The
Nigerian government and supporters of Buhari have been asked to hide
their faces in shame for opposing a peaceful rally aimed at calling the
leaders to order.
Nigerian musician, Tuface Idibia aka 2Baba
Eminent Professor of English at Carleton University, Pius Adesanmi
has asked why supporters of President Muhammadu Buhari and the
government are afraid of the planned protest by legendary Nigerian
musician, Tuface Idibia aka 2baba if they are truly delivering the
dividends of democracy.
In his recent article, the Prof wondered why the government and its
agents have used every means possible to malign the character of the
musician simply because he agreed to join a protest to urge the
government to fulfill its promises to the masses.
Read the interesting piece below:
Air, You're Under Arrest! - By Pius Adesanmi
President Buhari's administration, its supporters and well-wishers,
do not want Tu Baba to have his say in a democracy. They do not want
him to organize a protest against the direction of Nigeria under
President Buhari's supervision.
They have denigrated him.
They have abused him.
They have abused his father and mother.
Those who defend the musician's right to agonize and organize in a
democracy have been surprised by the ferocity of those determined to
silence the man.
I think that Mr. Innocent Idibia's traducers - the Buhari
administration and its voices in the public sphere - have a better
understanding of history than those who are acting surprised and are
blindsided by the ferocity of the opposition to Mr. Idibia's planned
protest.
Let's be clear: I support and endorse that protest and the spirit
which informs it. If I were in the country, I'd join it to protest
against the failures and the shortcomings of the current administration
and insist on better, responsible, and accountable governance.
If we cede Nigeria to the crude and primitive instincts of those
who would have us perish even the mere thought of peaceful and
legitimate protest in a democracy just because they deify President
Buhari, we are totally finished. A Nigeria in which the right to protest
is demonized cannot contain us and such people.
It is instructive that many of those who are attempting to prevent
legitimate protests against President Buhari in Nigeria see no
contradiction whatsoever in hailing legitimate protests against
President Trump in another democracy in faraway America. Perhaps we
should not be surprised because irony and the Nigerian have never been
good friends.
I said that the Buhari administration and its supporters who are
trying to block Mr. Idibia's right to dissent have a better handle on
history than those who are surprised by the state's reaction.
Come with me.
Centuries before Christ, in ancient Greece precisely, a fellow
called Orpheus became the perfect embodiment of poetic genius in music.
It was said that his father, the god Apollo, gave him a lyre and taught
him to play it. Orpheus became the greatest musician in the universe.
The world obeyed the command of his art. Rivers, mountains, animals, and
humans all melted when he played the lyre. He fell in love with a
beautiful lady called Eurydice.
Misfortune happens to this perfect love story and his wife died and
descended to Hades - the underworld. Orpheus had one power, one weapon
that no force could withstand - his music. With his lyre, he was able to
descend to Hades, cross the dangerous Stygian realm, charm Cerberus the
monster with three heads, and gain admission into the presence of
Pluto, the god of the Underworld, whose heart he melted with music and
retrieved his wife.
Nothing was able to withstand or block the liberating capacity of
the music of Orpheus. Orpheus had served notice to humanity that music
liberates. Music frees people from tyranny. Such is the awesome power of
the musician.
Such is the awesome power of the musician. Fast forward to several
centuries after Christ, in 13th-century Germany, the people of the
little village of Hamelin were in bondage. The bondage of rat
infestation. Doctors could not save them from that bondage. Armies could
not save them from that bondage. A single musician and his pipe saved
them. He also of course had the capacity to punish them for failing to
compensate him as promised.
Just as the Pied Piper of Hamelin used his music to lure the rats
away, he lured the children away. Such is the awesome power of the
musician.
Such is the awesome power of the musician. In Jericho, the invading
Israelites had to make the transition from professional soldiers to
professional musicians. They laid down their arms and blew trumpets. And
the Wall of Jericho fell. Such is the awesome power of the musician.
Such is the awesome power of the musician. In folktale after
folktale after folktale after folktale, Ijapa the tortoise uses song and
music to conquer, to overcome, to liberate, to bring down tyranny in
the Yoruba world. Such is the awesome power of the musician.
Such is the awesome power of the musician. If you watch the
documentary, Amandla (find it on YouTube), you will gain an
understanding of the fact that it was song and music that brought down
Apartheid in South Africa. You will hear former Apartheid police
officers and security forces declare that they were more afraid of the
song and the chanting "of the blecks" (Blacks in South African English)
than the stones and the bullets of the anti-apartheid fighters. Such is
the awesome power of the musician.
The man who finds favour with the Muses and they invest the art of
music in him immediately becomes an existential threat to power because
he is in possession of a weapon that has been the nemesis of power
throughout history. Whether he is singing or just operating in the
secular realm of a protest beyond musical performance, he is still an
existential threat to power.
This explains why the Buhari administration and its supporters are
so afraid of Mr. Innocent Idibia. This explains why they are so jittery.
And this explains why their reaction and hysterics should be familiar
to those who have read enough books to understand the history of such
reactions to the musician.
The Nigerians trying to stop the artist have ancestors dating all
the way back to ancient Greece - agents of power and forces of reaction
who have always tried to catch the wind and arrest the air. Sadly, they
will go the way of all those who have tried to arrest the air before
them. They will go the way of those who have tried to "arrest the
music", to borrow the title of Tejumola Olaniyan's excellent book.
If you are a blind Buhari supporter, Mr. Innocent Idibia is not
your problem. President Buhari is. Face him and tell him to up his game
and deliver on his electoral promises. You did not elect him to run
Nigeria catastrophically on auto-pilot as he is currently doing. At any
rate, if you are a patriot, your loyalty will always be to Nigeria and
not to any President.
If you belong in Team Nigeria, the team of transcendental
non-partisan patriots who believe that Nigeria is bigger than anyone,
including the President, and his supporters must consequently not be
allowed to reduce Nigeria to a theocracy run by their god, defend Mr.
Innocent Idibia's right to protest. Support him.
Physically, they may shut down that protest or even prevent him
from holding it. Don't worry. Mr. Idibia is an artist. He has song. He
has music. He is beyond them.
Let them continue to arrest the air.
It's their funeral.
No comments:
Post a Comment