Why I cancelled engagement in Anambra school, by Soyinka

By Orowo Victoria Ojieh

Prof Wole Soyinka has said that he called off his appearance at a school in Anambra State in protest over the brutal killing of pregnant Mrs. Harira Jibril and her four children by unknown gunmen recently.

Harira hailed from Adamawa State. Her remains and those of her four children have been buried in Awka, Anambra State capital. The Nobel Laureate at the weekend made his position known in a statement titled, “Drawing the Red Line on Infanticide.” Soyinka said the tragedy must be condemned and the culprits exposed to prevent a recurrence because the killings violate the touted values of the black race which forbid people from murdering their guests.

“The cold-blooded murder of guests in our home is however not merely a national issue but a violation of the much touted values of the black race,” Soyinka wrote. “We must begin somewhere, “draw a line” – however individual and limited.

I totally repudiate the killing of guests, of the unarmed, of innocents, the vulnerable, indeed, the murder of humanity.” Soyinka, who said he also thought of cancelling a similar engagement in Abuja last week after the gruesome murder of Deborah Samuel in Sokoto by Muslim fundamentalists but later changed his mind, said the decision was right this time, because the moment was compelling.

Read Also: Breaking: Hayatu -Deen, Anakwenze withdraw from PDP presidential election

He added: “In empathy with those innocents whose scholastic careers have been so brutally annulled, I serve notice of cancellation of that engagement with the Anambra school, scheduled for August.

The deaths of those innocents cannot be reversed, but we must begin, even yesterday, the process of reversing the mental trajectory that makes death from innocence the current norm of national existence.”