Yet truth always rises from the grave of forced silence. Truth will rise in spite of the stone of seared consciences rolled against it in any place. Truth will rise again in spite of the sentries planted by the Christian religious establishment in Nigeria to keep it interred. Let Femi Kuti rejoice, truth will rise again as He had said. Let Timi Dakolo hold fast, truth will overcome before the end.
Femi Anikulapo Kuti’s award winning 1998 album Shoki Shoki remains one of the most interesting collection of songs in his Afro-Jazz genre. While this album earned the fair complexioned heir of Fela a notable continental award for that year, here in Nigeria, one of its track, ‘beng beng beng’ was banned. Many grew curious. Why was this song unfit for our afro musical ears?
We all fully obeyed the censorial advice by not listening to the song on the Nigerian Television Authority and other public channels, but we equally exercised our intellectual rights as responsible patriots to engage the album’s rich artistic delivery and eclectic thematic range in our private studios. Now in 2019, with full knowledge of how the organised Christian conscience cancelled Timi Dakolo’s open truth, it’s so easy to understand why the phony prudes banned Femi’s song.
Femi sang about naked truth. He sang about a lady who he shared his bed with. He gave the lady a voice. He gave the lady a choice. Femi praised her alluring feminine physique, he expressed how he dutifully obeyed her intense orders. Femi sang about masculine desire and restraint; about a woman’s right to dictate who should love her and precisely how she should be loved. Femi was passive and his partner, like Shulamite, was active. That was Femi’s crime!
In that beautiful song that Femi clearly crafted for adult exchanges, he accorded that dignity to every woman which macho-centric cultures always lay waiting to rob her of. This same dignity of the fairer gender was it that Timi Dakolo defended vicariously, vigorously and victoriously on behalf of every girl child. Yet it is this feminine dignity that some crusaders for Jesus Christ in Nigeria are armed to degrade and destroy with all weapons of antisocial warfare.
Femi sang of the tragic death of Truth. He cried: “Truth don die O!” He mourned with those who had reposed all their honour and hopes in this world in the Truth. In this first track of the same album, he cried relentlessly: “Truth don die O!”, meaning that Truth has died!
Pastor Matthew, the tithe collector from England, came out to recklessly decree that this God-given honour in every girl child and grown woman should be defiled with ecclesiastical impunity by the pastor of KOSA in Abuja, because he was “called, committed, consecrated and covenanted by God” to rape and ruin the lives of Nigerian women.
Pastor Matthew preached from the Bible, the holiest book of Christians and admonished the sensible brothers of Jesus Christ gathered at KOSA from the book of Romans 8 verse 33, that anyone who is sexually abused by the KOSA pastor had no right to accuse him of the crime because he is the elect younger brother of God and eternal head of KOSA, Amen! Accuse him of his unconfessed sin and be damned in Hell! Amen! That is why they barred Femi’s song.
Femi sang of the tragic death of Truth. He cried: “Truth don die O!” He mourned with those who had reposed all their honour and hopes in this world in the Truth. In this first track of the same album, he cried relentlessly: “Truth don die O!”, meaning that Truth has died! Yet, when Femi’s sorrow fully melted into the music, it was not only because Truth had been killed. It was because Lie has now replaced Truth and reigns incumbent in the once hallowed courts of Truth. He sings on now, but his sighs get deeper, his breath comes harder and his words come faster:
Truth don die o…
Nah yesterday him talk
Him want to travel for the world
To teach him people him word
The true word of God
Make people stop to lie…
Na so the Molue jam am
Trailer mash am for head…
Nah so truth come die O
Him come clear road for lie
Nah lie lie full the world
Lie go dey jump from mouth
Like water rush from pump
The way people dey lie
Dem no dey fear dem God
The way people dey lie
Dem no dey fear dem Shrine
Dem just dey lie O…
Timi Dakolo has proven to be the genuine disciple of Christ through his fearless and faithful witnessing to the resurrected Truth. The Kingsway Storekeeper and his league of disturbed gospel traders know that the resurrected truths of their illicit sexual deals will throw them out of business.
Many Christian theologians and teachers may argue that Femi doesn’t know Jesus Christ as much as they do. But in this song, it’s hard to dispute Femi Anikulapo Kuti’s moment of epiphany. For every time Truth is tied and disgraced in the streets, Peter, His foremost apostle, begins to lie. When Truth is tried before human courts, Barabbas the criminal is spared and the innocent thrust with a judicial spear in the side. And when Truth finally dies and is hid from our eyes, the foremost priests in Jerusalem and Nigeria rejoice and reinforce the lie that Truth is gone forever.
Timi Dakolo has proven to be the genuine disciple of Christ through his fearless and faithful witnessing to the resurrected Truth. The Kingsway Storekeeper and his league of disturbed gospel traders know that the resurrected truths of their illicit sexual deals will throw them out of business. That is why they threaten anyone who dares to proclaim that the truth they tortured and killed is risen in greater glory. That is why they pay irresponsible graveside sentries and accursed public relations personnel to publish lies in newspapers and on social media.
Yet truth always rises from the grave of forced silence. Truth will rise in spite of the stone of seared consciences rolled against it in any place. Truth will rise again in spite of the sentries planted by the Christian religious establishment in Nigeria to keep it interred. Let Femi Kuti rejoice, truth will rise again as He had said. Let Timi Dakolo hold fast, truth will overcome before the end. Let Mother Mary rejoice, truth will rise in spite of the monies that have exchanged the hands of Jesus’ disciples to betray it. Let every heart that sighs rejoice, for Truth has risen. It has risen in spite of the honorariums being paid to a perverted Pulpit to deny it. Truth has risen in spite of a polluted Pew that has been swayed to reject it.
Oluseyi Olufemi writes from Abuja.
