• Home
  • Featured
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Education
  • Crime
  • More
    • Celebration
    • Interviews
    • Health
    • Investigations
    • Metro
    • The Parliament
    • Opinion
    • TGN Award Night
    • Religion
    • Security
    • Sports
    • Technology
    • World

Subscribe to Updates

Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

What's Hot

At Ekiti Rally, Tinubu Says Opposition Elements Want To Create Political Crisis With Fuel, New Naira Notes Scarcity 

February 3, 2023

My Daughters Can Stand Shoulder-to-shoulder With Any Man — Olori Sekinat Elegushi

February 3, 2023

New Naira Notes: ICPC Arrests Stanbic Bank Top Official For Refusing To Load Cash Into ATM Machines; FCMB Manager In Osogbo Nabbed 

February 3, 2023
Facebook Twitter Instagram
Trending
  • At Ekiti Rally, Tinubu Says Opposition Elements Want To Create Political Crisis With Fuel, New Naira Notes Scarcity 
  • My Daughters Can Stand Shoulder-to-shoulder With Any Man — Olori Sekinat Elegushi
  • New Naira Notes: ICPC Arrests Stanbic Bank Top Official For Refusing To Load Cash Into ATM Machines; FCMB Manager In Osogbo Nabbed 
  • MPAC, Al-Mu’minaat Demand Prosecution Of the rapist
  • ICPC Secures Conviction of Company Director, Firm over N13m Contract Fraud
  • Tinubu Shuts Down Ekiti, Says Nothing Can Stop APC Victory; Describes Presidential Poll Opportunity For Better Future For Nigerians
  • Buhari To Nigerians: Give Me 7 Days To Resolve New Naira Notes Crisis 
  • Hunger, Anger, Devil Made Me Killed My Wife, Says Man Who Poured Petrol On His Wife, Set Her Ablaze 
Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube
The Gazelle NewsThe Gazelle News
  • Home
  • Featured
  • News
    Featured

    At Ekiti Rally, Tinubu Says Opposition Elements Want To Create Political Crisis With Fuel, New Naira Notes Scarcity 

    By Soffiyyah OlamideFebruary 3, 20230
    Recent

    At Ekiti Rally, Tinubu Says Opposition Elements Want To Create Political Crisis With Fuel, New Naira Notes Scarcity 

    February 3, 2023

    My Daughters Can Stand Shoulder-to-shoulder With Any Man — Olori Sekinat Elegushi

    February 3, 2023

    New Naira Notes: ICPC Arrests Stanbic Bank Top Official For Refusing To Load Cash Into ATM Machines; FCMB Manager In Osogbo Nabbed 

    February 3, 2023
  • Politics
    Featured

    At Ekiti Rally, Tinubu Says Opposition Elements Want To Create Political Crisis With Fuel, New Naira Notes Scarcity 

    By Soffiyyah OlamideFebruary 3, 20230
    Recent

    At Ekiti Rally, Tinubu Says Opposition Elements Want To Create Political Crisis With Fuel, New Naira Notes Scarcity 

    February 3, 2023

    Tinubu Shuts Down Ekiti, Says Nothing Can Stop APC Victory; Describes Presidential Poll Opportunity For Better Future For Nigerians

    February 3, 2023

    Naira Note Swap/Fuel Crisis: Atiku Derives Joy In Suffering Of Nigerians, He’s Now Public Enemy Number One – APC PCC; Full Statement Here 

    February 3, 2023
  • Business
    Featured

    Policy Advocacy Platform Tasks Nigerian Govt On Recovery Of Gold Assets In Mining Sector 

    By Olamide ObayemiFebruary 1, 20230
    Recent

    Policy Advocacy Platform Tasks Nigerian Govt On Recovery Of Gold Assets In Mining Sector 

    February 1, 2023

    KACRAN Asks For Emefiele Sack, Extension of Withdrawal of Old Note Till December 2023

    January 24, 2023

    LIRS Reaffirms January 31 Deadline For Filing Of Annual Tax Returns By Employers of Labour

    January 22, 2023
  • Entertainment
    Featured

    Leaked Sex Tape: Court Awards N5m Damages Against Singer Oxlade; Says His Action Is Despicable, Horrendous, Distasteful, Classless

