Nigeria is already disintegrating – Soyinka

Prof. Wole Soyinka, said, yesterday, that despite the fact that there is no formal break up of the country, the nation was already disintegrating due to the refusal of the government to embrace national dialogue. Soyinka said this while speaking on “The quest for
justice, tolerance and non- violent change” at a presentation highlighting Dr Martin Luther King jr and the
American civil rights
movement, organised by the Public Affairs Section of the
US Consulate General in Lagos at the Freedom Park,
Lagos.
According to him, “the
presidential system of
government is totally unfitted
to the governance of
Nigerians. The legislators
have become a bastion of
corruption while the system
operational in the country
encourages corruption.”
Soyinka, who maintained his
stance on Sovereign
National Conference as
panacea to salvaging Nigeria
from total collapse said: “We
can even remove the word
sovereign, there is need for
national dialogue because if
we don’t have a national
dialogue, we will have
monologues. Public
detonators are monologues,
Boko Haram is a hyper active
secession by their expelling
people in some states,
purging it of the people who
they believe don’t share their
ideologies.
Dr.Joe Okei-Odumakin,
Prof.Wole Soyinka and
Past.Tunde Bakare during A
Town Hall Meeting by the
Save Nigeria Group and
Allies in Lagos
“Zamfara State, during the
last tenure of government,
led in declaring itself a
theocratic state and had
some other states joining.
Those are monologues.
Despite loss of lives and
traumatisation, the cravings
for the emancipation of
Blacks were a remarkable
struggle on the part of the
American civil rights as their
struggle for justice, peace
and equity paid off.
“What we have now is not a
constitution because it was
handed over to us by a
bunch of neocolonialists in
military uniform; they
worked out that constitution.
So, we need a single
constitution binding all
major issues in the country.”
Soyinka, who noted that the
recent industrial action by
civil societies and Labour
was a necessary struggle for
justice and prosperity, also
cited the Nigerian civil war as
a clear case of quest for
justice and equity on the part
of Biafrans, pointing out that
although he is not strictly
pro-Biafra, he was against
the injustice meted on
Biafrans since it is morally
right to want to secede.
He also recounted the
degradation that existed
during the segregation of
Blacks not only in the
Western world but here in
Nigeria during British rule
which regrettably, he argued,
is still existing among
Nigerians.

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