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Amotekun: Balarabe Musa’s claim, recipe for national tragedy -Soyinka

David Adenekan
David Adenekan
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Soyinka

Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka has described as recipe for national tragedy, the position of former governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, that the creation of the security network in the South West of Nigeria, code-named Amotekun, is part of a cessation plan.

Musa who made the remark at the weekend warned the Federal Government not to allow Amotekun to stand.

But in his reaction in a statement made available to FrontPage on Tuesday, Soyinka said it would be wrong of Musa to promote his fears as facts.

He said that was particularly so when those behind the idea had explained that the intention was to contribute to stemming a crisis that had escalated in that part of the country.

He said rather, other states should be encouraged to emulate them.

His statement reads in full:

“Balarabe is sadly, but I hope not tragically wrong. I invoke the tragic dimension here because the making of tragedy, especially for nations, often begins when fears are mistaken or promoted as facts, and governments either by themselves, or together with interest groups, are enticed by fears into embarking on precipitate, irrational, and irreversible acts. Such acts turn out, in the end, to be based on nothing but fears, sometimes generated by guilt over past injustices, such as inequitable dealing. That is the basis of tragedy, towards which nations are propelled by a partial, or wrongful reading of socio-political realities and – history. I would like to see this nation avoid such a blunder. So, I am certain, would Balarabe Musa.

“Raising the spectre of secession is a facile approach to the dangerous, self-evident lapses in governance which Balarabe himself acknowledges in his response to the Amotekun principle made flesh. The midwives of Amotekun have repeatedly acknowledged that theirs is only a contribution towards a crisis of escalating proportions. Other states should be encouraged to emulate, not misread such initiatives, then demonize them by false attributions. That is the certain recipe for tragedy.”

 

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