Over recent months, the Niger Delta has become the scene of increased militancy with several groups taking up arms again and blowing up oil installations. Government ministers have reached out to the militants asking them to lay down their weapons and enter into peace talks but some of the groups are yet to accept the offer.
Speaking in Lagos yesterday, Professor Soyinka, who said he had been contacted to intervene in the Niger Delta crisis, lashed out at the Nigerian media, accusing them of extreme invention and distortion of facts that had escalated the dispute. He added that he would no longer be speaking to the local media over issues concerning Nigeria’s efforts to end militancy in the Niger Delta.
Professor Soyinka had met with President Muhammadu Buhari on August 11 and when approached by journalists afterwards, he said they had discussed national and international matters at the meeting. After the meeting, it had been reported that he was part of an international group mediating in the Niger Delta crisis.
Last May, during events marking Buhari’s one year in office, Professor Soyinka described a media report quoting him as declaring his support for the president as a disgusting forgery. He added that media reports that he was part of an international group mediating between the federal government and the Niger Delta militants as an extreme invention.
“You cannot publish a statement to me saying I’m a part of an international group when the international group is not even in existence, there’s no international intervention group which has been formed. I think to go further and attribute to me a statement that the international group has already contacted Buhari, what kind of extreme invention is that?
"How can a group which does not exist meet with the head of state and how could I, who just happened to be meeting with the head of state, say that the two entities have met when one of them does not exist? I’ve taken a decision not to speak about the Delta situation publicly, just to carry on any assignment which I feel I can carry out on behalf of a resolution," Professor Soyinka added.
Meanwhile, in an effort to give fillip to the federal government’s quest for peace in the Niger Delta, minister of state for petroleum, Dr Ibe Kachikwu met with traditional rulers from the region in his office in Abuja yesterday. At the meeting, the traditional rulers listed six things the federal government should do in order to build confidence and stop the destruction of the country’s oil assets by militants in the region.
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