Prof. Wole Soyinka, a winner of the Nobel Prize, has suggested that the Nigerian presidency travel to the southeast to heal from the civil war.
After the southeast of Biafra declared independence, the civil war in Nigeria lasted for three years, from 1967 to 1970. An estimate says that the war resulted in the deaths of more than one million people.
The region’s separatist agitators continue to push for independence more than fifty years after the war ended, highlighting the war’s lingering wound.
Soyinka suggested that the presidency’s move to the southeast will help to “rewrite the history” in order to heal from the civil war.
“It isn’t just about reproduction, it is additionally about modifying of history,” Soyinka said in a meeting broadcasted on Channels TV on Monday.
“I believe that the presidency should immediately move toward the eastern region that lost a war in order to close the circle of negativity that we have begun prior to and during the civil war.
“This is one way to heal the nation’s wounds – that is a principle and philosophy,”
Reiterating his position that Nigeria should be restructured, Soyinka, a proponent of restructuring, concurred.
The Nobel Laureate, who talked on the development and consequence of the 2023 political race, expressed none of the main up-and-comers official competitors gave a conceivable plan to rebuilding, thus, the explanation he didn’t embrace anybody.
Soyinka stated, “In fact, one of the reasons I refused to endorse any candidate is because none of the candidates addressed the things closest to my heart, like again, reconstructing the nation.” This was one of the reasons he did not endorse any candidates.
“I did not see any genuine commitment or believable plan regarding Nigeria’s restructuring and decentralization, which is my current issue.
“People were more worried about just trying to get power,”
After the 2023 election, Soyinka stated that he disagrees with claims that Nigeria has not yet fully grasped democracy.
Soyinka stated, “I don’t think we understand democracy; certain stakes have been brought to the forefront and have come to overwhelm what should be the real stuffing of the democratic process.”
“We can in any case return to that stage where we had a typical reason that enough of military rule, I’m discussing June 12, and illustrated, to ourselves as well as to the entire world.
“Indeed, we understand what a majority rule government is and we know how to rehearse it and sadly, we appear to be not to have prevailed with regards to arriving at that degree of vote based show that we displayed when said, look, let us reclaim our own political infringement and dispose of the Kaaki young men and we can in any case return to it.”
However, he made the observation that the election result demonstrated that “a point has been scored” and that “people now know the power they have and the youths have woken up.”