Buhari failed on security – Soyinka

Nobel Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka has slammed President Muhammadu Buhari for his “slow response” in dealing with the terror caused by Fulani herdsmen across many parts of Nigeria.

He said Buhari has failed on the security threat posed by herdsmen, adding that he was repeating the mistakes of his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, in not dealing with the Boko Haram menace in a timely and adequate fashion.

Soyinka appeared on the BBC’s Hardtalk programme on Monday and anchored by Zeinab Badawi said, “the man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny”, he said.

Reacting to Badawi’s question that he backed Buhari in 2015 describing the ex-army general as a “reformed democrat”, Soyinka said Buhari “won by default” in 2015 because it was difficult to back Jonathan and which meant supporting a continuation of the corruption associated with that regime. Nigerians were caught “between the devil and the deep blue sea”.

Soyinka criticized Jonathan’s ineffective response to Boko Haram, but placing the blame for failing to nip the problem in the bud at the feet of Olusegun Obasanjo, who was president from 1999 to 2007.