‘We’ll never get rid of Boko Haram,’ Nobel Laureate says

monjola sotubo

May 6, 2015 5:48 PM

Soyinka made the statement on April 29, 2015, while delivering a lecture at Harvard University Hutchins Centre for African & African American Research, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka

Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka has said that Nigeria will never get rid of terrorist sect, Boko Haram.

Soyinka said this on April 29, 2015, while delivering a lecture at Harvard University Hutchins Centre for African & African American Research, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

The playwright made the comment after being asked to expand on a remark that Boko Haram, and by extension the fundamentalist group ISIS, could create a complete redistribution of power and boundary lines in West Africa.

“They do not want to reason — they kill. We’ve reached a state where there’s a party of life and a party of death,” Soyinka said.

“We will never get rid of Boko Haram,” he added while describing the jihadists as indoctrinated “fanatics who believe that if they die in the cause, they will go straight to heaven,” where they “believe literally in the 77 virgins awaiting their arrival.”

He said further that the “reconfiguration of West Africa could very easily have taken place if the army had not finally been assisted in the acquisition of new weaponry.”

Soyinka also spoke on the incoming government of President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari saying that he could do no worse than his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan.

monjola sotubo