Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka warned yesterday that his country was heading towards a civil war, blaming political leaders who spread religious intolerance.
His comments came as five people were killed when a mob attacked a mosque in the southwestern city of Benin, forcing about 3000 Muslims to flee the area.
An aid worker, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject, told Reuters the mosque was attacked yesterday during nationwide protests at a hike in fuel prices.
Asked whether he agreed with President Goodluck Jonathan that the current unrest was worse than the 1960s civil war, Soyinka told the BBC World Service yesterday: "It's not an unrealistic comparison - it's certainly based on many similarities. We see the nation heading towards a civil war."
Soyinka was also asked whether 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 the issues raised by Islamist group Boko Haram, which was blamed for violence targeting Christians in the north of Nigeria and has sparked fears of a wider religious conflict, had been brewing for some time.
"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," he said.
Soyinka, a dramatist and essayist, became Africa's first Nobel laureate in literature when he won the prize in 1986.
Daily Jokes | Free Forex Signals | Ibadan City Network (Forum) | Small Business Guide
No comments:
Post a Comment
Add A Comment