I Support Biafra, Igbos Have Been Brutalised – Soyinka
Nigerian playwright and poet, Professor Wole Soyinka, has declared his support for agitators of the Republic of Biafra.
Soyinka, in an interview with Al Jazeera, on Thursday, said that the Igbos have been “brutalised” and “wronged desperately”, hence their agitation to leave Nigeria is “Justified”
He also condemned the removal of the teaching of history of Biafran crisis in Nigerian schools, adding that the government should not be scared of looking back to the country’s past in order not to mess up its future.
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His words, “I don’t agitate on some certain entity called a nation; I agitate on humanity.”
“I am very much pro- Biafra because I recognise that the Igbos have been wronged desperately.
“They have been brutalised in a way that justifies their feeling that they were not part of the nation.
“Let me also say this, Biafrans are not entirely innocent in this affair. They were not, but the unleashing of such venom, such devastation on them as a people, was sufficient to justify their decision not to be part of the nation.
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“I was pro-Biafran in the sense that I felt that they needed justice.”
“Officials do not want to confront their own history, especially the history in the making of which they feel uncomfortable but, if you do not confront your past, you are going to mess up your future.”
Recall that Professor Wole Soyinka had previously urged the Federal Government to embrace dialogue in handling the agitation for the Republic of Biafra, dismissing President Muhammadu Buhari’s claim that Nigeria’s unity was non-negotiable.
Similarly, the Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, and the pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, insisted that the country’s unity is very negotiable.
