Miyetti Allah Should Be Proscribed For Hate Speech And Attack Across The Country, Not IPOB ---Soyinka

 Miyetti Allah Should Be Proscribed For Hate Speech And Attack Across The Country, Not IPOB ---Soyinka

The ill treatments that the Nigerian government have sustained on the Mazi Nnamdi Kanu led Indigenious People Of Biafra(IPOB), compared to the joyful romance of the terrors perpetuated across Nigerian by the Fulanis, has been questioned by the Noble Laurent winner, Professor Wole Soyinka.

In the prerecorded interview with Channels Television, which was aired on Monday August 21, 2022, Soyinka made his stand known to all and sundry by voicing out the partizan treatments in Nigerian system, especially as regarding religion and ethnicity and the forceful land grabbing by Fulanis.

Mr. Soyinka Siad, “My temperament does not accept that anyone should chase me out of my God-given earth. So, it is a temperamental thing as well". 

“The idea that you can unleash terror on me because you want my little patch of territory or you want my soul, that is, you want to subjugate me, you want to turn me into a slave. Well, I would sort that out first."

Continuing, the Noble Laurent winner further affirmed that in such a case, he would actually find it difficult to accept. Saying, “And then, I’ll make up my mind whether I want to leave. So each outrage, unfortunately, has the opposite effect. Whether the outrage is taking place in Benue, Kaduna, or is taking place in Owo. Or whether it is taking place right here on the (Ogun state) border – we’ve been subjected also to this lunacy of the subjugation mentality which some minority people hold. And I find it very difficult to accept to be chased out of my entitled portion of the earth".

Mr Soyinka expressed surprise at how nothing is done about a hate statement credited to the spokesman of Miyetti Allah. He categorically suggested that those who invades and unleash terrors on communities, and who want a repeat of ugly "history of conquest" should rather be arrested and proscribed.

 “Many people just either do not know the history or do not understand the purpose of history. And then there’s a different group also who are very selective about history; they know how to distort or misuse history. Take for instance, when the incursion of the Fulani herdsmen began, and the Miyetti Allah spokesman said, I think it was in Borno, “We once ruled this place and we can take back our land anytime we want."

 “I remember that statement; I’ve never forgotten it. Amid the trauma of these people, somebody comes gloating and then cites selective portions of history".

 "I said this person should be arrested and locked up; who says he wants to repeat his history of conquest – he’s admitting either knowledge, before or after, or support, anyway. Isn’t there anything like hate speech anymore?"

"Why are you proscribing IPOB without proscribing Miyetti Allah?”, he concluded.

Onyemachi Gabriel, reporting

For Family Writers Press International