Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka has warned that Nigeria was gradually heading towards a civil war and blamed political leaders who spread religious hate for the situation.
Soyinka, who spoke on the World Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation(BBC) yesterday, agreed with President Goodluck Jonathan that the current unrest was worse than the 1960’s civil war and added, “It’s not an unrealistic comparison. It is certainly based on many similarities.”
He expressed worry that the unrest threatened the State of Nigeria itself and replied:“It is going that way. We no longer can pretend it’s not.
“When you’ve got a situation where a bunch of people can go into a place of worship and open fire through the windows, you’ve reached a certain dismal watershed in the life of that nation.”
Soyinka said that the issues raised by Islamist group, Boko Haram, which was blamed for violence targeting Christians in the North of Nigeria, sending out in the process fears of a wider religious conflict, had been brewing for some time.
According to him,? “There are people in power in certain parts of the country – leaders – who quite genuinely and authoritatively hate and cannot tolerate any religion outside their own.
“When you combine that with the ambitions of a number of people who believe they are divinely endowed to rule the country and who believe that their religion is above whatever else binds the entire nation together -? and somehow the power appears to slip from their hands, then they resort to the most extreme measures.”