Seek help, youths should not serve as ritual offerings for Nigeria – Soyinka to Buhari

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, on Saturday, called on President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government to seek aid in tackling the current security crisis in the country.

Soyinka, who said the country is now at war, released a statement titled “The Endless Martyrdom Of Youths” to express his grievances over the killings of three Greenfield University students who were abducted on Tuesday.

Recall that an unspecified number of students were kidnapped by bandits on Tuesday this week. On Friday, the remains of three out of over 30 persons that were kidnapped were found not too far from the university’s premises.

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Soyinka, calling to remembrance the past similarities like the abductions of Chibok and Dapchi, decried the current state of the nation. The novelist said that moral restraint and what he described as a “natural law of limitations” had finally been breached in light of these recent reports.

The Nobel Laurette accused the current administration of “vain pride”, and called on all those involved to solicit advice and guidance on the way forward.

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“Again, this is no new counselling, but of course the dog that will get lost no longer heeds the hunter’s whistle. I envy no one the task ahead, terminating the toxic harvest of past derelictions.

“Blame laying is for later. Right now is the question of – what needs to be done, and done urgently. We keep avoiding the inevitable, but that very unthinkable now hammers brutishly on our gates, the blood ransom arrogantly insatiable.

“This nation is at war, yet we continue to pretend that these are mere birth-pangs of a glorious entity. They are death throes. Vultures and undertakers hover patiently but with full confidence,” he said.

The award-winning author also pleaded with the current administration to find a solution to the current plague of carnage that has beleaguered the nation.

“To this government, we repeat the public cry: Seek Help. Stop Improvising with Human Lives. Youth – that is, the future – should not serve as Ritual Offering on the altar of a failing state,” he said.