Nobel Laureate Prof Wole Soyinka has stated that popular Afrobeat artist Davido should not apologise to Muslims who are demanding an apology for an allegedly offensive video posted on his social media pages last week.
Recall that on Friday, July 21, the DMW boss posted a 45-second video clip of his signee Logos Olori’s new single, ‘Jaye Lo,’ promoting the song before its official release. The video sparked controversy because it depicted men dressed as praying imams dancing in front of a mosque rather than praying.
It was later reported that the ‘Fem’ singer bowed to pressure and erased the video on Monday after receiving severe criticisms.
In a report by Nigerian Tribune, Soyinka dismissed the claim that dancing in front of a mosque is an act of provocation in a letter titled “Davido Video,” released recently. He insisted that it “affirms the unified sensibility of the spiritual in human.”
Reacting to the calls for an apology to the Muslim community by Senator Shehu Sani and some other aggrieved Muslims, Soyinka said:
“It should come as no surprise that I equally and absolutely disagree with Shehu Sani if indeed, as reported, he has demanded an apology from Davido on behalf of the Muslim 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.”
Although Soyinka stated that he has not yet viewed the video in question, he insisted that dance in a religious context is a fundamental right to which all artists should be entitled.
He said:
“I have not seen the clip, but I insist on the right of the artist 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 cannot therefore, on its own, be read as an act of provocation or offence but as an 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.”
Soyinka emphasised that incidents like the alleged blasphemy-related lynching of Deborah Samuel Yakubu, a student at the Shehu Shagari College of Education, by her classmates in Sokoto, as well as the mistreatment and detention of atheists like Mubarak Bala, should incite outrage in every member of society.
“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.”
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