Posted by By RAZAQ BAMIDELE on
Inspite of the clarion calls to Nigerian elite to join politics and contest elective offices so as to sanitise the corrupt political system, Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka has expressed unwillingness to contest any future election in Nigeria.
Inspite of the clarion calls to Nigerian elite to join politics and contest elective offices so as to sanitise the corrupt political system, Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka has expressed unwillingness to contest any future election in Nigeria.
Speaking with journalists in Lagos recently, The world renowned scholar and prolific author, however, assured that he would be in the forefront of those who would offer themselves for the desired change.
He also profered solution to the incessant political killings in the country, saying only preventive policing could do the trick.
Excerpts:
Political killings
There are many ways to prevent political killings. One of them is preventive policing as we have been saying. The one that would do more intelligence works to stop it before it actually happens. Then post-act efficient police work which demonstrates that people would not get away with crime with impunity. That is one direct answer.
But the problem is much deeper than police. It has to do with political attitude and the political system. What exactly is at stake? We need to have a political system which is also not lucrative that people want to kill one another over positions. I mean the idea that politics means entittlement, that is, you get into politics to collect your entitlements.
Change
You have to change the political system in such a way that people see politics as service and not as entitlement. As long as we are running a system, which, as far as I am concerned, is fundamentally and politically corrupt, which is politics of entitlements, you are going to collect, I am going to collect, there will be problem. That makes them so desperate and makes politics no different from armed robbery. You want to take what other person has and you do it so forcefully, through murder if necessary. There are intimidations and brutalisation too. A more fundamental answer has to do with a change in the entire political system so that people would see politics as voluntary job and not for collection (of any entitlement).
Wole Soyinka presidency
No, no, no. I am not contesting. But I can only assure you, I and those who believe what I believe are organising to have a definite voice in the coming elections. There is no ambiguity about that. Whether it would be done through a political platform or a party platform or if INEC continues to play its game with the kind of party we are trying to form, then, it will emerge as a movement. And my interest, I will show you as a political servant of the nation.
But I agree with the call of Prof. Pat Utomi that this nation can not be permanently inventured to failure of those who have bankrupt definition, those that shot their way to power and accumulated wealth and who want to impose their will on us. The system has to be changed.
So, I do agree with the notion that fresh blood is required for injection into the body politic.
Interim govt
The moment I believe that there is such a plan, believe me, I will scream out. Right now, I believe the notion is so mad that it is highly improbable.
But at the same time, as I keep telling people, be on guard. Power is an intoxicant, and those who have fallen victim to its allure never completely give up this illusion about the permanence of their positions.
So, we are not suggesting, for one moment, that people should let down their guard, no. But right now, I do not believe that there is such contemplation.