Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka has given President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration up to the end of July to stop incessant killings and return displaced persons to their homes or be seen as a total failure.
Soyinka who made the statement during the inauguration of the 2018 OAU Ife Festival of Foods and Identity at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun state gave the administration till the end of July to stop killer herdsmen insurgency.
He warned that Nigeria’s food security could be jeopardized by the rampant killings, pointing out that farmers were the most affected victims of the herdsmen and Boko Haram attacks.
“Our mission in life is to beat the sword into ploughshare. This means that machetes, hoes, the instruments of cultivation, planting, and creating sustenance we must fashion out of the instruments of destruction; we must overcome the instruments of destruction,” the Laureate insisted.
Soyinka noted “And my message to all those who are concerned is that between the launching of this logo and festival today and the outward manifestation of the festival itself (end of July), we should have seen signs that this battle between the sword and the ploughshare is reversed.
“Nigerians would be given fulfillment as a people of culture, peace and harmony, if the instruments of war and destruction are transformed into instruments of production and creativity.
“Between the annunciation of this festival and the manifestation of the festival itself, we want to see from this government a reversal of a seeming triumph of the gun; and if that has not taken place, let us not lie to ourselves, it means we have no government.
“If those who had been displaced, the farmers who have been displaced in their hundreds from various parts of this nation, especially the North, if those farmers have not been taken back and restored to their productive environment, then it means we have no government.
“Let us all join hands to beat the sword, the guns into ploughshares.” (The Vanguard).
