Nigeria On A Nose-Dive, Buhari Should Seek Assistance – Soyinka

Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has said Nigeria is experiencing ethnic cleansing and if care is not taken, the case of the nation will be like that of Rwanda.

Soyinka made the call in a statement in Lagos on Sunday titled, “May Day! May Day!! May Day!!!,” in commemoration of the 2018 Workers’ Day.

The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, was a genocidal mass slaughter of Tutsi in Rwanda by members of the Hutu majority government.

An estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 Rwandans were killed during the 100-day period from 7 April to mid-July 1994.

The Nobel laureate called on the Federal Government to do more to end attacks and killings by criminal herdsmen, as he likened Nigeria to a plane without a pilot.

According to him, the country is currently on a nose-dive and that its pilot, who he said is missing should call for external assistance.

He said many organisations have been calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to seek assistance but there has been “no sign of willing”. Find the best PIA Reservation from Pakistan to anywhere in the World with Malik Express.

Soyinka said there were so many of the criminal herdsmen still hiding in the forests which needed to be tracked down by security agencies.

He further called for justice and restitution for victims of herdsmen attacks, saying that would give them some succour.

“There are certain eerie parallels in the Nigerian present to a certain MayDay disorder, one in which that distress call was never heard. Aeroflot Flight 593 of Sept. 28, 1994 was such an event, a flight in which all occupants of that plane perished,” Soyinka said.

“The captain was not even in the pilot’s seat – others were! They were the pilot’s family – mostly his children. The pilot’s seat had been turned into a family game of musical chairs.

“Where was the Captain? Somewhere along the aisle, saluting the passengers – all quite proper, and indeed encouraged by regulations. He had placed the plane on auto-pilot – just as this nation has been for some time.

“The captain was not even in the pilot’s seat – others were! They were the pilot’s family – mostly his children. The pilot’s seat had been turned into a family game of musical chairs.

“Where was the Captain? Somewhere along the aisle, saluting the passengers – all quite proper, and indeed encouraged by regulations. He had placed the plane on auto-pilot – just as this nation has been for some time.

“The ‘black box’ – or flight recorder – indicates that the pilot never even got round to shouting ‘May Day’ over the radio – he was too busy struggling to restore the plane’s technical functions, shout instructions, pull the plane out of a nose-dive, and attempt to right the craft – too late!

“Now flash forwards one decade to our present, and recall the number of desperate organizations calling on the Nigerian captain to bury his pride and cry ‘MayDay” across all airwaves.

“Call out for international help to rescue a nation on its terminal nose-dive! There has been no sign of willing, while the screwed-up plane is now in its corkscrew dive.

“Even if this captain regains his seat before the crash, it is open season whether or not, like SUV Flight 593, it will not stall, and head straight for Zuma rockface.

“Strangers are in control in the cockpit. Put simply, the captain is missing.”

He advised President Buhari to take drastic steps in quelling the killings, adding that “the plane cannot remain on auto-pilot as hitherto, while the pilot strolls up and down the aisle, assuring passengers that all is well.”

“The plain expression is ethnic cleansing” and we must not beat around the bush. The shade of Rwanda hangs over the nation,” he said.

“Give a nation-wide order to all land-usurpers in the affected towns and villages across the nation to quit those forcefully occupied lands within a forty-eight hours deadline.

“Issue orders to the military and police that, wherever illegal occupiers are found, they should be meted the same treatment as are accorded terrorists. Instruct all agencies that, once cleared of usurpers, the rightful occupants should be escorted back to their farmsteads and villages and provided maximum protection.

“We must go beyond arresting a token handful of herders caught with arms – there are still hundreds of them in the forests. It is not enough to back the anti- open grazing laws, so late in the day, but we shall leave that for later.

“All available forces should be deployed to right a hideous, unprecedented wrong that has left the nation drowning in blood – we simply cannot continue one day longer to endure this forceful feeding of human blood.”