Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has backed his literary colleague, Prof. Chinua Achebe, in the raging controversy over the roles of some prominent Nigerians during the Nigerian civil war.
Soyinka, in an interview published in The Telegraph of London, but obtained by THISDAY yesterday, said the Igbo were victims of genocide during the three-year civil war, which was fought to break up Nigeria.
Achebe had stirred the hornet's nest in his civil war memoir, "There Was A Country", when among others, he accused wartime Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon and the then Finance Minister, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, of carrying out a genocide against the Igbo.
The claim has generated considerable controversy, with many commentators accusing Achebe of re-writing history.
Soyinka, however, justified the secession bid and described Biafrans as "people who'd been abused, who'd undergone genocide, and who felt completely rejected by the rest of the community, and therefore decided to break away and form a nation of its own."
He also condemned religious militancy, saying now is the time to tackle Boko Haram, the insurgent group that has visited terror on the North, killing over 1,500 since 2009.
According to him, what Boko Haram is doing is not religion, but criminality.
He said: "All religions accept that there is something called criminality. And criminality cannot be excused by religious fervour. Let me repeat something I first said at the meeting organised by UNESCO a few weeks ago, which was prompted by the recent film insulting the religion of Islam and depicting the Prophet Mohammed in a very crass way.
"The first thing to say is that we do not welcome any attempt to ravage religious sensibilities. That can be taken for granted. But you cannot hold the world to ransom simply because some idiots chose to insult a religion in some far-off place which most of the world has never even heard of. This for me is a kind of fundamentalist tyranny that should be totally unacceptable.
"So a group calls itself the Boko Haram, literally: 'Book is taboo', the book is anathema, the book is a product of Western civilisation, therefore it must be rejected.
"You go from the rejection of books to the rejection of institutions which utilise the book, and that means virtually all institutions. You attack universities, you kill professors, then you butcher students, you close down primary schools, you try and create a religious Maginot Line through which nothing should penetrate.
"That's not religion; that's lunacy. My Christian family lived just next door to Muslims. We celebrated Ramadan with Muslims; they celebrated Christmas with Christians. This is how I grew up.
"And now this virus is spreading all around the world, leading to the massacre of 50 students. This is not taking arms against the state, this is taking up arms against humanity."
He said the unrest in Nigeria following the Boko Haram insurgency had attained a critical mass and criticised the way the Federal Government was handling the terror war.
"The president of Nigeria is making a mistake in not telling the nation that it should place itself on a war footing. There's too much pussyfooting, there's too much false intellectualisation of what is going on, such as this is the result of corruption, this is the result of poverty, this is the result of marginalisation.
"Yes, of course, all these negativities have to do with what is happening right now. But when the people themselves come out and say we will not even talk to the president unless he converts to Islam, they are already stating their terms of conflict," he added.
Soyinka said if religion were to be taken away from the world, he would be one of the happiest people in the world.
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I'll do my best to remove the perversion of inferior beliefs from my world.
I had high regards for Yinka Odumakin until his recent comment denouncing Achebe, now an Achebe contemporary has set the record straight i think Mr Odumakin should educate himself properly on the actual and unbiased history of the Nigeria he claims to be saving,i suggest he begins by reading Frederick Forsyths 'Dogs of War'.Charlatans, Half-baked individuals and persons with subjective mindsets should be kept far away from revolutionary and emmancipatory moves because these are moves that affects the destiny of millions.
In a strict compliance with the intellectual and well-reasoned assertion of the Laureate,and in the absence of a doubt, the FG has been extremely ineffectual in tackling the Islamist sect insurgence.
I guess age is finally catching up with Mr. Soyinka as his 82-year-old Octogenarian Achebe friend continues to spew forth his envy and hatred of the Yorubas and Hausa-Fulani axis for winning the Biafra war. If Soyinka abhors the mindless murderous of Boko Haramus, as we all ought to, so should he condemn Achebe's veil attempt to pass on to the next generation the hatred of their neighbors that are non-Biafrans. Isn't it about time we all get along and let this 40-year-old war die?
Thank God, Ojukwu is gone after he confessed his regret for leading his followers to the slaughterhouse, unnecessarily. And so too will Achebe go to join his Awo "nemesis" in the yonder-land but bitter still with envy and hatred at this ripe age is not good for a soul to enter the "good" Kingdom beyond, if he believes there is one.
As one observer aptly commented: Achebe's book only addressed the war and ignored the CAUSES of the Biafra war - how convenient. Most Nigerians not on the Biafra side do not accept the generality of Igbo version of the war. Until people like Achebe come out and tell the whole truth about the CAUSES of the war from the time of Nzeogwu's coup; Mind you, Achebe has come across as a hard nose tribalist and hater of Yorubas who are more successful in leadership roles, from Awo to Obasanjo, a trait that is lacking among any other Nigerian ethnic group.
Baba-Agbaya Achebe knows that the Yorubas hold Awolowo in high esteem to the angst of other ethnic groups. I understand that he who does not know his past is bound to repeat his previous mistakes. We have not heard the Nigeria side of the 1967 - 1970 war though. I believe there are two sides to a conflict. Let those on the Nigeria side like Gowon, who is still living, write their version so that we can have an informed judgment as Chief Femi Okunnu did from the Yoruba's perspective.
What is certain is that it was a painful experience for Nzeogwu's victims when only non-Ibo senior military officers were killed by the Nzeogwu coup when they were not politicians. People like Brigadiers Maimalari, Ademulegun and his wife. Ditto for politicians - all those killed were non-Ibos. Is this a coincidence? Why were Ibos making fun of their host in the north with the picture of Ahmadu Bello's dead photo published by newspapers at the time? How insensitive. Why were Ibos jubilating in the north when Ironsi became head of state?
I wish my Igbo brothers will take a long hard look at the mirror and do a lot of introspection. No group of people will wake up one day and commit pogrom against another group for no reasons unless they were insane. Both sides made mistakes. Until we acknowledge this, we are all in denial, including Mr. Soyinka, who now seems to be losing his faculty as he goes, incoherently, from pillar to post in his thoughts and utterances. Nigeria of today is no longer a country for old men of yester-years, whose generation is an un-healing scab but for a few genuine reformers like former President Obasanjo that the likes of Achebe and Soyinka attempted to turn into a pariah.
When any motion is moved by Achebe and seconded by Soyinka (or vice versa) the motion is carried. So Awo and Gowon committed genocide during the Nigeria-Biafra civil war.
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