P.M. News
By Nehru Odeh
Prof. Ebun Clark speaks on the state of the nation as a guest speaker at the recently concluded Lagos Art and Book Festival, LABAF
Prof. Ebun Clark, distinguished academic and first professor of Theatre Arts in Nigeria, has said the country is in deep trouble. He made this assertion against the backdrop of large scale violence in different parts of the country while regretting that Nigerians no longer have a sense of history.
The accomplished professor was speaking as a guest at a symposium with the theme, How did it go awfully wrong? at the just concluded Lagos Art and Book Festival, LABAF, which held at Freedom Park in Lagos. The event was chaired by Prof, Femi Osofisan, poet dramatist and academic and moderated by Mr. Kayode Komolafe, journalist and columnist.
The academic who had a distinguished academic career at the University of Lagos is the wife of Prof. J.P. Clark, academic, writer, poet and playwright who passed on last year.
“We are in terrible, terrible, terrible situation. As I am speaking right now, we have 18 years old, 19 years old, 20, 30 fighting in the bush, various bushes of Nigeria. They don’t know anything about corruption. They have no clue. They are dying right now as I am speaking to try and ensure that we can speak here. I am not saying they are going to die. They are dying right now to ensure that we can speak here. We are in trouble. Big one. And it is a pity we have no sense of history to know this,” she said.
Clark referenced the violence being perpetuated in the North East by Boko Haram and ISWAP, the Sunni/Shia divide in the North and South West, the rise of secessionist groups such as IPOB in the South East and the Sunday Igboho-led secessionist campaign in the Southwest.
“I want you to have this sense of history that we are going through right now so that we can sober down. In the north we have three situations going on right now as I am speaking, not two. We have Boko Haram, we have ISIS West Africa Province.
“Then we have the Sunni/Shia divide. Very few people think about this. It is the Sunni/Shia divide that created the problem in Iraq, Syria, Yemen etc. The Sunni/Shia divide is right now contained. And by the way it exists in the South West because…
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