NOBEL laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, yesterday again reviewed President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua's approach to the Niger Delta crisis, and concluded that the President is set to make a "fundamental mistake."

He noted that the core issues behind the struggle of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) were similar to the agitations of majority of Nigerians for several years.

Soyinka identified the issues as the restructuring of Nigeria on more equitable lines, fiscal federalism, revenue allocation, derivation, among others. Indeed, playing on a word and the acronym MEND, Soyinka said what Nigeria needs is to 'mend' itself as opposed to the attempt to 'rebrand' by the Yar'Adua government.

"We are talking about the distortion that has taken place since this nation obtained 'independence'", he said, and in this regard, "the crisis of the Niger Delta region can only be solved holistically."

At a press conference in Lagos yesterday, Soyinka said that he was not defending MEND or sympathetic to it, but admitted that, "MEND is simply Pro-National Conference Organisations (PRONACO) by other means. "What PRONACO was about, was precisely to avoid the resort to this other means. The aims of PRONACO and MEND in fact, tally at various points. It is the methodology that is different. That is why I used the expression, 'MEND is simply PRONACO by other means.'"

He said the Yar'Adua administration was still making a fundamental mistake and about to lose another opportunity of resolving the crisis in the troubled region. He asked rhetorically: "What do I mean? You hand over amnesty, you offer rehabilitation money, you offer the proposed structures for the mobilisation etc. etc. and the problem of the Niger Delta can't be solved outside a holistic concept of what Nigeria should be."

The literary icon observed that violence should be accepted as a consequence of the agitation of MEND. He said that nobody should expect an organisation like MEND to be composed of angels after all, but noted that MEND also has a responsibility to assist the general community in flushing out racketeers. This is the responsibility of any liberal organisation.

While he called for condolences to the relations of the victims of the MEND attack on Atlas Cove, he stressed that "we must deplore the necessity of any kind of action that leads to losses of Nigerians' lives as a result of insecurity. This and other factors are lamentable. They are not normal. We are not living under normal circumstances."

He deplored the insinuations that the attack had any kind of ethnic coloration to it notwithstanding the fact that the attack took place on Lagos soil. "It was not an attack on Yoruba people."

He said: "As a Yoruba man, I want to state quite clearly that I don't think that I have been assaulted because of the reality of ethnic grouping. The kind of language that is used to classify it as ethnic attack is fraught with dangers, not only for the Yoruba people, not just for Lagos, but also for the entire nation and I think that elders, especially those who called themselves elders and therefore leaders of thought and leaders of reactions and responses, have to be far more guarded in their language. The facility that was blown up, I am not aware that it was labelled Yoruba oil depot. I haven't seen any Benin Oil Depot, I haven't seen any Hausa Oil Depot. I haven't even seen any Ijaw Oil Depot. So, where does ethnicity come into the picture?"

Soyinka made light of the ultimatum and call for an apology by Yoruba elders. Calling for a distinction between pragmatism, realism and emotionalism, he said that the demand for apology is just "an emotional reaction." On the call for an ultimatum, he asked: "To whom are you issuing it exactly? Do you know MEND? Who are the forces of MEND? Who do you direct the ultimatum to? I don't like the language of ultimatum especially when that ultimatum is being issued on behalf of the entity which I am a part of: Yoruba nation issuing an ultimatum?"

He worried that "violence has been institutionalised in this nation anyway." And in an open reference to the immediate past Olusegun Obasanjo presidency, Soniynka added: "Thuggery has been institutionalised and at no time more frequently so than under the last president of this nation. We had an entire state handed over to thugs. We had the President of the nation as political father to a notorious son and virtually handing over the whole state to him. We had the state of Anambra handed over with the connivance of the Federal Government to thugs for mayhem.

"So, let us not over-dramatise violence, at least not in this particular country. What I'm saying is this: don't let's get too sanctimonious. Don't let's start pretending that we are not aware that human being is such that, the purity attached very often is to the loftiest ideals. Therefore, nobody in this country should expect an organisation like MEND to be composed entirely of angels. But MEND also has a responsibility to assist the general community in flushing its racketeers. This is the responsibility of any liberal organisation.

"Let's not sentimentalise violence. We know what violence is. We know the violence that is being committed against Nigerian people even as I speak - violence that comes from the denial of facilities, denial of shelter, violence that comes from denial of the basic infrastructure that enables people to reproduce themselves. These are all forms of violence."

Soyinka wryly finds a rhythmic link between the ongoing rebranding of the country and MEND. He describes it as a coincidence, that "we have a lot of rebranding and we have MEND, which is an acronym which poses itself as a kind of conceptual option to rebranding." And then asked: "Is what Nigeria needs rebranding or mending that it requires? When I hear rebrand, rebrand, my mind actually goes to mend, mend, mend."

He continued: "If you have a rickety vehicle for instance, if you are rebranding with a coat of paints on it, even repair some of the woods in the Bolekaja, put slogans, 'united we stand, divided we fall,' 'it's a long way to heaven,' some of those things we used to see. We don't see them often now. I regret them because I used to call them mobile mirrors. You cannot rebrand those things because the engine of the vehicle is still going to knock. The bodywork is going to fall into pieces. The paint will peel sooner or later. You have got to mend that vehicle in a very structured way. You have got to get to the inner workings and completely retool the components of that vehicle before you can start rebranding. Otherwise, all the expressions, trying to put a lipstick on a pig's mouth... it is still a pig.

"What we need to do is to mend this vehicle and mend it in a more fundamental way. And that is the question that has been posed by MEND. That is why it has been foolish all along to dismiss the militants in the Delta as a bunch of rascals as the governments had tried to do for so many years. That's what has brought us to our present situation."

The playwright also wondered if Nigerians would ever know the nature of forgiveness. "Did they truly forgive Nigeria when we are yet to account for the amount of money which the World Bank and other international bodies assisted us in recovering from many people who looted this nation? Has anything be on accounted for so far?" he asked.