Daily Independent Online.
*
Tuesday, August 10, 2004.
Soyinka backs troops deployment to Darfur
By Habib Aruna
Assistant
Political Editor, Lagos
Nigeria’s
initiative to restore peace to the crisis ridden Darfur region in Sudan was on
Monday praised by Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka. And he endorsed the deployment
of the country’s troops to help rescue innocent civilians trapped in the
conflict.
“This
is one of the positive achievements of this government”, he stressed
while speaking to the press on the state of the nation.
Touching
on other issues, however, he criticised the continued withholding of the
licence of Slok Air, describing it as ill motivated and an attempt to settle
political scores.
His
words: “The government’s action against Slok Air is a national
embarrassment. I am very much uncomfortable with the way the government has
handled the matter. This is a situation of personal political vendetta and it
demeans whatever credibility that the same government wishes to get with its
claims to reducing unemployment in the country”.
Soyinka
whose recent 70th birthday was widely celebrated, said he does not know the
owners of the airline or its operators, but insisted that the punishment for an
erring airline should not be a total clampdown; instead, it could be the
withdrawal of a pilot’s license or suspension of the airline’s
operations.
Apparently
piqued by the hapless condition of the workers affected by the continued
grounding of the fleet, Soyinka said this only “shows the meanness of the
spirit of the government and its indifference to people’s source of
livelihood and spirit of enterprise”.
On
whether he would back Ibrahim Banbagida for the 2007 Presidency if he
apologises to Nigerians for canceling the 1993 Presidential elections, Soyinka
said:
“I
never said anything like that. All I said was that if Babangida wants to
rehabilitate himself for the purpose of the Presidency, he must first begin to
apologise for all his sins, among which is the annulment of the 1993
presidential elections.
“There are other issues involved. The man must
rehabilitate himself to the point that he can freely walk on the streets like
any other Nigerian without being booed or stoned. This does not translate to my
endorsing him for the Presidential ticket”.