    By The Gazelle NewsFebruary 3, 20230
    Recent

    Leaked Sex Tape: Court Awards N5m Damages Against Singer Oxlade; Says His Action Is Despicable, Horrendous, Distasteful, Classless

    February 3, 2023

    ArtsForChange Talent Competition’s Winner Emerges

    January 30, 2023

    Kwara Gov Has Vision, We’ll Partner With His Govt – French Ambassador 

    January 25, 2023
  • Education
    Featured

    NHRC To Hold Gubernatorial Town Hall On Human Rights In 18 States

    By Olamide ObayemiFebruary 1, 20230
    Recent

    NHRC To Hold Gubernatorial Town Hall On Human Rights In 18 States

    February 1, 2023

    Zulum Unveils Chibok Water Project; Opens Schools In Damboa, Askira 

    February 1, 2023

    Zulum Sends 19 Orphaned-youths To Egypt To Study Medicine

    February 1, 2023
  • Crime
    Featured

    MPAC, Al-Mu’minaat Demand Prosecution Of the rapist

    By Soffiyyah OlamideFebruary 3, 20230
    Recent

    MPAC, Al-Mu’minaat Demand Prosecution Of the rapist

    February 3, 2023

    ICPC Secures Conviction of Company Director, Firm over N13m Contract Fraud

    February 3, 2023

    Hunger, Anger, Devil Made Me Killed My Wife, Says Man Who Poured Petrol On His Wife, Set Her Ablaze 

    February 3, 2023
  • More
    • Celebration
    • Interviews
    • Health
    • Investigations
    • Metro
    • The Parliament
    • Opinion
    • TGN Award Night
    • Religion
    • Security
    • Sports
    • Technology
    • World
The Gazelle NewsThe Gazelle News
Home»Agriculture»Tunde Odesola on Monday: Marijuana: Burna Boy Indicts Buhari
Agriculture

Tunde Odesola on Monday: Marijuana: Burna Boy Indicts Buhari

Olamide ObayemiBy Olamide ObayemiJanuary 9, 2023Updated:January 9, 2023No Comments7 Mins Read
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

(Published in The PUNCH, on Monday, January 9, 2023)

Life is hard enough without sniffing drugs. Hard drugs appear in the horizon like golden gates of escape, but they’re traps in reality. Hard drugs are the chains that cripple freedom, the substance that splits the mind from the soul, the cord that ties sense with nonsense.

Powerful is music. The ‘m’ in music appeals to the mind. Music cured King Saul and cursed the devils tormenting his soul, caging them into tranquillity. Music pulled down the Walls of Jericho. Music is the food of love, it is the sound of joy that heralds birth and the song of sorrow that ends it.

We live in a star-struck world of superrich superstars luxuriating in superstardom, idolised by a fandom hooked on superhype, superhits, supercars and superficialities.

Now, singers don’t make music any more; they make noise. They have replaced rhythm with rubbish, they have replaced reason with rage, lyrics now drip only with sex, drugs plus alcohol and everyone in society – parents, guardians, government, clerics, schools, traditional rulers, unions – dances to the decay of our present and the doom of our future.

An uneducated monarch in the South-West was seen in a viral video wrapping marijuana, yet neither law enforcement agencies nor the civil society community has come out to condemn the atrocious act.  

At the height of his glory, the most gifted and most radical Nigerian musician ever, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, never dedicated a song to Indian hemp, his stimulant pastime. Though his negative influence in the use of marijuana among musicians today cannot be proven empirically, many Nigerian musicians who smoke marijuana today see Fela as a demigod.

But, largely owing to the breath of sanity in the society and the big stick wielded by regulatory bodies in the 1980s through the early 1990s, murijuana musicians who wished to glorify igbo didn’t do so openly, they used euphemisms such as ganja, Indo, kush, Mary Jane, choko for Indian hemp to eulogise their love for the hallucinatory substance.

In 1984 when the sway of Major General Muhammadu Buhari’s swagger stick typified military swiftness, a Port Harcourt-born young lad wouldn’t have have metamorphosed from Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu into Burna Boy, singing ‘I need igbo and shayo o’. Which studio would have recorded the offensive song?

