I Know Davis, I Worked With Him Under FG – Soyinka

Forum 9 years ago

I Know Davis, I Worked With Him Under FG – Soyinka

Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka has in a new piece called Wages of Impunity, described Stephen Davis as a federal government negotiator and they worked together when negotiating with the Nigeria Delta militants under Late President Umaru Musa Yaar’adua’s administration.

Stephen Davis with MEND, including Asari Dokubo
The well known and respected author wrote:
While await, the Chibok girls, and in that very connection, there is at least an individual whom the nation needs to bring back, and urgently. His name is Stephen Davis, the erstwhile negotiator in the oft aborted efforts to actually bring back the girls. Nigeria needs him back – no, not back to the physical nation space itself, but to a Nigerian induced forum, convoked anywhere that will guarantee his safety and can bring others to join him. I know Stephen Davis, I worked in the background with him during efforts to resolve the insurrection in the Delta region under President Umaru Yar’Adua. I have not been involved in his recent labours for a number of reasons.
The most basic is that my threshold for confronting evil across a table is not as high as his – thanks, perhaps, to his priestly calling. From the very outset, in several lectures and other public statements, I have advocated one response and one response only to the earliest, still putative depredations of Boko Haram and have decried any proceeding that smacked of appeasement. There was a time to act – several times when firm, decisive action, was indicated. There are certain steps which, when taken, place an aggressor beyond the pale of humanity, when we must learn to accept that not all who walk on two legs belong to the community of humans – I view Boko Haram in that light.It is no comfort to watch events demonstrate again and again that one is proved to be right.