Professor Wole Soyinka, a Nobel Laureate, has responded to the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission’s (NBC) recent ban on the song by Eedris Abdulkareem.
He described the action as a major danger to the right to free expression and a reversion to a culture of repression.
In a statement issued from New York University, Abu Dhabi, on Sunday, Soyinka expressed his disapproval of the ban and its broader implications, stating that it echoed past attempts to suppress artistic and socio-political commentary in Nigeria.
“Courtesy of an artist operating in a different genre – the cartoon – who sent me his recent graphic comment on the event, I learned recently of a return to the culture of censorship with the banning of the product of a music artist, Eedris Abdulkareem,” Soyinka remarked in the piece, which was posted on PM News.
He expressed irony in his suggestion that the ban did not go far enough, humorously stating, “It is not only the allegedly offensive record that should be banned – the musician himself should be proscribed. Next, PMAN, or whatever musical association of which Abdulkareem is a member, should also go under the hammer.”
“It cannot be flouted. That, surely is basic,” he said, emphasizing the importance of upholding freedom of speech in the country.
He further noted that censorship often has the opposite effect, benefiting the targeted artist. “The ban is a boost to the artist’s nest egg, thanks to free governmental promotion. Mr. Abdulkareem must be currently warbling his merry way all the way to the bank. I envy him,” Soyinka quipped.
“We have been through this before, over and over again, ad nauseam. We know where it all ends. It is boring, time-wasting, diversionary but most essential of all, subversive of all seizures of the fundamental right of free expression,” he said.
“My heart goes out to friends, colleagues, and families of victims and traumatised survivors of this senseless slaughter. Our thirst for justice must remain unslaked,”
He warned, “Any government that only tolerates praise-singers has already commenced a downhill slide into the abyss.”
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