Professor Wole Soyinka has described the President Goodluck Jonathan-led federal government as a huge failure to the Nigerian people. He gave this verdict during an interview on the BBC’s Hardtalk show.
The Nobel laureate, while reacting to issues raised on the abducted girls and general insecurity in Nigeria, said the primary task of any government is to be responsible to its citizens, but that is not the case today.
In the words of Prof Soyinka: "I have had moments when I feel Nigeria is a failed state but it is not beyond redemption. I must express my feelings that this government has failed the nation. The primary task right now for me is to demonstrate our sense of responsibility to those we bring into the world and those we send to danger zones. If we fail them, we fail the entire nation and lose our self-respect.”
He insisted that the ongoing global action on the missing Chibok girls must be sustained until the students are brought home. Noting that it will be a mistake to think that what is happening now affects only one section of the nation, he said there are cells breaking out in the southern part of Nigeria too.
“It is only a matter of time before we are overwhelmed in the south,” Soyinka warned.
When asked if he believed the president should resign, Soyinka told his host: “Let me tell you something: if I have the conviction one way or the other, I will be the first person to call the president (to say) for the sake of this nation, you must sacrifice whatever ambitions you have and you must hand over to whatever kind of transitional... I won’t say it in public. I will say it to him first.”
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