BY GBENGA OKE
NOBEL Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, Thursday took a critical look at the 2011 polls, the attendant mayhem and controversies and issued a series of point blank verdicts: President Goodluck Jonathan won the presidential polls; the outbursts of violence in some northern states after the April 16 elections were pre-planned and targeted at Youth Corps members and the 2011 polls were better than other elections.

At an interaction with newsmen at his Victoria Island, Lagos residence, Soyinka, who congratulated President Jonathan on his victory, lamented that the killings were based on speculations, lies and fabricated stories and urged aggrieved presidential candidates to seek redress in the law courts.

According to him, “in the North, I think a lot of wild speculations were going on which have led to an unbelievable carnage and waste of human life in this nation and this is the reason why I intend to speak.

“I have been getting reports from what is going on in Gombe, Bauchi, Kaduna on hourly basis and what you will come to realise, at the end, is that most of those cases where such killings were carried out were on the basis of nothing and often based on lies or fabricated stories. And most often, most of these killings had been planned well before hand and anybody that says this carnage is not planned is naive.

“I am convinced that these killings were planned before the election and it is, therefore, the responsibility of not only the government but also all citizens.”

Soyinka decried a situation where youths who are serving their fatherland would be targeted for annihilation, noting that the scheme introduced by Gen Yakubu Gowon in 1973 was a model and akin to America Peace Corps.

His words: “I have also been contacted to rescue some Youth Service Corps members and one of them I spoke to, said she was taking refuge at the SSS training quarters in Bauchi. When I spoke to her, she said she has a machete cut on her back and on  her head and some on her legs.

In fact, I learnt that Youth Corps members were actually targeted. One of the greatest achievements of General Gowon was the creation of NYSC and I have always credited him for that; it is visionary and it represents what America peace corps is all about during the John Kennedy days.

“This NYSC should be a symbol of unity and any corps member is supposed to be under the protection of the citizens of the state. My own children served in the North and if by any means any of my children had cause to serve in any Northern state, I will tell that child over my dead body.

The Nobel laureate linked the rising wave of violence, the Boko Haram saga to failure of past governments. He canvassed convening of Sovereign National Conference (SNC), reduction of wages of lawmakers among others to address the multitude of problems afflicting the country.

He said: “The conduct and behaviour of successive governments towards massacres in the North have been very worrisome. When you talk about the National Sovereign Conference, like the in-ordinate salary of the National Assembly, also we have spoken about the kind of system we are running.

“Does this nation really require full time legislature, which we are running now? Is it really what this nation requires with such an unbelievable amount?

“We need to reduce the process of legislation and making laws in this nation be reduced to those who are actually coming out not because they want to represent themselves but because they want to serve. A part time legislature, is it not about time we consider such?”