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Soyinka to Muslims: Focus on real issues, leave Davido alone *Says, music star has nothing to apoligise for
Wole Soyinka, world-acclaimed playwright and first African Nobel Laureate on literature, on Tuesday literally picked up the gauntlet to defend celebrated Nigerian music icon, David Adeleke, otherwise known as Davido, currently caught in the web of controversy with some Muslim faithful over a recent video from his studios they felt undermined the Islamic religion.
Soyinka, an outspoken Nigerian social critic, described the hullaballoo over the said video as people wrongfully dissipating of energy, adding that those castigating and vilifying the popular artiste were making a mountain out of a molehill as they were other important issues they need to address.
The video, captioned Jaiye Lo, which was released by Logos Olori, an artiste under Davido, showed some people dressed in white jalabiyas dancing energetically and reciting some Quranic verses, after praying like Muslims, a development, which has raised angst among the Islamic community in Nigeria, leading to threats against the musician.
Against the attacks by Muslims faithful, including the burning of the poster of the multiple award-winning singer in Sokoto, for displaying such video on his Twitter handle, Soyinka, in a statement on Tuesday said: “The following should not be needed, but we appear to inhabit a nation space where memory deficiency has become an accreditation badge of competence in national affairs. I recall my intervention, several years ago, in an attempt to pillory former Governor of Kaduna State, El Rufai over some comment he had made that was considered derogatory to followers of Christianity.
“I forget the reference now but I do distinctly recall another of a bank manager who, at Easter tide, referred to the risen Christ as a metaphor for the risen dough in the bakeries of Oshodi. Something along those lines. Under obvious pressure, he apologised, and I rebuked him for the gesture.
“There was nothing to apologise about, and that applied equally to El Rufai’s comments at the time. It should come as no surprise that I equally absolutely disagree with Shehu Sani if indeed, as reported, he has demanded an apology from Davido on behalf of the Moslem community.
“No apology is required, None should be offered. Let us stop battening down our heads in the mush of contrived contrition – we know where contrition, apology and restitution remain clamorous in the cause of closure and above all – justice. Such apologies have not been forthcoming. In their place, we have the ascendancy of petulant censorship in the dance and music department. Just where will it end?”
Soyinka, who stressed that most forms of worship – from the Hare Krishna to Hinduism and lesser-known religions – sought transcendental experience through the medium of dance, added: “It goes beyond mere elation or euphoria and involves surrender of the ego to the mystical and sublime – through dance. The secularisation of that medium stretches across religions, and offers the artistes’ a means of invoking a sense of spiritual community, through a common act of self-surrender.
“As already admitted, I have not seen the clip, but I insist on the right of the artiste to deploy dance in a religious setting as a fundamental given. Such deployment is universal heritage, most especially applicable in the case of Islam where a plot of land, even without the physical structure, can be turned, in the twinkling of an eye, into a sacral space for believers to gather and worship in between mundane pursuits.”
Soyinka, while arguing that dancing in front of a mosque could not therefore, on its own, be read as an act of provocation or offence but as affirmation of the unified sensibility of the spiritual in human, stated: “Let us learn to read it that way. Those who persist in taking offence to bed and serving it up as breakfast should exercise their right of boycotting Davido’s products – no one quarrels with that right. However, it is not a cause for negative and incitive excitation.
“The greater responsibility is to face squarely the root issues of religion in the nation. That root issue is starkly stated thus: the sectarian appropriation of the power of life and death across a community of believers, other believers, and even non-believers alike, be it for real, imagined, or deliberately contrived offence.
“It was not Davido’s music that lynched Deborah Yakubu, and continues to frustrate the cause of justice. Nor has it contributed to the arbitrary detention of religious dissenters – call them atheists or whatever – such as Mubarak Bala, now languishing in prison for his 38th month. These are the provocations where every citizen should exercise the capacity for revulsion. They are the issues deserving of, indeed exercise primary claim on a nation’s capacity for righteous indignation. All else is secondary. Distractive piffle.”
Chidi Odinkalu, Nigeria’s fiery lawyer, law teacher and former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), is emphatic that President Bola Tinubu is pushing to perpetuate himself in office, beginning with gaming the electoral process in 2027.
Odinkalu, Professor of Practice in International Human Rights Law at the Fletcher School, told his host Naija Unfiltered, a popular Nigerian podcast programme, that he was as sure as death that the President would not exit office in 2031, if he succeeded with his current gambit to remain in power beyond next year.
Hear him: “Yes. But as I said, let me repeat myself. There’ll be a third term. President Tinubu has not done all of this just for another four years. There will be a third term. And anybody who is doing, ‘it is not our portion,’ is not reading the evidence.”
