OSOGBO— NOBEL Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, yestersday accused the Federal Government of running a mafia-like administration, warning that the situation was capable of endangering the country’s democracy.
The world-acclaimed scholar, in a lecture entitled: “Descent into Barbarism: The End of the Collegiate”, at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Soyinka submitted that hand-picking candidates for the 2007 election was dangerous, and the electorate must be allowed to have a wide choice of options.
Condemning the elite and the political class, Prof Soyinka said it was unfortunate that the country was still shackled by poverty, want and deprivations, despite gaining independence years ago.
He contended that the country was in danger if candidates were imposed on the electorate in the 2007 presidential election, stressing that willing political presidential candidates should be allowed to run in the election.
The playwright said the country was heading for doom if people's electoral aspirations were toyed with in the 2007 presidential elections.
Soyinka argued that politicians desiring power by all means were employing students in institutions of higher learning to terrorise their opponents, stating that the students were bound to turn the weapons against themselves later. He said reports had shown that spoilt children of the elite were the ones found in secret cults.
Lamenting that the rot had crept into the ivory tower where vice-chancellors employ cult groups to stifle the opposition, the Nobel laureate said the future of the nation depended on a quick resolution of the general malaise.
Buttressing his submission that the political class was obstructing the development of the nation, Soyinka averred that the country was in great jeopardy if an elected governor could go and swear allegiance to a godfather, who never saw the four walls of a university.
Commending the Director-General, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Mrs Dora Akunyuli, for her war against drugs, Soyinka saidwith people like Akunyuli, hope was not totally lost for the country.
Pointing the way out of the rot besetting tertiary institutions, Soyinka canvassed the closure of all tertiary institutions nationwide for a year, even as he called for the setting up of a task force to update outdated curricula.
Asserting that “each tertiary institution should find its own salvation,” Soyinka called for an overhaul of facilities, saying the “barbarians can be kept at bay but it requires the collegial will.”
He absolved the Pyrate Confraternity, which he co-founded in 1952, of blame in the orgy of violence, enveloping tertiary institutions across the country, saying violence on campuses was a reflection of state-imposed killings and misrule by government.
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