Amid the raging calls from the Muslim community for Nigerian singer Davido to apologise over an alleged offensive video clip he shared on his social media pages last Friday, Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka says that “no apology is required, none should be offered.”
Soyinka drummed support for Davido in a letter titled “The Davido Video” released on Tuesday.
Although he admitted that he is yet to watch the video, Soyinka dismissed the notion that dancing in front of a mosque is a provocative act.
“Most forms of worship – from the Hare Krishna to Hinduism and lesser-known religions – seek transcendental experience through the medium of dance,” the Nobel laureate wrote.
“It goes beyond mere elation or euphoria and involves a surrender of the ego to the mystical and sublime – through dance. The secularisation 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 a 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 humans. Let us learn to read it that way.”
He pointed out that “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,” he added.
Soyinka urged those offended by the music video to boycott Davido’s products peacefully, rather than resorting to negativity and incitement.
Meanwhile, though Davido is yet to apologise for sharing the video despite the heavy backlash, his logistics manager, Isreal Afeare has tendered an apology on behalf of the singer.
Afaere apologised via an Instagram post on Tuesday but deleted the post after a while.
” Let me especially apologise to my Muslim brothers and sisters, on the video my oga posted, as a result of him wanting to lift up somebody, which is one of his hubbies (sic). It was purely an entertainment effort wrongly presented. Make una no vex. Love you all,” the now-deleted Instagram post read.
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