Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has attacked the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) for recently banning Eedris Abdulkareem’s protest song “Tell Your Papa.”
The song, which was published on April 7, talks about how many Nigerians are struggling financially.
On April 10, NBC declared the song “objectionable” and prohibited radio and television stations from playing it.
Soyinka called the restriction “petulant irrationality” and an assault on the constitutional right to free expression in a statement released on Saturday from New York University in Abu Dhabi.
He cautioned that if the government keeps silencing dissenting opinions, it might turn into an authoritarian state. He claimed the commission’s action reflects a growing trend of intolerance for criticism.
“We have been through this before, over and over again, ad nauseam. We know where it all ends. It is boring, time-wasting, diversionary, but most essential of all, subversive of all seizure of the fundamental right of free expression,” the statement reads in part
“Oh, bear in mind also theocratic “authorities” that continue to arrogate to themselves the right to arrest and imprison artists and thinkers for their expression of opinion and vision of human existence.
“The fundamental right of free expression, as already touched upon, is not a closet affair; it is never hidden but echoes as loudly on international fora as in the most obscure hamlet.
“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.”