Buhari Government’s Systemic Failure Won’t Allow Nigeria to Unite
Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, said he could not see how Nigeria would unite under the government of President Muhammadu Buhari because it is suffering from “systemic failure.”
“There is a failure, a systemic failure in present governance and I don’t know who can put it together. These days, I try to go some days without reading the newspapers. It is so depressing.”
The professor said this in Abuja on Saturday while responding to a question from Senator Rochas Okorocha at the book reading and signing of two of his books titled ‘Trumpism in Academe’ and ‘Chronicles of the Happiest People on Earth’.
Okorocha had asked Soyinka if he could write a Nigerian story that would evoke patriotism and inspire unity among the various tribes in the country.
The professor responded emphatically that no narrative would unite the people of Nigeria without restitution and justice.
He said persons in Internally Displaced Persons’ camps, who had lost relatives and loved ones due to violence, would not embrace any story of unity unless they got justice.
Soyinka also said “We had a critical moment and we lost that moment. The moment when this country could have come together; and the sense of oneness, belonging. That vision of oneness. We lost that moment. There has been more than one moment and we lost the moment. Will another one come? I don’t know. Right now I don’t see it under this government quite frankly.”
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