As President Umaru Yar’Ardua’s prolonged absence from the country for health reasons stretches into a second month, Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka yesterday in Lagos urged Nigerians to prepare for a campaign of civil disobedience in order to force government officials and politicians in positions of authority to do the right thing.
Soyinka, in a chat with journalists in Lagos which focused on the leadership vacuum and uncertainty brought on by the president’s absence from the country, said with civil disobedience, “those in government would learn to respond to the yearnings of Nigerians.”
The laureate, who on Tuesday joined civil society groups to protest the refusal by Yar’Adua to transfer presidential powers to Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, said the development had pushed Nigerians close to “explosive point.” He therefore called for sustained mass rallies and civil disobedience by Nige-rians in order to force “Yar’Adua and the cabal ruling the country to do the right thing.”
Soyinka said: “Nigerians are close to explosive point because of the refusal by those in power to do the right thing. The situation has been worsened by the comatose state of the nation.
“Mass rallies and a campaign of civil disobedience should be sustained in order to bring the country’s leadership to its knees.“The critical mass has been reached. Cracks will begin here and there and people will be constrained to push. “We will see the manifestations in the actions of the citizens within and outside the country.” He said politicians should be warned against saying that people who are clamouring for the transfer of power do not wish the president well.
“These politicians should be asked which Nigerian they have met that has prayed against the president’s recovery. “They are only trying to distort the issue. It is sanctimonious, a cynical appr-oach. It is blasphemy; they are putting others in a false situation.
“The nation and the president are sick, both need to be healed, but at least the president is receiving treatment,” Soyinka stated.He said those who do not want the president to recover are “members of the cabal that was secretly controlling affairs.“They are all corrupt. Some of them elected and some of them unelected.
They want uncertainty to continue for as long as possible so as to be reinvented for the 2011 election. They are the ones who wish the president would never return.”He said Yar’Adua’s absence had put governance on hold while nobody was saying anything about the Niger-Delta problem.“The issue of the Niger-Delta has been placed on hold. Those brought out of the creeks on the basis of a process of rehabilitation are not being told anything.
“The president had set in motion a certain process to begin immediately after Ramadan. What happened to that process?”The Nobel Laureate also queried the signed 2009 Supplementary Budget: “Lies are being exposed including forgery; did the president truly sign the 2009 Supplementary Budget? “I think a commission should be established to find out if he actually signed. All these issues, all those lies we are being told amount to treasonable action.
“It is up to the people to get up and claim their sovereignty. Have we reached the zenith and we are now declining or dead so the world can come and conduct a post mortem?” he asked rherorically. Yar‘Adua left Nigeria last November after being diagnosed with acute pericarditis, an inflammation of the lining covering the heart. He was flown abroad and has been receiving treatment in the intensive care unit of the King Faisal Specialist Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, ever since.
On electoral reform, Soyinka said Nigerians are anxious to know what has happened to the electoral reform proposal. He queried: “Who is acting on it? Who is working on the reform? Who is tinkering with it? Why are we in the doldrums? Is it that events will overtake electoral reforms? Will Nigerians forget about the reform and go into the 2011 elections like sheep?”“We do not have a constitution, we only have a document pretending to be a constitution, it is a military centralist document which ensures re-enslavement.
On the Haiti earthquake, Soyinka said the absence of Yar’Adua had contributed to the lack of action from Nigeria: “Up till Thursday, we were yet to send our condolences to our sister nation. We pride ourselves as the giant of Africa. “Is this not the moment when the giant of Africa should rise and send one plane load of relief materials?
“Where is the government that should speak on behalf of all of us? All we hear is pray, pray, pray. Pray for this, pray for that.”The Nobel Laureate also reiterated that the United States overreacted by listing Nigeria’s as one of the 10 security risk countries, following the failed attempt by a Nigerian, Umar Abdulmutalab to bomb an American airliner on Christmas Day.He said: “It is totally unjustifiable. The boy who attempted to bomb the plane was bred and psycho-mentally brainwashed in Great Britain and not in Nigeria. The US has to review its decision.
If we had a government, we would never have been placed on that list. The heads of state would have spoken to each other. There is no one to speak to and we are seen as a potential threat to international security.”Soyinka also expressed worry about the return of “torturous” police officer, Zakari Biu to the Nigerian Police. The police authorities recently reinstated Biu.
“It is meant to be a peace keeping agency. Biu’s return could be likened to returning to the monstrous days of Abacha. We know the number of people Biu tortured. The crimes against humanity which he committed should warrant instituting a case against him in the International Criminal Court.”
