Boko Haram was Instituted by Politicians' Lust for Power

Legendary writer and novelist, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has said that some set of politicians who were ready to sacrifice anything in their pursuit for power, financed the activities of the deadly Boko Haram sect.

Prof. Wole Soyinka

In an exclusive interview on Channel 4 television network, Nigeria's Nobel prize winner, Professor Wole Soyinka, has said that the lust for power drove certain politicians in Nigeria to support the activities of the Boko Haram sect, adding that these set of politicians were ready to sacrifice anything in their pursuit for power.

He explained further that the terrorist group, has turned against the forces that supported its emergence. "This is what is happening right now: in Nigeria, and I think that many people are admitting it today, there were politicians who actually supported what Boko Haram was doing.

"They supported them for various reasons because in their lust for power and pursuit for power, they were ready to sacrifice anything or to ally with anything, and of course they found that they have been turned against (by) the very forces that helped them.

"This is how Boko Haram really acquired its power, its nuisance value, and its effect on the society, because it had backing from even what we call mainstream Islam.

That is not the situation today: most people are beginning to realise that we are dealing with a party of death, their ideology is death and there is only one way to deal with people like that. If you say you disagree with their ideology, you ensure you hit them before they hit you," Soyinka said.

Speaking on issues surrounding the disappearance of over 200 Chibok girls, Professor Soyinka described it as a grievous dereliction of responsibility on the part of the Goodluck Jonathan administration, which was in government at the time of their abduction.

He recalled that when the girls were first declared missing, there was a cynical approach to the information on their kidnapping. "The government refused to accept this fact until it was too late… For at least two weeks, it would have been possible from all reports to rescue those girls," he stressed.

Soyinka, who was defeated in his bid to become the Professor of poetry at Oxford University in the UK, attributed his defeat to inexperience on his part. "I think this is the first time I have really been involved in a serious contest. I was nominated by people and I felt that was a marvelous idea to retire into poetry. I like what some of my detractors said; I took it quite seriously.

"When things got a bit tough, I said listen, we are experienced in Nigeria in electioneering, let me bring our experts, they would rig this election and I would emerge victorious overnight. But they won’t listen to me and we lost," he said.