Soyinka: Militants feel Buhari is not taking them seriously

Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate, has said Niger Delta militants aren’t convinved the Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government is responding to them with a great degree of seriousness.

The literary icon noted that he was personally approached by some of the militant groups, hence his appeal for a positive response to their demands.

Soyinka made this known on Thursday while holding press conference to speak about the activities of Wole Soyinka Foundation.

“I wish to make an appeal to the government to respond positively to the outreach from the militant groups. That is the request which has been made by some of the groups. At the moment, they feel that the government of President Buhari is not seriously responding to them.

“And I will make a personal appeal to the government to respond positively and let us see where it ends. But I am not part of any international group, I was approached personally and I have been responding personally to some of these groups just as I did when President Jonathan was in power and MEND was the umbrella group of the insurgents.

“So, I make that appeal once more to the government to please respond to the efforts of these militant groups to arrive at a holistic and comprehensive solution. When I was ambushed at the villa the other day, I did say that I would answer questions on my visit to the Villa at a press conference that I had already planned, which is this one as a matter of fact.

“What I have to say is that today is not the day I will talk about that visitation and the real reason is this, I had a meeting with the House of Lords in London. The meeting was not about the main subject that took me to Aso Rock which, among other things, is the problem we have in the Delta.

“But I used that opportunity to meet a certain number of international figures, parliamentarians, royal heads to pass on a message internationally to prospective interveners in what is happening in the Delta at the request of some of the militant groups.

“That meeting was reported in the media and it was badly distorted. Let me make a plea, it is bad enough distorting whatever happens on certain subjects. But on an issue like the insurgency in Nigeria, the Delta, in particular, we have very delicate grounds and the media has a huge role to play in that.”