Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has berated the ban placed on a song by veteran Nigerian singer, Eedris Abdulkareem.
Soyinka described the development as a return to culture of censorship and a threat to the right to freedom of expression.
The controversial song, titled: ‘Tell Your Papa’s, was said to have been directed to President Bola Tinubu’s son, Seyi Tinubu.
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The veteran singer called out the Nigeria’s President to ease hardship facing Nigerians, a development which got the attention of Nigeria Broadcasting Cooperation.
NBC in a memo on Wednesday, banned the song from being aired on radio and television, citing its “objectionable nature”, a move that sparked outrage from Nigerians.
Soyinka, while reacting to the development, called for the musician, Abdulkareem, to be proscribed while the government also put his musical association under the hammer.
In a statement titled ‘Surely, Not Again’, took another dig at the administration’s censorship of anti-Tinubu’s song by ironically calling the government’s attention to a cartoonist, Ebun Aleshinloye, who criticised the ban in his widely circulated cartoon work.
He said: “Courtesy of an artist operating in a different genre – the cartoon – who sent me his recent graphic comment on the event, I learnt recently of a return to the culture of censorship with the banning of the product of a music artist, Eedris Abdulkareem.
READ MORE: Eedris Abdulkareem’s Protest Song ‘Tell Your Papa’ Banned By NBC For Broadcast
“My position is that such a progressive move by the government and its agencies does not go far enough. 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.
“Nor should we ignore the cartoonist, Ebun Aleshinloye, who not only etched out his trenchant response to the ban but disseminated it all the way to Abu Dhabi. Let’s simply go the whole hog!”
“We have been through this before, over and over again, ad nauseum. We know where it all ends. It is boring, time-wasting, diversionary but most essential of all, subversive of all seizure of the fundamental right of free expression.
“Any government that is tolerant only of yes-men and women, which accommodate only praise-singers and dancers to the official beat, has already commenced a downhill slide into the abyss. Whatever regulating body is responsible for this petulant irrationality should be compelled to reverse its misstep.”
