Amotekun: Your position sad, tragic, Soyinka tells Balarabe Musa

Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja

Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has dismissed the position of old Civilian Governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, on Amotekun.

Recall that Musa had in an interview with our sister publication, Sunday Sun, in its January 19, 2020 edition, said Amotekun, the newly commissioned Southwest security outfit, was a ploy to declare Oduduwa Republic.

Musa’s position followed an earlier statement by the Federal Government through the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, which declared Amotekun illegal.

But the Akogun of Isara, in a statement made available to Daily Sun, said Musa was only expressing mistaken fears over the development which most times are promoted as facts.

This, Soyinka added, often lead governments or along with interest groups to embark on “precipitate, irrational, and irreversible acts.”

Such acts, Soyinka further said, usually turned out in the end to be based on nothing but fears, sometimes generated by guilt over past injustices such as inequitable dealing.

“Balarabe is sadly, but I hope not tragically wrong. I invoke the tragic dimension here because the making of tragedy, especially for nations, often begins when fears are mistaken, or promoted as facts, and governments either by themselves, or together with interest groups, are enticed by fears into embarking on precipitate, irrational, and irreversible acts. Such acts turn out in the end to be based on nothing but fears, sometimes generated by guilt over past injustices, such as inequitable dealing.

“That is the basis of tragedy, towards which nations are propelled by a partial, or wrongful reading of socio-political realities and – history. I would like to see this nation avoid such a blunder. So, I am certain, would Balarabe Musa,” Soyinka said.

Soyinka further said raising the spectre of secession was “a facile approach to the dangerous, self-evident lapses in governance” which Balarabe himself acknowledged in his response to the Amotekun principle made flesh.

Soyinka however noted that the midwives of Amotekun had repeatedly acknowledged that theirs was only a contribution towards a crisis of escalating proportions.

“Other states should be encouraged to emulate, not misread such initiatives, then demonize them by false attributions. That is the certain recipe for tragedy,” Soyinka concluded.