Nigeria’s Sovereignty Is Negotiable – Soyinka

Respected Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has lent his voice to calls for the
restructuring of the Nigerian federation, saying the sovereignty of the nation
should be and is negotiable.
"We had better understand it too that when people are saying ‘let’s
restructure’, they have better things to do. It’s not an idle cry; it is a
perennial demand."
Speaking during a visit to Punch headquarters on Tuesday, Soyinka said
decentralisation of the nation would ensure healthy rivalry among the
component units.
He insisted that it was wrong for previous administrations in the country to say
that Nigeria’s sovereignty was non-negotiable, submitting that the position was
antithetical to development.
Soyinka added, “I am on the side of those who say we must do everything to
avoid disintegration. That language I understand. I don’t understand (ex-
President Olusegun) Obasanjo’s language. I don’t understand (President
Muhammadu) Buhari’s language and all their predecessors, saying the
sovereignty of this nation is non-negotiable.
" It’s bloody well negotiable and we had better negotiate it. We better negotiate
it, not even at meetings, not at conferences, but everyday in our conduct
towards one another .
“The Pro-National Conference Organisation was about restructuring when this
same Obasanjo said it was an act of treason for people to come together to
fashion a new constitution. Those were fighting words; that you’re saying, ‘I
commit treason because I want to sit with my fellow citizens and negotiate the
structures of staying together’ and ask the police to go and break it up and
arrest us.
“I remember that policeman, who said if we met, that would be treason. I
wasn’t a member of PRONACO at the time. That’s when I joined PRONACO. If
you’re saying to me, ‘I am a second-class citizen; I cannot sit down and
discuss the articles, the protocols of staying together’ and you’re trying to bully
me, I won’t accept.”
He stressed that Nigeria could not continue with a centralisation policy, which
encouraged what he described as “monkey dey work, baboon dey chop”
mentality.