Why Jonathan can’t prosecute Sheriff, other Boko Haram sponsors – Wole Soyinka

Nobel Laurette and social critic, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has adduced reasons why President Goodluck Jonathan is unwilling to prosecute alleged Boko Haram sponsors.

Chief, among this, Soyinka said in a statement on Saturday, was the 2015 re-election ambition of Jonathan.

Soyinka, in the statement, said Jonathan has compromised in the bid to push through his ambition despite evidences that have been made available to him by not just the Boko Haram Australian negotiator, Stephen Davis, but also himself, the international community and Nigerian security agencies.

Nobel Laurette and social critic, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has adduced reasons why President Goodluck Jonathan is unwilling to prosecute alleged Boko Haram sponsors.

Chief, among this, Soyinka said in a statement on Saturday, was the 2015 re-election ambition of Jonathan.

Soyinka, in the statement, said Jonathan has compromised in the bid to push through his ambition despite evidences that have been made available to him by not just the Boko Haram Australian negotiator, Stephen Davis, but also himself, the international community and Nigerian security agencies.

Davis had two weeks ago mentioned a former Governor of Borno State, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff; and a former Chief of Army State, retired General Azubuike Ihejirika, among the sponsors of Boko Haram.

To worsen matters, President Jonathan appeared in a photograph with Sheriff during his visit to Chad where he had audience with President Idriss Deby this week.

Soyinka said information available to Jonathan should have made him step out against Sheriff, Ihejirika and the other Boko Haram sponsors, including a highly placed official of the Central Bank of Nigeria, whose name was not given, but for his 2015 ambition.

He said: “Again, Goodluck Jonathan swung into a plausible explanation: it was Mr. Sheriff who, as friend of the host President Idris Deby, had traveled ahead to Chad to receive Jonathan as part of President Deby’s welcome entourage. What, however does this say of any president? How come it that a suspected affiliate of a deadly criminal gang, publicly under such ominous cloud, had the confidence to smuggle himself into the welcoming committee of another nation, and even appear in audience, to all appearance a co-host with the president of that nation? Where does the confidence arise in him that Jonathan would not snub him openly or, after the initial shock, pull his counterpart, his official host aside and say to him, “Listen, it’s him, or me.”? So impunity now transcends boundaries, no matter how heinous the alleged offence?”

Soyinka said it was also a shame that those close to the President could use the platform of his re-election campaign to mock a serious issue such as the Bring Back Our Girls Campaign with the banner of Bring Back Jonathan in 2015.

He said: “President Jonathan has since disowned all knowledge or complicity in the outrage but, the damage has been done, the rot in a nation’s collective soul bared to the world. The very possibility of such a desecration took the Nigerian nation several notches down in human regard. It confirmed the very worst of what external observers have concluded and despaired of – a culture of civic callousness, a coarsening of sensibilities and, a general human disregard. It affirmed the acceptance, even domination of lurid practices where children are often victims of unconscionable abuses including ritual sacrifices, sexual enslavement, and worse. Spurred by electoral desperation, a bunch of self-seeking morons and sycophants chose to plumb the abyss of self-degradation and drag the nation down to their level. It took us to a hitherto unprecedented low in ethical degeneration. The bets were placed on whose turn would it be to take the next potshots at innocent youths in captivity whose society and governance have failed them and blighted their existence? Would the Chibok girls now provide standup comic material for the latest staple of Nigerian escapist diet? Would we now move to a new export commodity in the entertainment industry named perhaps “Taunt the Victims”?”

The Nobel Laurette said the position of Davis on the alleged Boko Haram suspect should not be doubted by Nigerians.

He said he was sure of the pedigree of the Australian, whom he has worked with for several years.

He also gave his backing to the decision of human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), to head to court if President Jonathan does not commence the prosecution of the alleged Boko Haram sponsors.