Soyinka warns of people’s anger, power

Guardian

27 September 2011

Soyinka warns of people’s anger, power

NOBEL laureate Prof. Wole  Soyinka  yesterday warned of a possible explosion  of people’s anger and power in the country if nothing is done to immediately institute a national dialogue where free citizens can genuinely chart the way forward for the nation.

“The signs are all around us, ” he warned in a lengthy lecture yesterday with the theme  “Governance in the 21st century Nigeria” at the 2011 national management conference of the Nigerian Institute of Management (NIM) in Abuja.

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He said that the option of dialogue would still be preferable to violence , which was already knocking on the door and could erupt into the people’s revolt already being witnessed in north Africa and parts of the Arab world.

Soyinka drew parallels between the Maitatsine uprising that falsely tried to sanitise Islam and the existing Boko Haram which he said had clear links with the dreaded Alqaeda and had training camps in countries such as Mauritania in the upper northwest of Nigeria.  “We have to remind those who were too young during these unfortunate uprisings of these historical upheavals for our own comparative analyses,” he added.

“People have become impatient with the slow pace of restoration in Nigeria... A national dialogue would bring back the desired order. Let the first few days or weeks of the dialogue be rancorous. Let us pause and address the psychology of self-abasement. The Nigerian people must dialogue now. Or do you really expect elected legislators to act against their existence?....