Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has called for a national mobilisation to combat the menace of insecurity bedeviling the country.
He also said Nigeria’s sovereignty had been taken away by Boko Haram terrorists, bandits and other criminal elements.
Referring to President Muhammadu Buhari, Soyinka said the President could not end the insecurity challenge in the country, sitting down in Aso Rock.
Soyinka stated this while featuring on a television show monitored by pinpointbase.com.
According to him, Nigeria has reached the “stage of desperation” and the government should be willing to “pay people to come and help us” in defence against Boko Haram insurgents, bandits, and other criminal elements.
Soyinka said, “There are those on whose shoulders must be placed the primary responsibility and that include some former Heads of State who refused to see the inevitability of what we are going through right now.
“I am very glad that the northern elite are now speaking up, boldly and practically, (and are also) now taking measures which they should have taken years ago. They’ve moved beyond the unbelievable policies of actually paying killers to stop killing. I don’t want to mention names but some of them admitted that they were paying protection money to killers instead of dealing with that cancer in the only way which they should which, is excision, to take out killers instead of giving them money.
“You don’t appease evil and we are dealing with evil; there is no other word, we are dealing with the proliferation, the enthronement of evil in the society. And unfortunately, we have encouraged its manifestation, its proliferation, its entrenchment.
“So, let them get away with the issue of sovereignty. If they have to pay people to come and help us, then call them whatever you want. Please go ahead because we’ve reached that stage of desperation.
“But I will prefer a general mobilisation in which people are trained, farmers especially are trained to work with the hoe in one hand and the gun in the other hand, ready to protect their lives, their harvests and the rest of us.
“We are not unique, history is full of those situations. I will like to see a national mobilisation. Let’s be practical.”
At least 43 rice farmers were last year beheaded by Boko Haram terrorists in Borno State.