There is a brewing war of words between the erudite scholar and Nobel Prize winner, prof. Wole Soyinka and former governor of Borno State, Ali Modu Sheriff and if care is not taken, may take another dimension.
Sheriff was reacting to the open letter written by Prof. Soyinka, titled ‘Wage of Impunity’, where the professor of English alluded that the former governor was a confirmed sponsor of the Islamic sect, Boko Haram, an accusation earlier made by self-styled Australian terror negotiator, Stephen Davies.
In the letter, Soyinka had insinuated that Sheriff who is an accused sponsor of the dreaded sect, had fled to Chad to welcome President Jonathan during his visit to the Chadian president.
Not one to take such blatant statement lying low, Sheriff has fired back in an interview in the Punch Newspaper where he called Prof. Soyinka a renown cultist who has no moral right to say he, Sheriff, has a hand in funding the operations of the deadly sect.
This is what Sherrif said through his Commissioner of Information and Home Affairs, Mr. Inuwa Bwala:
As the cultist we know him (Soyinka) to be, being the founder of a confraternity for which the world is still waiting for answers from him, he is the least morally qualified to speak on the alleged involvement of any Nigerian in whatever crime.
We challenge him to name this person he says he knows as a sponsor of Boko Haram in the Central Bank, if he is as patriotic as he claims to be. We also challenge him to prove to Nigerians that he is not the cultist we have always known him to be.
No security agency anywhere or an individual who claims to have investigated this matter independently can dictate to Nigerians or our security personnel what to do about this Boko Haram menace. Therefore, this needless diversion is unwelcome.
