Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka has defended Afrobeats singer Davido on the musical video “Jaye Lo” of his signee, Logos Olori which attracted heavy criticisms from the Muslim community.
The video, which brewed heated controversy, surrounding was described as disrespectful to the Islamic tenets as it was captured in a mosque-like scene with men in white Jalabiya who after seemingly observing the Sallah prayers, switched to dancing while they recited some Quranic verses.
Weighing on the matter, Soyinka, in a statement, said the clip which he clarified that he was yet to view, didn’t require any form of apology from Davido.
He made reference to the bank manager he rebuked for his apology over the Easter message which compared the resurrection of Christ to risen dough as a metaphor.
He maintained the DMW boss had nothing to apologise for, indicating people dancing in front of a mosque was not an offense but simply creativity employed to display the spiritual uniformity existing in mankind.
He knocked Shehu Sani and others who condemned the video while demanding an apology from Davido, arguing there were graver issues which happened in the country that required apologies but were never given.
The literary giant insisted the least the Muslim faithful could have done was to boycot Davido’s music without making so much fuss on social media.
He added there were so many other weighter issues which called for revulsion from the citizens citing the case of Deborah who was mobbed to death in Sokoto and Mubarak Bala yet languishing in prison for his 38th month.
The iconic playwright stated: “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 apologized, and I rebuked him for the gesture.
“There was nothing to apologize 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?”
“Most forms of worship – from the Hare Krishna to Hinduism and lesser-known religions – sought transcendental experience through the medium of dance.
“It goes beyond mere elation or euphoria and involves surrender of the ego to the mystical and sublime – through dance. The secularization 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.
He added: “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.
“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.
“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.”
