Nigeria’s Nobel Laureate winner, Professor Wole Soyinka, has described Muhammadu Buhari, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the most brutal face of military dictatorship after Sani Abacha.
Speaking with the BBC, Soyinka stated that Nigerians are already suffering and at the moment there was no respite in sight.
Soyinka clarifying his statement on Buhari dining with the devil, he said he did not call Buhari a devil but a brutal dictator.
“I didn’t exactly call him a devil, but of course I talked about dinning with the devil with a very long spoon, but he (Buhari), I didn’t even want to dine with him at all,” he said.
“After Abacha, he represented the most brutal face of military dictatorship, there’s no question at all about that.
“I’ve got to the point whereby I look at the possibility of a genuine internal transformation with some individuals. I have been disappointed before, and we must always be ready to be disappointed.
On the entrenchment of democracy in Nigeria, the Octanogerian said: “There are many, many actions, especially by the government in power which I won’t say are exactly democratic. Let’s have a fair war, it’s not yet deep enough.”
Speaking on the abducted Chibok girls, branding insurgency in the north-east a failure of leadership by Jonathan and his predecessors.
“What happened was a clear failure in leadership. One cannot hold the government solely; the responsibility spreads, because the Boko Haram thing began in various ways a long time ago.
“There was a time when they announced the Islamisation of Nigeria; they should have been stamped upon by the constitution, using the constitution as a weapon.
“While definitely, the responsibility of what is going on rests with Jonathan, the bigger problem began with previous governments.”
Soyinka warned Nigerians on their options and choices in the coming presidential elections, noting that any mistake made could lead the country back into the trenches.
“Basically, for me, anything which so smells of soliciting permanent incumbency or littling the options is not palatable. But you know, the environment changes, the circumstances change and then even the worst military can become demobilised, self-internally demobilised if you like.
“All I know is that if a wrong choice is made, we must all be prepared, we should start preparing to go back to the trenches, whatever it takes.
“Let’s put it this way: the way you fight a civilian misrule is different from the way you deal with people like Sanni Abacha.
“So I’m saying Nigerians should be prepared to deal with any new betrayals by any ruler with the same kind of passion, commitment and understanding of a lack of alternative as they did with Sani Abacha, because we cannot continue this cycle of repetitious evil and irresponsibility.”
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