Soyinka Faults US Assistance to Nigeria over Boko Haram

Soyinka Faults US Assistance to Nigeria over Boko Haram

03 Dec 2014

Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka

• Berates Jonathan’s administration  • Okupe: Nobel Laureate playing the ostrich on President

Ojo Maduekwe 

Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, has taken a swipe at the United States of America over its half-hearted gesture in assisting Nigeria to prosecute the war against terrorism, stressing that the US government should stop giving excuses over its attitude to Nigeria.

Briefing newsmen on Tuesday in Lagos, Soyinka in his speech titled: "King Nebuchadnezzar—The Reign of Impunity," called on the US to stop giving excuses over its refusal to sell cobra helicopters to Nigeria, stating that the excuses were baseless.

Soyinka's comments are coming on the heels of a recent interview with a national daily granted by former military ruler, Gen. Yakubu Gowon, who also accused the United States government of not being friendly to Nigeria.

According to Soyinka, "I want to appeal to the Americans to please stop laughing at us. They should stop ridiculing this nation. The government claimed that it asked for cobra helicopters.

"The government of Jonathan asked for little weapons to destroy the enemies. We are in a situation of destroy or to be destroyed. They asked for the weapons even for self defence, I think the Americans should not boast of what they have done to supply assistance to vulnerable affected households.

"All are laudable and nobody is in disagreement with them. These are necessities. But this is not the response I expect to the situation of war. This nation is at war. And this nation is asking for certain forms of assistance.

"Please United States of America, could you please overlook the arithmetical deficiency of governance and stop giving an excuse to this government for failing to protect us. Please just say that you will not supply arms to Nigeria and leave it at that.

"Don’t say that you sent other things, that is not the issue at this critical time in Nigeria.''

Soyinka, who also came hard on President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration  condemned his governance style   over recent political happenings in the country, lamenting that governance had degenerated to a level where a uniformed officer can act above the law, citing the instance where governors of other states were barred from entering Ekiti State by policemen during the recent governorship election.

"The people must decide whether to submit or to resist. We may be no count plebeians in the sight of the new born patricians of Aso Rock and their apologists but must we revert to the Abacharian status of glorified slaves? Of course it is up to any people to decide. The praetorian guards have been let loose to teach the rabble their place. The recent choice of a new leader for the guard was clearly no accident, and this hitherto enforcer has wasted no time in inaugurating a season of brutish power.

When a people's elected emissaries are disenfranchised, cast out like vagrants and resort to scaling fences to engage in their designated functions, the people get the message.

“The latest action of the supposed guardians of the law against the nation's law givers is an unambiguous declaration of war on the people," he said.

He condemned the shutting down of the National Assembly on November 20, pointing out that the Inspector General of Police Mr. Suleiman Abba breached the law by barring lawmakers from entering their workplace.
Soyinka believes that the lawmakers who scaled the fence deserve applause and not condemnation as they helped to foil a coup.

He said it was unfortunate that Jonathan could order policemen to prevent lawmakers from entering the National Assembly on the same day that they were to meet to discuss the extension of emergency rule in the North-east.

He, however, commended the lawmakers for scaling the gate.

He said: “The act of scaling gates and walls to fulfil their duty by the people must be set down as their finest hour. They must be applauded, not derided. If shame belongs anywhere, it belongs to the Inspector General of Police and his lavish adherence to illegal and unconstitutional instructions- to undermine a democratic structure, and one- to make matters worse-convoked in response to an emergency of dire concern.

''What sticks to this policeman is worse than shame, it is infamy. Such a public servant deserves to be publicly pilloried, tried and meted a punishment that is appropriate to treasonable acts. To demand less is to reduce ourselves below the status of free citizens of a free nation.

''For this latest outrage, one in an escalating series of impunity, the buck stops yet again at the presidency, and that incumbent, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, continues to surprise us in ways that a very few could have conjectured. Peaking at his own personalised example where he set the law of simple arithmetic on its head. I refer to the split in Governors' Forum and his formal recognition of the minority will in a straightforward peer election, democracy has been rendered meaningless where it should be most fervently exemplified.

''Nothing is more unworthy of leadership than to degrade a system by which one attains fulfilment, and this is what the nation has witnessed time and time again in various parts of the nation.

"The recent affront against the legislative chamber being only the most blatant and unconscionable. We know of course that this is not the first of its kind in the nation's history, but precedents are not binding. Each leader selects his or her own model for emulation or avoidance and that choice is certain indication of the true nature of such a leader

''These, to state the obvious are not ordinary times. The menace of Boko Haram hangs over the corporate entity called a nation and over every individual, citizen or mere bird of passage. The cliché heating up the polity may grate the ear drums with its banality but I think that we have a right to demand of a leader not to stoke up the furnace in which events have cast its citizens. Every day records new violation of our humanity. The atrocious targeting of the great mosque of Kano has rendered any lingering doubt of impending national imposition an invitation for collective suicide, preferably through piecemeal dismemberment.

''The shambles that punctuated a presidential campaign visit at the Obafemi Awolowo University a few days ago merely underline the total alienation of President Jonathan from the reality that has engulfed the nation. Yes, political campaigns are part and parcel of the bloodline of the democratic process. We know they never stop. However. That a national leader should go campaigning on the platform of ethnic support at a time when priorities dictate a united national engagement for survival, is a grotesque undertaking that was tragically rebuked in the massacre of worshippers and desecration of the Kano mosques, almost simultaneously with the alienated gathering of selected crowned heads and journeymen at the OAU campus, a macabre echo of Balthazar's feast.

''I shall not insist that the biblical figure of Nebuchadnezzar is uniquely apt for the pivotal figure of the democratic history in the making at this moment. For one thing, Nebu was a nation builder and a warrior. One could argue even more convincingly for the figure of Balthazar, his successor, or indeed Emperor Nero as reference point. You all remember him – the emperor who took to fiddling while Rome was burning.

“However you should easily recall why I opted for King Nebu – the figure that currently sits on the top of our political pile himself evoked it, albeit in a context that virtuously disclaimed any similarities, even tendencies.

"Perhaps he meant it at the time when he claimed: ‘I am no Nebuchadnezzar.’ Perhaps not. One judges leaders on acts however, not pronouncements, which are often as reliable as electoral promises.”

But in a swift response last night, the Presidency said Prof. Soyinka was only playing the ostrich by accusing President Jonathan of being worse than King Nebuchadnezzar.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, said this in a text message sent to THISDAY.

Okupe said it was saddening that the Nobel Laureate also failed to reprimand Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, who he described as the “national champion of impunity and official reckless”.

While saying Soyinka was wrong in his judgment of the Jonathan administration, the presidential aide described the present administration as the most liberal in the history of the nation.

He said: “Our eminent Prof also sadly plays the ostrich as he failed to reprimand Governor Amaechi who is the national champion of impunity and official recklessness.

“The administration of President Goodluck Jonathan proves itself as the most liberal, keeping faith with adherence to rule of law and tolerance.”