Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate, has asked the federal government to stop treating Sunday Adeyemo, a youth leader better known as Sunday Igboho, as a criminal.
The Department of State Services (DSS) had declared Igboho wanted after he escaped arrest when operatives of the agency raided his residence in Oyo state.
Igboho is agitating for the creation of ‘Yoruba Nation’.
Reacting to the incident while speaking with BBC Pidgin on Monday, Soyinka advised the federal government to tell Igboho he is no longer wanted and to let him be.
“My advice to the government is that they should stop pursuing this person as a criminal because you have begun acting in a criminal fashion against him. Because if and when Igboho comes to trial, I guarantee you it is the government that will be very embarrassed,” he said.
“I think they should just tell Igboho ‘we made a mistake, we should not have acted in this way, you are no longer wanted, please go back to your home’. In fact, escort him to his home and let him resume his normal life.
“As far as I am concerned it is up to Ignoho to decide. He knows what the circumstances were; he knows what happened before his people were killed, he is the only one that can decide for himself.”
Soyinka said the sponsors of banditry and insurgency in the country have not been arrested or invited for questioning but that the security agency went ahead to invade Igboho’s home illegally.
“I’m not aware one of them (bandits, insurgents) has been called for questioning but what did Igboho do? They didn’t call him for questioning but attacked him in the middle of the night illegally and unconstitutionally,” he said.
He said going forward, the federal government should find a way to earn back the trust of the citizens.
“We have to ask ourselves what is the position– mentally, spiritually, economically, politically– what is the collective state of mind of a vast section of this nation at the moment? This state of mind is best described as total distrust,” he said.
“Anybody who is telling the government that the people of the state still trust it and the government believes that, then it is really plunging the state further into debris.
“It is not Igboho or Kanu that is the issue. It is a collective disenchantment with the conduct of this regime. It can only redeem itself, it can only reverse by coming clean. Try to open a totally new page.”
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