Prof. Wole Soyinka, a Nobel laureate, stated on Tuesday that people are making a mountain out of a molehill by unfairly wasting their time and vilifying David Adeleke, better known by his stage name Davido, over a video that the singer posted on his social media page while ignoring other more pressing issues.
The white jalabiya-clad individuals were seen praying like Muslims do before breaking out into dance as they read some lines from the Quran in the video titled “Jaiye Lo,” which was released by Davido musician Logos Olori.
For those praying behind a “Imam” using the common single-prayer rug (sajadah), mats were laid out. Along with performing what appeared to be Muslim recitations in Arabic and bowing like Muslims do during prayer, those who were praying.
In the video, Logos Olori could be seen seated on the roof of a structure that resembled a mosque and was equipped with a public address system. However, as soon as the video went viral online, Muslims threatened Davido for posting the video on his Twitter account.
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But Soyinka claimed in a statement on Tuesday that he hadn’t seen the Davido video and would be very grateful if someone made it available so that everyone could discuss the advantages and disadvantages of various perspectives about the musician’s most recent work objectively.
According to Soyinka, most religions, including lesser-known ones like Hare Krishna and Hinduism, seek spiritual experiences through dance. The rules, customs, and obligations of artistic creativity, on the other hand, should not be stifled by emotional manipulation.
The Nobel Prize winner said: “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?”
“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.
“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,”
Soyinka said that dancing in front of a mosque should instead be seen as an assertion of the shared sensibility of the spiritual in human rather than an act of provocation or offence.
“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.”
