{"id":22267,"date":"2019-05-24T11:04:09","date_gmt":"2019-05-24T11:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=22267"},"modified":"2019-05-24T11:04:09","modified_gmt":"2019-05-24T11:04:09","slug":"insecurity-soyinka-slams-nigeria-gov-lia-mohammed-says-deal-with-the-substance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=22267","title":{"rendered":"INSECURITY: Soyinka Slams Nigeria Gov., Lia Mohammed says &#8220;Deal with the Substance&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=18815&amp;ad_type=81&amp;rl=1800\" width=\"336\" height=\"280\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka has slammed the federal government for dismissing Obasanjo\u2019s comment on the security situation in the country saying,\u00a0 &#8220;government should deal with its substance.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The foremost playwright was speaking at an event organised by the United Bank of Africa to mark the 2019 Africa Day, in Lagos, on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>While delivering a lecture on Saturday in Delta state, Obasanjo had said the Boko Haram crisis had become an agenda for \u201cWest African Fulanization, African Islamisation\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><strong>In reaction<\/strong>, Lai Mohammed, minister of information, said such comment by the former president is absurd and divisive.<\/p>\n<p>Soyinka said rather than dismiss Obasanjo\u2019s comment, the government should deal with its substance.<\/p>\n<p>He said leaders should not be too carried away by the \u201cmarvelous concept of unity\u201d to the point of ignoring the issues that threaten the existence of the nation and its people.<\/p>\n<p>Soyinka urged the government to prioritize the material condition of its citizens, saying \u201cwe are being re-colonized by a number of forces.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe should be careful not to be too dismissive over the matter. The Federal Government is leaving aside the substance, which is the high level of kidnapping, youth suicide and terrorism in the country. I support unity in Africa but we need to particularize the area of unity we seek. Even Boko Haram also tries to unify everybody,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverybody knows me and Obasanjo, and I think we should be careful not to be too dismissive or abrasive. The language must be put aside and let us deal with the substance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet us analyse carefully what the (former) president has said. I was listening to the Minister of Information; they are living aside the substance and dealing with the person. Obasanjo also called for a meeting to deal with the social malaise of suicide, kidnapping, noting that we had better sit down and tackle this issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><code><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=18815&amp;ad_type=81&amp;rl=1800\" width=\"336\" height=\"280\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/code><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka has slammed the federal government for dismissing Obasanjo\u2019s comment on the security situation in the country saying,\u00a0 &#8220;government should deal with its substance. The foremost playwright was speaking at an event organised by the United Bank of Africa to mark the 2019 Africa Day, in Lagos, on Wednesday. While delivering [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":22269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[182,290],"class_list":["post-22267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-olusegun-obasanjo","tag-prof-wole-soyinka"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/soyinka.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-5N9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22270,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22267\/revisions\/22270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}