By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
For Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, President Muhammadu Buhari may be oblivious of the happenings in the country and probably not involved in the decision to appoint the new service chiefs who took over from the old guards.
The new security chiefs are Lt-General Lucky Irabor, Chief of Defence Staff; Major-General I. Attahiru, Chief of Army Staff; Rear Admiral A.Z Gambo, Chief of Naval Staff; and Air-Vice Marshal I.O Amao, Chief of Air Staff.
In an interview on AIT monitored by TheNiche, Soyinka questioned if Buhari was really in-charge of the country. His argument was hinged on how long it took to change the service chiefs despite their failings to tame the insecurity in the country.
“The major question for me actually is, is Buhari in-charge? For instance, was he the one who made the decision? The way the problem is allowed to linger makes me question again and again whether Buhari is in charge of this nation, whether he is the one who makes the decisions, whether he is aware of what has been going on and the gravity of the distrust within the nation. Is Buhari in-charge? To me, that has become the real question. Probably the new service chiefs will perform miracles. But things have really gone so far down the abyss that I wonder if they can make things work,” he said.
Soyinka, by way of example, explained why he thinks Buhari isn’t in-charge.
“Let me give you an instance. Let’s go back a few years when finally President Buhari was persuaded to go to Benue to sympathize with the victims of these marauders, these herders. He made this unbelievable pronouncement that people should learn to live peaceably with their neighbours and so on. I looked at that and said this is not the commander-in-chief talking.
“Before that, I threw him a challenge where I openly and publicly said that what this President ought to do was to go to one of those villages, and that was in the early stage before we started counting in three figures the casualty. I said what he has to do was to read the riot act and give every illegal occupant of any village, any hamlet to quit before the security agency threw them out. But what do we have? The president said oh people should learn to live peaceably with their neighbours. That is why I said this man is not in-charge and he is not aware of the enormity of what is happening in this nation,” Soyinka said.
The Nobel Laureate said he was impressed with the decision of Akeredolu to quit herders from Ondo’s forest. He argued that the Ondo governor acted constitutionally.
“The meeting of the governors and the decisions which they took in the presence of this criminal organisation called Miyetti Allah. I call them criminal organisation because of their pronouncement, their callous indifference, their arrogant statements and so on. I am very glad that they were also present at that meeting where Akeredolu’s decision and the pronouncement was endorsed by the governors.
“I believe that we have the responsibility to also find out just who has been the Oga at the top to whom all security officers seem to defer any time that the police attempt to do their work and stem the predatory activities of the herdsmen. It’s good that the service chiefs have been changed so that we can guess who is the Oga at the top. Is it the presidency? Is it the IGP? Is it the military officers? Who sends those soldiers to go and beat up those farmers in Ogun state who were protecting their farms,” he said.
