I have no link to call on Igbo to leave Yoruba land, says Soyinka

NOBEL laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka has warned Nigerians to be watchful of the actions and pronouncements of some Nigerians, who are bent on starting ethnic war in the country.

In a statement this evening, titled, ‘Identity Thieves on the Rampage’, Soyinka decried the effort of some mischief-makers to link his name to any call for the Igbos to leave Yoruba land.

Such an attribution linked to his name “is the work of sick, cowardly minds that are ashamed, or lack the courage,” said Soyinka.

In particular, he said, “As for our brother and sister Igbo, I hope they have learnt to ignore the toxic bilge under which some Nigerian imbeciles seek to drown the nation.”

He reiterated that no one should pay heed to the incendiary video clips and statements being made by such tribal irredentists, which are currently showing up in the social media space.

This was in veiled reference to a viral video showing a man advising the Igbos to leave Yoruba land.

He also warned that people should be conscious of the rampage of ‘Fake News’, which are concocted to create problems in the society.

He described as work of a ‘lunatic’ a poem that circulated earlier in the year, in which he was said to have written about what each ethnic group wants in the federation.  

The full text of his statement reads:

IDENTITY THIEVES ON THE RAMPAGE

Undoubtedly in order to promote the video clip of an ethnic revanchist calling on Igbo to leave Yoruba land, this same lunatic fringe has exhumed, and embarked on circulating an ancient fabrication – several years mouldering in the grave – once attributed to me and vigorously denounced.

That statement impudently expounds, as my utterance, what the Hausa want, what the Yoruba want, and what the Igbo want.  Such an attribution – let me once again reiterate – is the work of sick, cowardly minds that are ashamed, or lack the courage, as the saying goes, “to answer their fathers’ names.”  At least the current ethnic rabble-rouser has the courage of his convictions, not so the sick brigade of identity thieves.

Normally, one should totally ignore the social dregs. However, in the present atmosphere where FAKE NEWS is so easily swallowed and acted upon without reflection, I feel once again obliged to denounce this recurrent obscenity. As for our brother and sister Igbo, I hope they have learnt to ignore the toxic bilge under which some Nigerian imbeciles seek to drown the nation.

It is time also, I believe, to also enter the following admonition: one cannot continue to monitor and respond to the concoctions of these addicts of falsehood, and their assiduous  promoters who have yet to learn to wipe the filth off their tablets. The patrons of social platforms should develop the art of discrimination.  Some attributions are simply so gross that, to grant them even a moment’s latitude of probability diminishes the civic intelligence of the recipient.

Wole SOYINKA October 24,  2020