To achieve this aim, the activist, who was also emphatic that the National Assembly, would play a role, added: “The current National Assembly is anything but national or an assembly. And if it’s an assembly, it’s not a parliamentary one. Many people have called it a rubber stamp, but I think that is actually abusive of rubber stamps. I think this National Assembly is a disgrace.
Citing how bizarre and completely compliant the national legislature had become to Tinubu, the ex-NHRC’s boss, stated: “If you can change your national anthem in less than 24 hours with no public hearing, no public consultation, no public involvement, it tells you you don’t have a country because a national anthem is fundamental to the construction of a national identity.”
Also referring to the current move by the President to introduce state police, Odinkalu, wondered how the Nigerian Senate would introduce the bill to that effect and proceed towards the first and second readings, as well as committee stage and passage in less than two hours, questioning how that was possible in normal clime.
Hear him: “Once we finish our elections, we’re going to amend our Constitution, introduce a single six-year presidential term. The current incumbent will be elected until 2031. In 2031, what will happen? The question will be, will he be entitled to run on the six-year term or will he not?
“You will then get the best Senior Advocates in Nigeria telling you the law is not retrospective. That is why the administration is supporting the litigation over President Jonathan’s tenure—not because the Constitution is not clear, but because they will say there is precedent. There will be a third term, and I’m prepared to bet on it.”
“If we continue to pay ransom, we are encouraging these criminals to kidnap more people. The cycle will only continue unless we stop rewarding criminality,” were the words of Dauda Lawal, Governor of Zamfara State, with which he blamed those in the habit of paying ransoms as the major factor fuelling the current wave of kidnapping incidents across the country.
Lawal, on Thursday at the ARISE News/THISDAY Town Hall Conference on State Police and National Security in Abuja, told his audience how he flatly refused to pay a ₦300 million ransom demanded by kidnappers who abducted his brothers in 2019.
Reiterating his opposition to negotiating with bandits and renewed his support for the establishment of state police, Lawal, while recounting the incident, said: “My own brothers were kidnapped in 2019, and the kidnappers demanded about ₦300 million. I told them I was not going to pay a dime. If they wanted to kill them, they could go ahead.”
Stating that his brothers were eventually released without any ransom being paid, he argued that paying ransom usually emboldened criminal groups by providing financial incentives for further kidnappings.
He added: “My position on ransom payments remains unchanged. I will not negotiate, and I will not pay ransom to any criminal, no matter what happens.”
Endorsing the move for the establishment of state police, to enable governors have greater operational authority over security within their states, he regretted that the current constitutional arrangement left governors with responsibility for security without corresponding powers to direct security agencies.
His words: “In as much as I am called the chief security officer of the state, I do not have the command-and-control authority to direct the operations of the security agencies. I’m prepared to support the funding of state police if the proposed policing structure is established. I’m confident that decentralised policing will improve intelligence gathering, response time and the overall fight against insecurity.”
Exactly seven years, two months and four days after he forced Walter Onnoghen, the 16th Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) out of office, Danladi Umar, former Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), on Thursday, found himself in Kuje prison.
Justice Peter Kekemeke, of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), sitting in Maitama, handed the ex-CCT boss the unwelcome package on Thursday, following his arraignment by the Federal Government on a four-count corruption charge.
Umar’s ordeal began after an investigations revealed that he abused his official position by conferring an undue advantage on himself while serving as head of the tribunal, having in 2021, reportedly using his wife’s bank account to collect the sum of N5.5 million from a contractor engaged to paint the headquarters of the CCT in Abuja.
He was also accuse of using the same account to collect another N6million on January 25, 2024, from a contractor who handled the digitisation of the CCT’s records and yet another N2.43 million a contractor paid as tuition fee of his daughter at Baze University, Abuja.
After pleading not guilty to offences, said to be punishable under section 19 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000, Christopher Mshelia, lawyer to the FG, prosecuting the matter, applied for his remand in a correctional facility, while urging the court to set a date for the commencement of trial.
His pleas to be freed on bail pending the determination of the case, was opposed by the prosecution, which drew the court’s attention to the fact that it had just been served with the bail application, saying it needed time to respond to it, forcing Kekemeke to adjourn the case till July 15 for hearing while the former CCT boss remained behind bars.
Umar, had as CCT Chairman, on January 23, 2019, issued a controversial ex parte order that led to the removal of a serving Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen.
Following the ex parte order, the late President Muhammadu Buhari, on January 25, swore in the next most senior jurist of the Supreme Court, Justice Tanko Muhammad, to take over the leadership of the judiciary as Acting CJN.
Even though Onnoghen later voluntarily resigned his position as CJN on April 4, Umar went ahead and convicted him on April 18, 2019, on the federal government’s allegation that he had failed to properly declare his assets as required by law.
He gave the federal government the go-ahead to confiscate all monies in five accounts belonging to the former CJN, and also removed him as Chairman of both the NJC and the Federal Judiciary Service Commission (FJSC).
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