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Nigeria isn’t a nation, but a basket-case – Wole Soyinka

Published

3 years ago

July 5, 2021

Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, has urged those calling for the Yoruba Nation to define what it really means..

Edujandon.com recalls that Yoruba nation protesters on Saturday stormed the Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Park, Ojota, Lagos, where the rally was scheduled to start.

Amid heavy security at the Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Park, Ojota, Lagos, where the protest was scheduled to commence, the Yoruba nation protesters defiled the operatives, storming the area for the mega rally as earlier planned.

Reacting to the development, Soyinka told BBC Pidgin on Monday Nigeria has to get away from the present political arrangement because they clearly are not working, describing it as ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul.’

Soyinka said, “I don’t like the sound of a Yoruba Nation any more than I like the sound of a Tiv nation or an Igbo nation. The reason is this: there are certain pejorative overtones, chauvinistic overtones attached to it. That is not the issue. When you talk about Yoruba Nation, are we talking about the creation of a nation within Nigeria alone or across colonial borders into Cotonou, Benin Republic, where Yoruba exists, moving on to Togo and even Ivory Coast? So when we talk about Yoruba Nation, I’ve to know exactly what you mean. Do we even talk about the Yoruba in the Diaspora?

“So it is a question which isn’t for me to answer at this particular moment. All I know is this, on a sentimental level, I will prefer us to mend and manage what we’ve but under certain, rigorous conditions.

“The condition is decentralisation. We’ve to move away completely from this constitution which was imposed on us by an internal, neo-colonial force called the military. Now, if it had worked, if it were working, my position would have been different.

“My conditions are non-negotiable. We’ve to get away from the present political arrangement because they clearly aren’t working; they are creating internal overlords, they’re creating a skewed, lopsided revenue-sharing system. They’re robbing Peter to pay Paul.

“Right now, what we have isn’t a nation, but a basket-case, a real basket-case which is disintegrating all over the place, and all the contents are spilling over the basket.”