Soyinka advocates for South East Presidency to heal the wounds of the civil war
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Five weeks after the vote, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka has advocated ceding the presidency to the South East to heal the wounds of the civil war, which lasted three years before it ended in 1970, with more three million deaths left in its trail.
The war arose from declaration of the independence of Biafra in the South East, and more than fifty years later separatists are still pushing for independence, highlighting the festering sore of the war.
To heal from it, Soyinka suggested the presidency going to the South East will help “rewrite the history.”
“It is not just about reconstruction, it is also about rewriting of history,” he said on Channels Television.
“We believe that to close the circle of negativity, that we embarked on before and during the civil war, I believe, the presidency, as soon as possible, should go towards the Eastern region which lost a war.
“This is one of the ways to heal the wounds of the nation – that is a principle and philosophy.”
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Restructuring Nigeria
Soyinka, an advocate of true federalism, reechoed his stance that Nigeria should be restructured, via reporting by The Guardian.
But he said none of the leading candidates in the 2023 presidential candidates provided a believable agenda for restructuring.
“In fact, one of the reasons I refused to endorse any candidate is because none of the candidates addressed the things closest to my heart, like again, reconstructing the nation.
“I did not see any genuine commitment, any believable agenda about restructuring, decentralisation of Nigeria which is at the heart of the problem for me at the moment.
“People were more concerned with just aiming for power.”
Youths have woken up
Soyinka disagreed with talk Nigeria is yet to fully understand democracy because of the way this year’s election was conducted.
“I do not think we do not understand democracy, certain stakes have been catapulted to the fore and over – have come to overwhelm what should be the real stuffing of the democratic process.”
“We can still come back to that phase where we had a common purpose that enough of military rule – I’m talking about June 12 – and demonstrated, not just to ourselves but to the whole world.
“Yes, we know what democracy is and we know how to practise it and, unfortunately, we seem not to have succeeded in reaching that level of democratic concert that we exhibited when said, look, ‘let us take back our own political violation and get rid of the khaki boys’ and we can still come back to it.”
In Soyinka’s view the result of the 2023 election shows a “point has been scored” and “people now know the power they have, and the youths have woken up.”