Abdulkareem says, ‘I replied Seyi Tinubu with my song, I didn’t attack him; reverse ban _ Soyinka

Nigerian singer and rapper Eedris Abdulkareem says he didn’t attack Seyi Tinubu with his new song insisting that he only replied to a statement made by him in March 2025 at Yola, the Adamawa State capital that his father, President Bola Tinubu, is Nigeria’s best-ever president.

The rapper said his new song ‘Tell Your Papa’Was not an attack on Seyi but a call for the president’s son to tell his father to address Nigeria’s economic and security challenges.

“Nigerian youths are just asking for basics: electricity, security, enabling economic environment, job creation and not palliatives,” Abdulkareem said on Channels Television’s Rubbin’ Minds programme on Sunday.

“So, why should I attack Seyi Tinubu personally? If Seyi Tinubu never talked about it, I wouldn’t have recorded a song like that. So, I am replying to the video that he made. If he had kept quiet, I wouldn’t have said anything. I am inspired by Seyi Tinubu to record that song.”

The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) immediately tagged Abdulkareem’s new song as inappropriate and banned it on radio and television.

The ban has been faulted by many Nigerians including Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, who described the development as a return of censorship and a threat to the right to free speech.

During the television programme, Abdulkareem lamented that 24 years after he released a previous song, ‘Nigeria jagajaga’, the song is still relevant because Nigeria has not experienced the necessary development.

He said, “I was inspired by Seyi Tinubu to record the song. I saw a video where he was campaigning for his father and he was defending his father, saying ‘My father is the best president, my father is the greatest president, they are coming for my father…’

“He (Seyi) repeated it like six times. But for Seyi, I differ because it looks more perfect when you are silent than when you speak. I would advise Seyi to hand over the microphone to the MC next time. He lacks the charisma and purpose to express himself, telling the truth about the true economic situation in Nigeria under his father’s government.”

The rapper said Tinubu might be the best father to his son but not to Nigerians. “He (Tinubu) has empowered Seyi as his son but Nigerian youths don’t have jobs talk less of food to eat. The Nigerian youths can’t travel by road so I ask Seyi Tinubu to travel by road without his security. Let him feel the pains of ordinary citizens,” he said.

Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has criticised the recent ban placed on Abdulkareem’s newly released song titled ‘Tell Your Papa’ directed at President Bola Tinubu’s son Seyi, calling for the reversal of the action.

The popular rapper known for his earlier song ‘Jaga Jaga’, which was critical of the then President, Olusegun Obasanjo, criticizes Tinubu for the worsening economy and hardship in the country in ‘Tell Your Papa’ which moved the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), to release a memo on Wednesday, banning the song from being aired on radio and television, citing its “objectionable nature.”

On Sunday in a statement, he issued from New York University, Abu Dhabi, Soyinka described the ban as a return to the culture of censorship and a threat to the right to free expression.

According to him, the action echoed past attempts to stifle artistic and socio-political commentary in Nigeria.

The Nobel Laureate noted that any government that is only tolerant for praise-singers and dancers to the official beat, has already commenced a downhill slide into the abyss.

“Courtesy of an artist operating in a different genre – the cartoon – who sent me his recent graphic comment on the event, I learnt recently of a return to the culture of censorship with the banning of the product of a music artist, Eedris Abdulkareem.

“My position is that such a progressive move by the government and its agencies does not go far enough. It is not only the allegedly offensive record that should be banned – the musician himself should be proscribed. Next, PMAN, or whatever musical association of which Abdulkareem is member, should also go under the hammer. Nor should we ignore the cartoonist, Ebun Aleshinloye, who not only etched out his trenchant response to the ban but disseminated it all the way to Abu Dhabi. Let’s simply go the whole hog!

“I have yet to listen to the record, but the principle is inflexibly etched on any democratic template. It cannot be flouted. That, surely is basic. This is why I feel that we should look on the bright side of any picture and thus recommend the Aleshinloye’ cartoon – and others in allied vein – as an easy to apprehend, easy to digest summation of the wisdom of attempting to stifle unpalatable works of art or socio-political commentary, The ban is a boost to the artist’s nest egg, thanks to free governmental promotion. Mr. Abdulkareem must be currently warbling his merry way all the way to the bank. I envy him.

​“We have been through this before, over and over again, ad nauseum. 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. It also creates a permissive atmosphere of trickle-down power where governors have been known to pursue social critics across state borders, kidnap and imprison them for long spells, using the judicial machinery of never-ending trials.

“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 accommodate 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.