The current administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is increasingly gaining notoriety for intolerance and human rights violations. On April 9, 2025, the government-owned National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), known for its knee-jerk clampdowns on government critics, issued a directive forbidding the broadcast of a song, \u201cTell Your Papa,\u201d recently released by afrobeat musician Eedris Abdulkareem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The NBC cited powers it claimed to derive from Section\n3.1.8 of the National Broadcasting Code, which supposedly gives it authority to\nissue bans on certain content. However, the section cited by NBC no longer\nexists, with the only similar provision now found under Section 3.0.2.7. This\nsection of the Code reads: \u201cA programme or musical content classified as\n\u2018Not To Be Broadcast\u2019 (NTBB) shall not be broadcast.\u201d<\/em> This appears,\nhowever, to be an arbitrary power\u2014inserted into the Code without any clear\nlegal backing or justification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the song, Eedris chronicles the current sufferings\nin the country and is heard telling the President\u2019s son, Seyi Tinubu, to tell\nhis father about the fast-deteriorating living conditions. The song highlights\ngalloping inflation, rising crime, and worsening insecurity. According to\nEedris, \u201ccountry hard.\u201d<\/em> He accuses the President of implementing\nanti-people policies, with food prices, data costs, and school fees escalating.\nEedris disputes Seyi\u2019s recent claim that his father is the best President\nNigeria has ever had. In his words: \u201cYour papa no be the best President.\u201d<\/em>\nThe song ends by advising Seyi to tell his father to take urgent remedial\naction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The government\u2019s response\u2014banning the song from\nbroadcast on radio and television stations nationwide\u2014further demonstrates the\nTinubu administration\u2019s increasing intolerance of criticism since assuming\npower merely two years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only recently, a National Youth Service Corps (NYSC)\nmember based in Lagos, Ushie Rita Uguamaye, was summoned by the NYSC for\nsanction over her social media posts lamenting the cost of living in the\ncountry. The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity,\nTemitope Ajayi, criticized Ushie\u2019s comments, likening them to a \u201ccapital\noffence\u201d<\/em> under NYSC regulations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Using the now-discredited Cybercrimes Act, the\ngovernment appears intent on silencing critical voices, rather than addressing\ncitizens\u2019 genuine concerns about governance. Protests against government\npolicies are frequently clamped down on. The planned peaceful protest by the\nTake It Back Movement in March was forcibly broken up in Port Harcourt, Abuja,\nand Lagos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Human rights advocates are increasingly alarmed by\nNigeria\u2019s descent into intolerance and authoritarianism under the civilian\nregime of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The current administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is increasingly gaining notoriety for intolerance and human rights violations. On April 9, 2025, the government-owned National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), known for its knee-jerk clampdowns on government critics, issued a directive forbidding the broadcast of a song, \u201cTell Your Papa,\u201d recently released by afrobeat musician Eedris Abdulkareem. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3796"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3801,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3796\/revisions\/3801"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}