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‘Is it now cool to kill?’ Soyinka queries NASS on Hate Speech Bill

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Soyinka tags 2019 polls most depressing, says his generation has failed Nigerians

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, on Friday warned the National Assembly on the implications of passing Hate Speech Bill currently before them into law.

The Nobel laureate sent his warning to the lawmakers in a letter titled: “Is it now cool to kill? –An anguished letter to Nigerian lawmakers.”

He told the lawmakers to “remember that example, especially by leadership, is a hundred times more explicit and enduring than the mere propagation of any counter-doctrine. Do not embrace the awful responsibility of impressing homicide as a way of life on the ethical template of coming generations. The chickens have a way of coming home to roost.

“ I may be wrong of course, but their droppings already foul the common air we all breathe. Just take a deep breath, look around you, and re-consider.”

Noting it would be unfortunate to be caught up in nightmare, the Nobel laureate added: “The nightmare consists of the fear of waking up one morning to discover that one’s name has been cited among those helpless victims on behalf of whom a repellent legislation is about to be enacted.”

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Pointing out that fake news was despicable, he said, “however, dear legislators consider more deeply the path on which you have chosen to embark. I invite you to reflect quite objectively on the company into which you are about to throw yourselves and the consequences for the very nation you represent –including its social psyche. You are about to corrupt youthful impression, to join the brigade of closet psychopaths for whom the only solution to any social malaise from the trite to the profoundly affective is – Kill! Is this what humanity and society are all about?

“You are psyching up your ranks to pronounce yourselves affiliates of inhuman aberrations such as Boko Haram, Isis (Da’esh), al Shabbab, nomadic cow herders etc. etc. for whom killing is the only response for real or imagined wrongs, perceptions of entitlement and/or deprivation, sense of righteousness and generally- concept of a thoroughly sanitised community of mortals. You are sending out applications to join the ranks of those inadequate males who believe that the only cure for adultery is to bury a woman up to her neck in earth and reduce her head to a pulp under a rain of stones.”

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