Playwright Wole Soyinka has decried the current state of insecurity in Nigeria, especially as it involves the abductions of children by gunmen, noting that Nigerians cannot “permit” themselves to “continue in this fashion”
He said this at the launch of his book “Chronicles of the Happiest People on Earth” in Ogun State.
His remarks follow the abduction of over 300 schoolgirls in Zamfara on Friday a week after 27 students and 12 other members of staff of the Government Science College Kagara were abducted and subsequently released.
The Nobel laureate described the epoch as “abnormal times” and “times of the shirking of responsibility in very key areas.”
He said, “The abductions of our children, when will it end, how will it end? I don’t think anyone of us can tell,” he said. “But it is important that we continue to stress and to remind ourselves that, not only are these abnormal times, but it seems to be, to me anyway, times of the shirking of responsibility in very key areas.
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“We cannot permit ourselves – we just cannot – continue in this fashion. Something drastic, meaningful has to take place, and it has to be collective.
“This is no longer the responsibility of those at the top (who are ) supposed to be in charge of security, in charge of governance; they have clearly failed the populace. They’ve failed us. There is no point in trying to reason it out, to find excuses, to lay blame.
“The important thing is that we are very close to accepting a culture of the unacceptable
“I think we are reaching the point where, in any state, where any child is kidnapped, that state should shut down completely. And other states, in solidarity, should at least shut down some of their activities.
“We shouldn’t wait for an enemy, faceless, airborne, unpredictable enemy like Covid to make us shut down.
“In protest and as a statement of the unacceptable, we are shutting ourselves down until this situation is resolved.”
