Prof. Woke Soyinka (L) and Davido
Davido, Nigerian popular music act, was on Tuesday urged not to apologise over the controversial video he posted on his social media pages. Prof. Wole Soyinka, literary guru and Nobel Laureate, made this call in a statement he issued on Tuesday, maintaining that Davido did not owe Muslims an apology.
Davido had recently come under huge criticisms after sharing a clip of the music video of his sign-on, Logos Olori’s new single, ‘Jaye Lo’ which captures people praying and dancing in front of a mosque on Twitter.
The singer eventually succumbed to pressure, deleting the video but refused to apologise.
Despite taking down the video, some Muslims still demand a public apology from Davido.
A group of Muslim youths recently took to the streets of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, to demonstrate their displeasure with Davido, setting a large banner of the singer on fire.
However, in a statement released on Tuesday, Soyinka maintained
Insisting that the singer owed nobody apology for the video, the Nobel laureate said former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el Rufai, had made derogatory comments against Christians in the past but was never asked to apologise.
Said he: “There was nothing to apologise about, and that applied equally to al Rufai’s comments at the time. It should come as no surprise that I equally absolutely disagree with Shehu Sani if indeed, as reported, he has demanded an apology from Davido on behalf of the Moslem community”.
Soyinka added that it was not Davido’s music that lynched Deborah Yakubu, a second-year Christian college student who was killed by a mob of Muslim students in Sokoto last year over alleged blasphemy.
