It’s time to descend heavily on barbaric killing, says Soyinka

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Renowned academic, Prof Wole Soyinka, has decried the recent level of criminality in the country, stating that the government should move beyond pious denunciations to descend heavily on perpetrators with the full weight of the law.

In a press statement issued yesterday, Soyinka deplored the killing of Deborah Samuel in Sokoto and the killing of Harira Ahmed and her children and bestial murder of a lawmaker both in Anambra State, adding that “we simply must devise ways of making our revulsion for this so stark, unambiguous, and inclusive. The Anambra infanticidal orgy is one such. Deborah Samuel’s mob immolation was another.”

Response to such abominations transcends the mandatory functions of security agencies. The acts constitute a breach in community ramparts and should be answered by collective action… We know that unless they are pre-emptively denounced and exposed, they will strike and strike again.

Their actions reduce us all, tarnish us, and question our humanity. “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.

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. (New Telegraph)

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