How Nigerians Can Prevent Another Civil War - Professor Soyinka

Professor Wole Soyinka has given Nigerians a charge to rise against bad leadership in the country and also how Nigerians can prevent civil war.

He gave this note at a conference tagged, ‘Never Again‘ organised by Nzuko Umunna and Ndigbo in Lagos to mark 50 years after the end of Nigerian civil war.

Legit.ng reports that Professor Soyinka said, he would propose that Nigerians borrows a leaf from their brothers and sisters in the Diaspora, adding that that some people have actually considered it a duty, even honour, to take up cudgels on behalf of the denigrators of their own race.

He said: “I propose that we borrow a leaf from our brothers and sisters in the Diaspora. I have no qualms in reminding this, or any other Nigerian audience that, such is the ingrained slave mentality of the contemporary progeny of those who sold those exiles into slavery in the first place, that some in this nation actually consider it a duty, even honour, to take up cudgels on behalf of the denigrators of our own kind, of our own race.

"Thus, they proceed to insult those who respond in their own personal manner to such racists, however powerfully positioned and no matter where on this globe – but let that pass for now. 

The Nobel laureat Further added, “My intention is to jog your memories regarding that spate of serial elimination of our kind – the African-Americans – by white police in the United

States at that very time, an epidemic that merely actualised the racist rantings of the current incumbent of the White House as he powered his way to the coveted seat in the last United States elections."

“Yes, indeed, let us internalize that Africa- American declaration as statement of a living faith, an expression of our humanity that may compel leadership to pause at critical moments of decision, thereby earn ourselves some space where we can re-think those bequeathed absolutes that we so proudly spout, gospels of sacrosanctity, pre-packaged imperatives or questionable, often poisoned “truths” that incite us to advance so conceitedly towards the dehumanization, and decimation of our kind," he added.

Legit