Notre Dame University in Lebanon.
When
asked to comment on those clamouring for Buhari to run for a second
term, he said: “Why are we talking about a second term for heavens sake,
I don’t understand this. We have hardly gone half-way or barely gone
half-way and people are already talking about positions. I refuse to be
part of that discussion.”
He
said that while the restructuring of the mind could be done on a daily
basis, what the nation needs right now was real restructuring, which he
termed “reconfiguring”.
He
said: “People should not allow themselves to be put off by those who
have tried to cheapen the expression. As I said when I visited the Women
Arise (event) the other day, it doesn’t matter what name you call it,
we all know that Nigeria was deconstructed and that what we live in
right now as a nation is not along a structure that expresses the true
will that we love in Nigeria.
“So,
when people use words like restructuring, reconfiguring, you can call
it reconfiguration. You can call it return to the status quo. You can
call it reformulating the protocol of association. You can use those
long words, but you can use a single word like restructuring, it doesn’t
matter, everybody knows what we are talking about.
“Number
two, there are those who try to divert direct attention away from the
main issues by mounting platitudes, clichés like it is the mind that
needs restructuring, you know who I am talking to.
“This
is a constant process – the restructuring of the mind is both an
individual exercise as well as a theological exercise. People go to
church and mosque to have their minds restructured, they go to school,
they go to extra-mural classes to have their minds restructured.
“So,
restructuring of the mind is not the issue, nobody is saying the
exercise of restructuring them should not be undertaken, anybody who
indulges in self-examination is already engaging in mind restructuring.
“I
find it very dishonest and cheap, time wasting, trivialising the issues
when I hear the expression that it is the mind which needs to be
restructured; who is arguing it, who is denying that, it is not a
substitute, why are they bringing it up?
“We
are talking about the protocol of association of the constituting parts
of a nation, we are talking about decentralisation, that is another
word.
“This
country is over-centralised and that has been the bane of development,
even on issues like security for decades. So individuals should not now
try and sidetrack the issue and say concentrate on that rather than
this.
“Are
you saying that you cannot reconstruct the mind and reconstruct the
nation at the same time? My take on it and my advice to the citizenry is
that they should not allow themselves to be sidetracked.
“Call
it whatever name, what we are saying is that this nation is long
overdue for reconfiguration. That is the expression I choose to use
now.”
Also
speaking on Buhari’s claim that the country’s unity was not negotiable,
he said: “I have heard this expression so often. Again, that is another
ploy to sidetrack the issue.
“Nobody
is talking about disuniting Nigeria, we know there are movements for
secession, but let Buhari and others go and address this separately.
“This
should not be mixed with the demand of a nation for reconfiguration,
people should stop answering demands for secession by pretending to
answer the demands for reconfiguration.
“Secession
should be a different thing. To try and suggest that the moment you say
restructure, you are calling for disintegration, is for me
intellectually dishonest, that is not the issue at all.
“The
issue of outright secession is totally different, even if it is only
one state that is left, that state has a right to say, listen you
people, let us restructure this state; the protocols which have gone
into the making of this state are no longer valid or have been distorted
along the way or have been abandoned and we want to go back to the
original set of protocols that created what we call this national
entity.
“In
other words, there are choices all over the place, you can say you want
to re-invent the wheel completely or you can say you want to go back to
the original protocol of association, whichever way,” he noted.
When
asked whether he was satisfied with the performance of the Buhari
administration he said: “It is a large questions, there are areas,
yawning gaps; just take security for instance, the average citizen feels
less secure now than it did a few years ago, that is evident.
“When
people talk about state police, there are reasons for that; when they
talk about bringing policing right down to the community level, they
know what they are talking about. This is part and parcel of
reconfiguring or reconstruction.
“The
economy, there is a big question on it right now; fortunately everybody
admits that we went through a very bad patch. Right now, it’s a
question of have we come out of it or not; if in fact there is no
question about it, the past few years have been years of internal
economic disasters for the average citizen, but it is a question of who
laid the seed?
“When and where and how were the seeds laid for the agony this nation has gone through in the last few years?” He asked.
Soyinka
also condemned individuals who created social media accounts under his
name, calling them “identity thieves” and “forgers”.
He
also dissociated himself and the Wole Soyinka Foundation from every
Facebook and Twitter account posing as him or his foundation.
“They
created a Wole Soyinka blogspot, or whatever. There is also a Wole
Soyinka Twitter handle. Please, press, I am begging you to note that I
don’t do Facebook, I don’t do Twitter and I don’t do blogs,” he said.
He urged the media to denounce all accounts impersonating him and the foundation.
“I
implore you in the name of whatever it is you believe in to help squash
them like bed bugs. They are very believable in that they get the right
pictures.
“They went as far as getting the authentic publications and activities and they string them all over the place.
“Please note that they are fake. There is only one Wole Soyinka Foundation,” he said.
He
also sought support for the exchange programme with the Lebanese
university and urged corporate organisations, government bodies and
individuals to support the foundation by sponsoring young Nigerians for
the exchange programme held annually in Lebanon.
The
first edition of the study travel programme sponsored five students
selected across Nigerian universities to broaden their worldview and
further their education.
Soyinka
said ten young Nigerian writers had been selected for the second
edition of the exchange programme, adding that they would depart for
Lebanon today.
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