Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has condemned the ban that the National Broadcasting Service (NBC) slammed on the latest release of popular Nigerian rapper, Eedris Abdulkareem, Tell Your Papa, describing the action as a return to censorship in Nigeria.
Soyinka poured out his mind on the matter via a press statement issued on Sunday, April 13, 2025.
Although the Nobel Laureate opined that the ban had only made the song more popular, he, however, insisted that the action constituted an abuse of fundamental rights, a phenomenon that was no longer a closet affair, but one that automatically attracts international limelight.
“The ban is a boost to the artist’s nest egg,” Prof. Soyinka said, “thanks to free governmental promotion. Mr. Abdulkareem must be currently warbling his merry way all the way to the bank. I envy him.”
Soyinka wasn’t done as he further declared: “Any government that is tolerant only of yes-men and women, which accommodates 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.”
Prof. Soyinka also spoke on the recent killing of 19 youths in Edo State, condemning the culture of impunity that often trails such mob killings in the country.
“The horror is not in numbers but in the act itself,” Soyinka declared. “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, and a reversion to brutish existence will become a nation’s stamp of identity.
“The culprits are in plain sight and so are witnesses. There can be no excuses. 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.”