If Burna Boy missed being tied to a stake and flogged naked in the open by soldiers, he surely wouldn’t have missed doing the time for his crime at Kirikiri. He would have been banned from holding a mic in private or in public for 250 years!

From the late Majek Fashek, who ordered the misty sky to ‘Send Down the Rain’, to Tuface Idibia, who professed love to his African Queen, to 9ice who prophesied that Gongo Aso, to Danfo Drivers, Ice Prince, Olamide, Flavour, Wizkid, Davido, Naira Marley, Seun Kuti, Terry G, Eedrees Abdulkareem, Portable and a host of others, the use of hemp and, or its glorification, is commonplace among Nigerian musicians. Aside from Hip-Hop, R&B, Rap and Reggae, musicians of other genres like Fuji, Juju, Apala, Highlife etc are well into marijuana use, also.

It’s true that marijuana is now being used as a recreational drug in some parts of the world. It’s not yet so in Nigeria, and so, it remains a crime for people to use, peddle or promote it. The use of hard drugs, especially Indian hemp, has been linked to the daredevilry commonly displayed by kidnappers, murderers, bandits etc across the country. It is also a major contributor to the rise in the number of psychiatric cases in the country.

Between 1985 – when he was ousted from power – and now, Buhari has morphed from being a father to a grandfather and a great grandfather, making the weight of parenthood on him heavier. Buhari of the 80s had a voice, and he spoke.

Today, what has changed? Who or what has taken Buhari’s voice? Why has the tough khaki-wearing father Buhari grown into a permissive agbada-wearing great grandfather that watches his children and grandchildren nationwide take hard drugs without showing concern? Why?

My mind tells me the violation of values in about the last four decades is the answer. Even Buhari himself, the advocate of the War Against Indiscipline crusade, got caught in the web of moral conflict when he declared without shame that his benefactor, the Brainless Bandit called General Sani Abacha, never stole.

Buhari lied. A corrupt lie. He saw a thief in dark goggles and called him a saint in white robes. The ever-increasing army of unemployed Nigerian youths watch Buhari and the ruling All Progressives Congress lie and make merry in luxury while the economic noose gets tighter. So, to Nigerian youths, life is hell, escape is hemp. 

The youths watched how two jailed ex-governors were pardoned, they heard Aisha Buhari blow the alarm over Aso Rock Clinic fraud, they saw Buhari’s asset declaration promise crumble; they witnessed the Lekki Tollgate killings, they watched their age mates, the children of the members of the political elite, control billions and fly in private jets. To Nigerian youths, life is hell, hemp is paradise.

While the Buhari-led All Progressives Congress government busied itself flexing muscles and banning millions of Nigerians from legitimate use of Twitter, with the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, shouting himself hoarse over the ban, virtually all agencies of government agencies that perform oversight functions on drug abuse have gone into slumber, including minister Mohammed, who has been snoring the loudest. 

Sadly, the Ministry of Information and Culture, National Broadcasting Commission, National Film and Video Censors Board, National Orientation Agency etc have kept mum over the glorification of hard drugs by Nigerian music artists. A High Court judge, who wishes to be anonymous, says ‘any of these agencies can drag erring musicians/producers to court for glorifying hard drugs’. Sadly, none has ever done so. 

Retired Brigadier General Buba Marwa is doing a good job at the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency but the agency needs to regularly raid nightclubs – the haven of open drug abuse. The agency also needs to tell Nigerians the outcome of its investigation of Obinna Iyiegbu aka Obi Cubana who was alleged to have received payments from convicted drug peddlers.

While Aisha Buhari expended her presidential energy on an obscure blogger, do not judge her if her NGO, Aisha Buhari Foundation, is unperturbed about the rain of drugs swarming the nation like a hail of locusts because drug abuse isn’t part of her mandate in the kitchen where Buhari put her. But politics is.

When I was growing up, to be called a marijuana smoker was an invitation for family war. A parent will fight tooth and nail to ensure that the dignity of his/her child wrongly called a hemp smoker is restored. This is no longer the case as parents now form ‘Association of Yahoo Parents’ to shield, do juju, and pray for the Yahoo success of their children. Parents now buy igbo for their children.

