Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, on Saturday expressed confidence that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration is on target to win the anti-corruption war conclusively provided it refuses to be cowed by desperate and corrupt public ex-officeholders who were treasury looters now fighting back to frustrate the anti-graft war.
Apparently referring to the vexatious national shame of 219 Chibok schoolgirls still missing two years after Boko Haram insurgents kidnapped them from their campus at Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, the globally respected professor chided the past government for being so inept and corruptly incompetent that the nation’s children were kidnapped right under the leaders’ noses and plunged the country into a critical emergency because nobody can trace them for the past two years.
Soyinka made these observations when the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed visited him at his home in Lagos.
He said that the level of corruption exposed by Buhari administration showed that government was finally tackling the vice frontally.
According to Soyinka, the country has never had corruption exposed on this scale before.
“We have not had a case where it had been alleged and increasingly proven that money supposed to be spent on defending ourselves, our nation, our neighbourhood, has been shared among individuals.
“We never had experience where we were in a state of critical emergency where children are being kidnapped under our noses.
“Never had there been a situation where we are helpless and our soldiers are sent to the front to defend our very existence and we are not backing them up with conduct that shows integrity and commitment.
“Because of these reasons, corruption is really desperate and has chosen to fight back; but I am confident that corruption will be resolved,’’ Soyinka said.
He advised the Federal Government not to relent in its effort at bringing all those who looted the nation’s treasury to justice, adding that it should not be cowed by deliberate attempts to frustrate the anti-corruption crusade.
He described as “insulting’’, news accusing him of engaging in corrupt practices, and said that he was ready to face appropriate legal authority if properly invited.
Soyinka decried the deplorable condition of the National Arts Theatre in Lagos, and said that a Private-Public-Partnership may be the solution for the resuscitation of the national monument.
On his part, the minister expressed the government’s resolve to develop the arts industry.
He said that the ministry was currently strategising on how to tap into the opportunities and potentials in the culture and arts industry to create jobs for Nigerian youths.
-Vanguard