Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, has blamed the federal government over the invasion of Sunday Igboho’s home. He further asked Igboho to surrender himself to the Department of State Service after the midnight raid that led to death and destructions of valuable properties.

Soyinka made this statement in an interview with BBC News, saying that it was not a crime for a person to state an intention to secede. He also condemned government’s actions as being ‘unconstitutional’.

He said: “There is a sentence in papers which said the government had moved against secessionist and other criminals. Now that’s a very traded and wrongful expression.

“How can you place the will or wish for separation as a criminal act. That kind of language does not exist in the constitution, it doesn’t exist in the law. It should not exist in catalogue of moralities because it is not an immoral act or position to say that you want to stop belonging to an entity or if you want to join another entity.

“People take a very simplistic approach to so called secession. Sometimes, it means I want to leave this group and join another group, and we have examples before and after independence the Ghana-Guinea union for instance, and even till our independence, the separation, by fight, of Bakassi was awarded to another nation. It was not just goats and cattles that existed there. There were human beings. They were not asked to where they wanted to belong, but with a stroke of the pen, for certain political reasons, consolidated by succeeding government.

The Bakassi people ceded to Cameroon, and before we have a plebiscite in Cameroon region in which a section to stay with Nigeria, so why on earth in the name of justice should anyone classify those who wish to seced or rejoin another nation as criminals. That’s wrong and that is playing the devils game.”

According to Soyinka, the midnight raid in Igboho’s house was unconventional, noting that the weapons found in Igboho’s house, will as well means that Igboho was planning war against the state, which to him was actually meant to conflate issues.

Soyinka approved Igboho’s claims that his mission was to liberate his people “for the tyranny of squatters who have been violent overloads”.

“My advice is not so much to Igboho, but to the government. That they should stop pursuing this person as a criminal, because you (the government) have begun by acting in a criminal fashion against him(Igboho). If Igboho comes to trial, I guarantee you its the government will be embarrassed. So it is not even in the interest of the government. I think they should just tell Igboho, we made a mistake, we should not have acted this way, you are no longer wanted please go back your home. In fact, escorts him home quietly, and let him resume his normal life”.

Ijeoma Njoku reporting, Obinwannem News | July 6, 2021