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Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has passed a damning verdict on radical Islamist sect, Boko Haram, saying they are not capable of dialogue and so called on the Federal Government not to take their calls for dialogue serious.
The erudite literary icon said this in Lagos on Thursday in his keynote address at the 2012 Annual Conference of a non-profit organisation, Women in Management, Business and Public Service.
The conference had the theme, 'Well-being, Workplace and 'Wealth', with the sub-theme, 'Women Working, and Winning'.
According to Soyinka, with an ideology of violence and with many different factions, the sect is not in a position to call for dialogue.
While describing the sect as part of an international terrorism campaign, he explained that right from the outset, there were fears that it had links with al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda and was sending people to Mauritania and Somalia for training.
"The only thing they believe is to lay waste as much of this nation as they can," he said, when asked why he had insisted in previous interviews that the government must fight the sect. "You can't dialogue with people like that."
He said, "These people declared war, not on the state. They have declared war against humanity. And it is in the interest of humanity for people to defend themselves.
"When somebody brings war into your house, your first responsibility is to expel the person who brought that war into your house unprovoked. Right now, I don't see this thing, this monstrosity as a creation capable of dialogue. Unless (we want) to say, 'Please, stop bombing us', 'Please, stop killing us'."