Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has eulogised Leah Sharibu who was kidnapped by Boko Haram insurgents on February 19, 2018, alongside her schoolmates from their Government Science College at Dapchi, Yobe State.
While others have been released, Sharibu has been held back for refusing to denounce her Christian faith.
She clocked 16 on Tuesday still in the hands of her abductors.
At an event at Georgetown University in Washington, United States, Soyinka likened Leah to the late South African iconic human rights champion and president, Nelson Mandela.
He said: “We must celebrate the exception who said ‘no’ “as it reminded me of Mandela who refused conditional release.”
Reciting the ode, ‘Mandela comes to Leah’, the renowned playwright clarified: “No”, she said, “Faith is not of compulsion. Her torch undimmed in the den of zealots.”
Soyinka said he could only recite the excerpts because he broke down the last time he attempted to read it.
He also criticised 20 American intellectuals who opposed the designation of the sect as a foreign terrorist organisation (FTO), saying: “It took my breath away.”
He continued: “Some were my friends, but in all seriousness, they simply had a very wrong analytical approach to this problem.
“We must simply jettison the language of political correctness. Political correctness is turning the African continent into the graveyard of freedom and liberty if we don’t call things by their proper names.”
