Herdsmen menace: We have no govt in Nigeria if killings don’t stop in 5 months ―Soyinka

As the growing insecurity, killings and violence, occasioned by Fulani herdsmen’s attacks continue unabated, the Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka on Thursday said we have no government in the country if President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration fails to reclaim farmlands and territories of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in five months‘ time.

He made this disclosure in Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife while unveiling the logo of 2018 OAU Ife Festival of Food and Identity.

The festival of food is billed to commence on the 30th of July and end by the 4th of August, 2018.

Apparently calling for urgent and decisive measures aimed at ending the needless killings of farmers and other categories of people in some parts of the country by the rampaging herdsmen, Soyinka affirmed that “we cannot continue to see the seeming triumph of the guns over the plough shear. We want to see this government’s reversal of the triumph of the swords over the plough shears. If this has not taken place, it means we have no government”.

According to the renowned scholar, “this occasion enable us to pass some certain messages apart from early appetizing and promoting this festival. Everything that needs to be said would be said during the festival itself. But, there is an important message and there is a reminder, this is not the best of times for this nation.”.

Soyinka continued, “for us as a people, it is not the most cheerful of times, we have a responsibility to ourselves as living beings not to allow destruction to overtake or overwhelm our creativity. We shall beat swords into plough shears, it means the instrument of cultivation. We must overcome the instrument of destruction”.

“Between the time of the launching of this logo and the active manifestation of the festival itself, we should have seen signs that the clash between swords and the ploughers is reversed. This would have given us total fulfilment as people with culture, peace and harmony.

Earlier in his remark, the Vice Chancellor of the OAU, Professor Eyitope Ogunbodede said “the centrality of food to human survival is unquestionable. We are glad that Professor Wole Soyinka agrees to be the chief adviser for the festival”.