Wole Soyinka @ 87: Ogun Authors celebrate Nobel Laureate in grand style, proffers solution to Nigeria’s woes
The Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Ogun State Chapter has proffered solutions to some of the country’s challenges including poverty, herdsmen crisis, insecurity and kidnapping amongst other.
Speaking with newsmen at 2021 Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange to mark the 87th birthday of the Nobel Laureate, Engineer Paul Oni, the Chairman of ANA stressed the needs for Economic Resurrection.
Oni maintained that the country should not be allowed to be broken into pieces.
He noted that there is the need for everyone to come together to ensure the country did not break up.
He added, ”the State of the Nation; Nigeria should not be broken into pieces, we should down play the issue of ethnicity, rather than struggle for cessation, we should struggle for cohesion in the sense that we have a thorough federal structure where every ethnic nationality can deploy their resources to the fullness of their ability for development.
“Using animal husbandry as a business to traumatize the people to cause the stealing of their land is bad.That herdmen is not an ethnic issue as the Fulani themselves claimed it, cattle rearing are been done by the Yoruba people also who employ young Fulani boys to rear their cattle”. So, he disabused concentration of ethnicity sensation and advised all that we should co-exist.
“Economic Resurrection whereby our Naira should be shored up according to the resources we have under the ground of our fatherland rather than political value been given to our currency that is been devalued everyday.
“The evil of the SAP that was brought on us in 1986, which as at that time Naira was one dollar 36 cents; it is unthinkable that five hundred Naira is now exchanged for one dollar. We are now questioning the rationale behind it, what does the international community have to back the currencies of the dollar and euros stronger than the Naira when they will come here and take the resources we have like gold, crude oil, cocoa, diamond and timber, what does China have to back up the ruminbi?
“We have the resources in this country we should not be giving political value to our currency to spoil our system of monetarism. Considering, everything under our soil Including our human resources, we have the most qualified doctors, nurses and intellectuals so, why do we deserve this kind of exchange rate for our Naira? We can shore up our Naira in the template that is used in the USA. Of course everybody will be moved away from poverty. If there’s no poverty there will be no struggle for land and so on. Politicians will not be struggling to be in office because their children and everyone will be well taken care of”.
Speaking on why ANA included secondary school students in the celebration, Oni maintained that the students’ inclusion will enhance their flair for reading and writing in becoming better persons for our future to be better enhanced imbibing some great characters for national greatness.
His word, ”They will be eager to be like Prof Wole Soyinka and knowing the kind of international and national respect he commands as he is an international treasure; we call him the Greatest Author Icon especially when an 87 year old man still writes with his latest book ”The Chronicles of the Happiest People on Earth” which is over 500 pages”
Schools present at the event include; Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta Grammar School, Baptist Boys High School, Technical School, among others.
Some of the students gave speeches on the theme of the event; “That our Future May not Disappear”.
