Amotekun: Soyinka Blasts Balarabe Musa

Amotekun: Soyinka Blasts Balarabe Musa

Tuesday, January 21, 2020 12:04 pm


Wole Soyinka

Professor Wole Soyinka, the Nobel Laureate, has taken a dig at Alhaji Balarabe Musa for his position on Amotekun, the security outfit launched on 9 January by South West Governors to fight crime. Balarabe waved Amotekun off as a stratagem by the Yoruba to launch Oduduwa Republic.

Here is Soyinka’s statement:

“Balarabe is sadly, but I hope not tragically wrong. I invoke the tragic dimension here because the making of tragedy, especially for nations, often begins when fears are mistaken, or promoted as facts, and governments either by themselves, or together with interest groups, are enticed by fears into embarking on precipitate, irrational, and irreversible acts. Such acts turn out tin the end to be based on nothing but fears, sometimes generated by guilt over past injustices, such as inequitable dealing. 

That is the basis of tragedy, towards which nations are propelled by a partial, or wrongful reading of socio-political realities and – history. I would like to see this nation avoid such a blunder. So, I am certain, would Balarabe Musa. Raising the spectre of secession is a facile approach to the dangerous, self-evident lapses in governance which Balarabe himself acknowledges in his response to the Amotekun principle made flesh. 

The midwives of Amotekun have repeatedly acknowledged that theirs is only a contribution towards a crisis of escalating proportions. Other states should be encouraged to emulate, not misread such initiatives, then demonize them by false attributions. That is the certain recipe for tragedy

Wole SOYINKA”

 


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One Comment

  • Shima K Gyoh says:

    There is incontrovertible evidence that the Federal Government alone cannot adequate tackle the country-wide insecurity, and it should be glad to share it with the States whose governors are said to be chief security officers and even given “security votes” but denied the responsibility. Nigeria’s unitary government must go truly federal. The FGN must fully face the growing external threat from Boko Haram while the States maintain internal security.

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