Seven months after more than 200 students of the Government Girls’ Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State, were abducted by Boko Haram, Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, said yesterday that Nigeria is living under the cloud of shame.
He spoke after he was....
awarded Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) by the University of Ibadan (UI) at the 2014 convocation and Foundation Day held at the International Conference Centre of the institution. Soyinka, who spoke on behalf of other four awardees, comprising the first alumnus of the university to become its vice chancellor, Emeritus Professor Tekena Tamuno; first Nigerian professor of medicine, Emeritus Professor Theophilus Ogunlesi; former president, Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Chief Wole Olanipekun, and one other business tycoon.
He told the Minister of Education, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, who represented President Goodluck Jonathan on the occasion, to tell his principal that Nigeria lacks genuine leadership. But Shekarau just looked at him.
Soyinka, who noted that the ceremony was organised to celebrate success, said: “Yes, it is a festive occasion. But, we are here and we know we are sitting under a cloud. It’s a very heavy cloud; it’s cloud of embarrassment, of shame, a feeling of dereliction or solemn irresponsibility towards children. We are sitting here under a cloud of impotence of a calamity that was not without notice.
“You all know why we are all here. It is in the course of learning and till death, we will not stop learning. It is all about learning and that is what life is all about. We never stop learning. The cloud is made up, as I said, of a sense of humiliation.
“We sent our children (Chibok schoolgirls) out on errand and they did not come back. But the errand on which we sent them (graduands) is what we are celebrating today. This is what creates this festive atmosphere. Though, it is a festive mood, but our young protagonists went on that errand, we gathered them together in preparation for this day and they never came back.
“In Port Harcourt where I made a speech at the University of Science and Technology three years ago, I asked deliberately: where is the University of Maiduguri today? In the U.S back in 1957 at the time of racism, the president of that nation federalised the National Guard and ordered it to protect a young girl.
“Do we send children to school to have their hands tied and their throats slit? Yet, we have leadership that is asking the terrorists to come to the table and negotiate with it while children were being killed and taken away in Chibok. What crime did they commit?
“This is not what our children deserve. It begins with the failure to respond as the U.S President did to protect the little girl. What is the difference between Nigeria’s Boko Haram and American night and day riders of hate and destruction? Both thrive on hate, intimidation and inculcation of fear, intolerance and terror. This is what is happening to our institutions, especially in the northern part of our country,” Soyinka said.
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