Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has criticised the ban placed on a song by Nigerian musician, Eedris Abdulkareem, calling it a troubling return to censorship and an assault on the right to free expression.
In a statement released Sunday, April 13, from New York University, Abu Dhabi, Soyinka 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.”
He added, with irony, that the authorities might as well go further in their restrictions. “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 member, should also go under the hammer.”
Though he admitted he hadn’t listened to the track in question, Soyinka insisted the issue wasn’t about content.
“It cannot be flouted. That, surely is basic. This is why I feel that we should look on the bright side of any picture and thus recommend the Aleshinloye cartoon – and others in allied vein – as an easy-to-apprehend, easy-to-digest summation of the wisdom of attempting to stifle unpalatable works of art or socio-political commentary.”
He also pointed out the unintended benefit of such bans. “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.”
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For Soyinka, the censorship like that of the NBC reflects a pattern that undermines democratic ideals. “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 seizures of the fundamental right of free expression.”
He warned that it creates a dangerous precedent. “A permissive atmosphere of trickle-down power,” he said, in which state actors feel encouraged to crush dissent.
Soyinka’s statement also addressed wider national issues, particularly the recent lynching of 19 youths in Edo State. “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.”
Referencing the 2022 killing of Deborah Samuel in Sokoto, he condemned the continued failure to hold killers accountable. “Identified killers were set free to gloat, and paste their photos on the Social Media… in full daylight glare, in the presence of both citizen voyeurs and security forces.”
He warned that until impunity is confronted, violence will continue. “As long as the culture of impunity is given the sheerest strain of legitimacy in any given cause, such gruesome assaults on our common humanity will continue to prevail.”
Soyinka concluded by urging authorities to reverse what he called a “petulant irrationality,” warning, “Any government that only tolerates praise-singers has already commenced a downhill slide into the abyss.”