NOBEL Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, on Thursday called on President Muhammadu Buhari to declare a state of emergency as a way to addressing the state of insecurity in the country.
Soyinka who made the call in Akure, the Ondo state capital while speaking with newsmen at the Fagunwa Study Group 2nd International Conference with the theme: Wole Soyinka, D O Fagunwa and the Yoruba Artistic Heritage, pointedly described insecurity generally in the country as calamitous.
“As regards the insecurity in the Southwest, there is an emergency. “There should be a declaration of security emergency throughout the land and measures taken accordingly. There are many directions of security lapses, you know it here especially in Ondo State, it is a calamity throughout the nation. There is an emergency.”
Also speaking, the Governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu assured that the issue of insecurity would soon be a thing of the past.
“Today murder, be it in form of pogrom, carnage or infanticide or ethnic cleansing, sectarian occupation, is poking realities into our eyes. But we can rise and we are going to rise out of the rubble. I believe meetings and chat opportunities like these, apart from being a big canvas for cultural studies, is also an opportunity to deepen critical thinking, evolve a knowledge-based strategic problem-solving skills and accentuate a clear direction for human development.
“We cannot do less because our challenges are enormous, the grounds are slippery and the clock ticks by each second. We believe in your gathering and our hope rests in the applications of your conclusions to the process of education and intellectual armament of our people.
“A nation without a perfect understanding of its nationhood is a rudderless ship that is bound to capsize. This is the reason successful nations’ intellectuals continue to embark on archaeological excursions into cultures and traditions to distill the society and bring out its best at all times.