Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, has described Nigeria as a basket case with skewed revenue allocation formula that creates overlord, unworkable political arrangement, and agitation by ethnic nationalities.
Speaking in an interview with BBC Pidgin, Soyinka said the country “is disintegrating all over the place, and all the contents are spilling over the basket.
However, he said he did not like the idea of a break up and faulted calls for the formation of a Yoruba nation.
He said he preferred a united Nigeria, but under certain “rigorous conditions.”
The playwright who condemned the raid of the home of Yoruba activist, Mr. Sunday Igboho, declared: “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’s not the issue.
“When you talk about a 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 have to know exactly what you mean. Do we even talk about the Yoruba in the Diaspora?
“So, it’s a question which is not for me to answer at this particular moment,” he said.
On Nnamdi Kanu, Soyinka said the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) was kidnapped by the federal government.
He said there would be an uproar in the country if the truth of how Kanu was arrested becomes known.
“It’s not for me to tell the president to prepare itself because it’s going to be a huge squawk when the truth about how Kanu was arrested comes out. People are alleging this or that. That is one phase whether Nigeria has acted outside international law.
“The second issue, however, has to do with Kanu’s conduct outside the nation. There’s been a level of hate rhetoric which has been unfortunate, from Kanu. Hate rhetoric is an issue that can only be judged by the laws of any nation.
“Was it right ‘to have been kidnapped?’ You can say intercepted as much as you want but I think Kanu was kidnapped. That is wrong internationally and morally,” he added.
Commenting on the reactions that have trailed the swiftness with which the federal government arrested Kanu, the playwright said the federal government was yet to show the same eagerness in going after bandits and insurgents.
“The government cannot wash itself clean on what seems to be a kind of comparative energy in pursuing the destabilised forces in the nation,” he said.
“If we take ourselves back, once when I threw a challenge to Buhari, what I expect from a true leader is to issue an order, give a deadline that any illegal occupant of any villages, farms is given 48hours to quit after which the mighty forces of the nation will be unleashed on them. It was ignored.
“Years later, he came to say ‘we will respond to these people in the language they understand’. This is what I expected him to have said years ago, at the beginning of the insurgency.
“Their leadership–the Miyetti Allah — should have been arrested years ago, long before IPOB was declared a terrorist organisation,” he said.
He said rather, the Miyetti Allah group had continued to act unchecked while the federal government has refused to “mount the same energy against them”.
“So people are right to say there has been an unequal and irregular approach to security and enforcement in this nation,” he added.
He advised the federal government to stop the blame game and take action.
He hinted on the need for restructuring and faulted the existing revenue-sharing formula.
“All I know is this: on a sentimental level, I will prefer us to mend and manage what we have, but under certain, rigorous conditions.
“The condition is decentralisation. We have 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 have to get away from the present political arrangement because they clearly are not working.
“They are creating internal overlords; they are creating a skewed, lopsided revenue-sharing system. They are robbing Peter to pay Paul.
“Right now, what we have is not 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.
“And all we are trying to do is to hold it there, grab it there, cover it there, cover that leak, and so on.
“A nation can’t continue like this. It’s obvious. And some people are more impatient than others.”
He therefore has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to constitute a government of national unity.
He said the call had necessary as the state of mind of vast sections of the country mentally, spiritually and economically is that of total distrust for the government.
“This government has earned itself, either rightly or wrongly, that’s for the government to decide, but anybody who is telling this government that the people of this nation still trust it, I’m sorry, and the government believes that, it’s really plunging this nation further into the abyss.
“There’s only one thing to be done to try and win the trust of the people, and in political terms, it’s called Government of National Unity as an interim measure. That’s all.
“Interim measure, especially, towards the next election, in order to have a continuing confab among those who execute policies, in order to regain, of course, basically, a sense of participation, of involvement of the people.
“I know it’s a very hard pill to swallow, but as I said, it’s an interim thing. During that process, you’ll structurally examine the constitution.
“Okay, I know they’ve been tinkering with it here and there, but we’ve been going through that for ages, there have been constitutional review committees under various regimes.
“And sit down, admit your inadequacy, because this has become glaring over the years, even before the last elections.
“I’ve said over and over, I’ve spoken out on it very privately and very frankly to even members of the ruling party.
The distrust is too deep and it’s only a confab, through a Government of National Unity, as an interim measure, that can actually suggest or offer a sliver of hope for the continuity of this nation.”
He said so much damage had been done in the past few years through some “centralist” and “sneaky” policies of the government such as the RUGA and the Water Resources Control Bill.
He also criticised the manner of the re-arrest of the leader of IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu and the raid on the home of Yoruba Nation agitator, Sunday Igboho.
He said although no past president had been without acts of constitutional breaches, the incumbent had a responsibility to remedy the situation.
