It’s their right to secede – Soyinka backs Biafra, Oduduwa agitators

Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, has said there is nothing wrong in the fight for sovereignty, especially by Biafra and Oduduwa agitators.

In a statement, the professor criticised the use of force against the agitators of self-determination, insisting it is the responsibility of the leadership to persuade them.

“It is time to think outside the box. That many, in so doing, find no landing place except dissolution, is not a crime. It is not peculiar to any peoples, and is embedded in the ongoing history of many, and not only on this continent.

“It is their natural right as free citizens, not slaves of habit and indoctrination. Where disillusion rides high, sentiment tumbles earthwards, and the only question becomes: what can be salvaged? It thus remains the responsibility of leadership to persuade them, through both discourse and remedial action, that there are other options.

Attempted bullying is not a language of discourse, nor the facile ploy of tarring all birds with the same feather,” he said.

While speaking on President Muhammadu Buhari’s statement about the genocidal threat, Soyinka said while he was not in support of those killing and destroying government’s properties, the President’s statement to ‘deal with them in the language they understand’ was wrong and ‘tragically untimely.’