Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka has condemned US President Donald Trump’s threat of military action in Nigeria over alleged Christian genocide.
Speaking to newsmen in Makurdi after a meeting with the Governor of Benue State, Hyacinth Alia, on Friday, the award-winning writer described Trump’s threat as “madness.”
He explained that Nigeria’s internal conflicts could not be approached with careless or impulsive statements from foreign leaders.
He criticised Trump’s rhetoric, noting that the American president had suggested that he would “come to help” Nigeria with little understanding of the country’s realities.
“You do not just open your mouth and say, ‘I am coming to help you whether you like it or not… and I am coming with violence from outside with poor, almost non-existent analysis of the complexities of where the problem is,’” Soyinka said.
He added that statements suggesting rapid and aggressive military action were dangerous and dismissive of the experiences of affected communities. “And you say, ‘I am coming to help you, I am coming with guns a-blazing’. And when we come in, ‘it is going to be fast, vicious and swift’,” he added.