Morning shows the day. Today, we are seeing the manifestations of what to expect from our cocaine, heroin, loud, Arizona, lean, codeine, Tramadol, Gentamicin etc consuming leaders of tomorrow.

Over the years, Burna Boy glorifies marijuana, and he sings in his recent album, “I need igbo and shayo (shayo), I need igbo and shayo (shayo), I need igbo and shayo (shayo), Shayo (shayo) shayo (shayo)…” And he was rewarded with a national award of Member of the Order of the Federal Republic by President Buhari, barely two months ago.

Nigerian parents, teachers, pressure groups, pastors, imams, babalawos, atheists etc were at the national award ceremony in Abuja where Buhari dignified Burna Boy with his igbo songs, and everyone clapped.

We have failed to snatch our youths from the jaws of hard drugs. We failed to teach our children that the ‘D’ in ‘Drugs’ is ‘Death’. The monster of hard drugs that we bred is mature, it is devouring us one by one.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @tunde odesola

Twitter:  @tunde_odesola

Related

Burna Boy hard drugs late Fela Anikulapo Kuti marijuana Muhammad Buhari music Tunde Odesola
Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit Tumblr Email
Olamide Obayemi

Related Posts

At Ekiti Rally, Tinubu Says Opposition Elements Want To Create Political Crisis With Fuel, New Naira Notes Scarcity 

February 3, 2023

My Daughters Can Stand Shoulder-to-shoulder With Any Man — Olori Sekinat Elegushi

February 3, 2023

New Naira Notes: ICPC Arrests Stanbic Bank Top Official For Refusing To Load Cash Into ATM Machines; FCMB Manager In Osogbo Nabbed 

February 3, 2023
Don't Miss

At Ekiti Rally, Tinubu Says Opposition Elements Want To Create Political Crisis With Fuel, New Naira Notes Scarcity 

By Soffiyyah OlamideFebruary 3, 20230

All Progressives Congress Presidential Candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, said the fifth columnists behind the…

My Daughters Can Stand Shoulder-to-shoulder With Any Man — Olori Sekinat Elegushi

February 3, 2023

New Naira Notes: ICPC Arrests Stanbic Bank Top Official For Refusing To Load Cash Into ATM Machines; FCMB Manager In Osogbo Nabbed 

February 3, 2023

MPAC, Al-Mu’minaat Demand Prosecution Of the rapist

February 3, 2023
Stay In Touch
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • Vimeo

Subscribe to Updates

Get the latest creative news from SmartMag about art & design.

Most Viewed Posts
  • APO Press Releases
  • How Olori Ajoke Found A New Life Outside Oyo Kingdom
  • Wig-wearing Women to pay Tax
  • Exclusive: Drama At GAC Meeting As ex-Dep Gov, Senator, Others Tackle Speaker Over Alleged Attempt To Impose LG Chairmanship Candidates 
  • After DNA Tests Proved All Three Children Were Not His, ex-Aston Villa Striker Regains Possession Of 7-bedroom Mansion From ex-Wife
About Us
About Us

Your source for the lifestyle news. This demo is crafted specifically to exhibit the use of the theme as a lifestyle site. Visit our main page for more demos.

We're accepting new partnerships right now.

Email Us: tgnews2013@gmail.com
Contact: +234-802-304-5855

Most Viewed Posts
  • APO Press Releases Views: 50085 August 27, 2020
  • How Olori Ajoke Found A New Life Outside Oyo Kingdom Views: 42212 November 5, 2020
  • Wig-wearing Women to pay Tax Views: 37017 September 5, 2020
  • Exclusive: Drama At GAC Meeting As ex-Dep Gov, Senator, Others Tackle Speaker Over Alleged Attempt To Impose LG Chairmanship Candidates  Views: 28716 May 25, 2021
Search
New Comments
    Facebook Twitter Instagram Pinterest
    • Home
    © 2023 The Gazelle News. Designed by DeedsTech.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

    Please wait...

    Subscribe to our newsletter

    Want to be notified when our article is published? Enter your email address and name below to be the first to know.
    SIGN UP FOR NEWSLETTER NOW
     

    Loading Comments...
     

    You must be logged in to post a comment.