was oblivious to the raging silent war between religion, music and sports. As he sang, a Pakistani fanatic dashed to the stage, snatched Ahmad’s Gibson Les Paul guitar from around his neck and smashed it into smithereens. Nothing happened. The fanatic could not understand Ahmad’s temerity to play rock music or music in general which Arabs potentates of the Islamic religion once referred to as “a prompting of the Devil” and an affront to Islam.
The same week, at the Brisbane Stadium in Australia, while Nigerians momentarily forgot the harrowing pain inflicted on them by their new rulers and were wrapped up in celebration of the country’s win in the women’s World Cup football event, the “prompting of the Devil” debate returned at full throttle.
It was apparently this attitude that Nigerian Netizens took to attacking the duo of Davido and Oshoala last week. Some said that since African values frown at nudity, Oshoala shouldn’t have pulled off her shirt. Did African progenitors, in setting the boundary of culture, reckon with playing football, especially a woman footballer who, seized by a spontaneous celebratory spirit, pulled off her shirt? This intolerance is rank intolerance.
From the pattern of coups in Africa, Tinubu and his African leadership can only huff and puff as there is little in form of remedy that can be offered Bazoum. Already, general acceptance of the coup is at a frightening and dizzying point. Youths in Niamey were shown on global television ransacking the headquarters of Bazoum’s PNDS party and setting fire to vehicles kept in it.