Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has come down on ex-governor of the old Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, over his comment that the Western Nigeria Security Network code-named Operation Amotekun would lead to the declaration of Oduduwa Republic.
The security task force was initiated by the six South-West governors to tackle kidnapping, banditry and ritual killings bedevilling the region.
Many leaders from the region supported the initiative with some northerners kicking against it and the Federal Government through the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Mr Abubakar Malami, SAN, describing it as illegal.
Balarabe had said during an interview with a national daily (not The PUNCH) that Operation Amotekun would lead to the declaration of Oduduwa Republic.
But Soyinka in a statement, on Tuesday, said Balarabe was sadly wrong with his position on Amotekun, adding that he hoped he wasn’t tragically wrong.
Soyinka said, “Balarabe is sadly but I hope not tragically wrong. I invoke the tragic dimension here because the making of tragedy, especially for nations, often begins when fears are mistaken or promoted as facts, and governments either by themselves, or together with interest groups, are enticed by fears into embarking on precipitate, irrational, and irreversible acts.
“Such acts turn out, in the end, to be based on nothing but fears, sometimes generated by guilt over past injustices, such as inequitable dealing. That is the basis of tragedy, towards which nations are propelled by a partial, or wrongful reading of socio-political realities and- history. I would like to see this nation avoid such a blunder. So, I am certain, would Balarabe Musa.
“Raising the spectre of secession is a facile approach to the dangerous, self-evident lapses in governance which Balarabe himself acknowledges in his response to the Amotekun principle made flesh. The midwives of Amotekun have repeatedly acknowledged that theirs is only a contribution towards a crisis of escalating proportions. Other states should be encouraged to emulate, not misread such initiatives, then demonise them by false attributions. That is the certain recipe for tragedy.”
