Cannabis: Burna Boy indicts Buhari

Life is hard enough without snorting drugs. Hard drugs appear on the horizon like golden doors of escape, but they are actually traps. Hard drugs are the chains that cripple freedom, the stuff that separates spirit from soul, the rope that binds sense to nonsense.

Music is powerful. The "m" in music appeals to the spirit. The music healed King Saul and cursed the demons tormenting his soul, locking them in tranquility. Music broke down the walls of Jericho. Music is the food of love, it is the sound of joy that announces birth and the song of pain that ends it.

We live in a star-studded world of super-rich superstars who bask in superstardom, idolized by a fandom addicted to superhype, superhits, supercars and superficialities.

Now singers don't make music anymore; they are making noise. They've replaced rhythm with garbage, they've replaced reason with rage, the lyrics are now dripping with nothing but sex, drugs and alcohol and everyone in society - parents, guardians, government, clerics, schools , traditional chiefs, trade unions - dance to the decay of our present and the ruin of our future.

An uneducated Southwest monarch was seen in a viral video wrapping marijuana, but neither law enforcement nor the civil society community came out to condemn the act atrocious.

At the height of his fame, the most gifted and radical Nigerian musician of all time, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, never dedicated a song to Indian hemp, his stimulating hobby . Although his negative influence on the use of marijuana among musicians today cannot be empirically proven, many Nigerian musicians who smoke marijuana today regard Fela as a demigod.

But, largely because of the breath of common sense in society and the big stick wielded by regulatory bodies in the 1980s through the early 1990s, Murijuana musicians who wanted glorifying the igbo didn't do so overtly, they used euphemisms such as ganja, indo, kush, mary jane, choko for indian hemp to praise their love for the mind-blowing substance.

In 1984, when Major General Muhammadu Buhari's swaggering stick grip typified military speed, a young boy born in Port Harcourt would not have metamorphosed from Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu into Burna Boy, singing "I need igbo and shayo o'. Which studio recorded the offending song?

If Burna Boy had missed being tied to a stake and whipped naked in the open air by soldiers, he surely would not have missed serving time for his crime in Kirikiri. He would have been forbidden to hold a microphone in private or in public for 250 years!

From the late Majek Fashek, who commanded the misty sky to "Send Down the Rain", to Tuface Idibia, who professed the love of his African queen, to 9ice who prophesied this Gongo Aso , to the Danfo Drivers, Ice Prince, Olamide, Flavor, 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. Besides hip-hop, R&B, rap and reggae, musicians from other genres such as Fuji, Juju, Apala, Highlife, etc. also use a lot of marijuana.

It is true that marijuana is now used as a recreational drug in some parts of the world. This is not yet the case in Nigeria, and therefore, it remains a crime for people to use it, peddle it or promote it. The use of hard drugs, particularly Indian hemp, has been linked to the daredevil commonly displayed by kidnappers, murderers, bandits, etc. Across the country. It is also a major contributor to the increase in the number of psychiatric cases in the country.

Between 1985 - when he was ousted from power - and now, Buhari has passed from father to grandfather and great-grandfather, putting the burden of parenthood on him. 80s Buhari had a voice, and he spoke.

Today, what has changed? Who or what took Buhari's voice? Why has tough khaki-clad Father Buhari become a permissive agbada-wearing great-grandfather who watches his children and grandchildren all over the country taking hard drugs without a care? Why?

My mind tells me that the violation of values ​​over the past four decades is the answer. Even Buhari himself, the crusade's advocate for the war on lawlessness, found himself caught in the web of moral conflict when he shamelessly declared that his benefactor, the brainless bandit called General Sani Abacha, had never flown.

Buhari lied. A corrupt lie. He saw a thief with dark glasses and called him a white-robed saint. The ever-growing army of unemployed young Nigerians watches Buhari and the ruling All Progressives Congress party lie and fool around in luxury as the economic noose tightens. So, for young Nigerians, life is hell, escape is hemp.

Young people saw how two imprisoned ex-governors were pardoned...