Post-polls violence in North pre-planned – Soyinka

Professor Wole Soyinka

NOBEL Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, Thursday took a critical look at the 2011 polls, the attendant mayhem and controversies and issued a series of point blank verdicts: President Goodluck Jonathan won the presidential polls; the outbursts of violence in some northern states after the April 16 elections were pre-planned and targeted at Youth Corps members and the 2011 polls were better than other elections.

At an interaction with newsmen at his Victoria Island, Lagos residence, Soyinka, who congratulated President Jonathan on his victory, lamented that the killings were based on speculations, lies and fabricated stories and urged aggrieved presidential candidates to seek redress in the law courts.

According to him, “in the North, I think a lot of wild speculations were going on which have led to an unbelievable carnage and waste of human life in this nation and this is the reason why I intend to speak.

“I have been getting reports from what is going on in Gombe, Bauchi, Kaduna on hourly basis and what you will come to realise, at the end, is that most of those cases where such killings were carried out were on the basis of nothing and often based on lies or fabricated stories. And most often, most of these killings had been planned well before hand and anybody that says this carnage is not planned is naive.

“I am convinced that these killings were planned before the election and it is, therefore, the responsibility of not only the government but also all citizens.”

Soyinka decried a situation where youths who are serving their fatherland would be targeted for annihilation - by Gbenga Oke.

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