‘I don’t understand Obasanjo, Buhari,’ Nobel Laureate says

Soyinka also spoke on the menace of rampaging Fulani herdsmen saying that some herdsmen invaded his home in Ogun State while he was away.

Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka has said that he doesn’t understand President Muhammadu Buhari and former president, Olusegun Obasanjo’s stance on calls to restructure Nigeria.

Soyinka made the comment on Tuesday, June 28, 2016, during a visit to the corporate headquarters of Punch.

“I am on the side of those who say we must do everything to avoid disintegration. That language I understand. I don’t understand (ex-President Olusegun) Obasanjo’s language. I don’t understand (President Muhammadu) Buhari’s language and all their predecessors, saying the sovereignty of this nation is non-negotiable,” he said.

President Muhammadu Buhari meets with former president, Olusegun Obasanjo in Abuja on April 7, 2016
(Daily Trust)

“It’s bloody well negotiable and we had better negotiate it. We better negotiate it, not even at meetings, not at conferences, but every day in our conduct towards one another.

“We had better understand it too that when people are saying ‘let’s restructure’, they have better things to do. It’s not an idle cry; it is a perennial demand. The Pro-National Conference Organisation was about restructuring when this same Obasanjo said it was an act of treason for people to come together to fashion a new constitution.

“Those were fighting words; that you’re saying, ‘I commit treason because I want to sit with my fellow citizens and negotiate the structures of staying together’ and ask the police to go and break it up and arrest us," he added.

Soyinka also spoke on the menace of rampaging Fulani herdsmen saying that some herdsmen invaded his home in Ogun State while he was away.