The Living Perfect Master and founder of One Love Family, Satguru Maharaj Ji, has defended singer David Adeleke, popularly known as Davido, over a video he released on his social media handles, which appears to have disparaged the Muslim faith.
He said Davido did not need to apologise to the Muslims or anyone over the video.
The video, captioned ‘Jaiye Lo,’ which was released by Logos Olori, an artiste under Davido, showed some people dressed in white jalabiyas like Muslims, praying the way Muslims do before launching into dancing as they recited some Quranic verses and prayed.
Mats were spread for those praying behind an ‘Imam’ who used the popular single-prayer rug (sajadah). Those who were praying also read out what looked like Muslim recitations in Arabic language and prostrated the way Muslims do in prayer.
In the video, Logos Olori was seen sitting on the roof of a mosque-like building mounted with a horn public address system, thus, creating the complete impression of a mosque scenario.
Muslims faithful have attacked Davido for displaying such video on his Twitter handle and threatened action.
But Maharaj Ji, in a statement through the One Love Family Minister for Information, Ojo Mogbadewa, said “There are, however, certain principles, histories, rights and responsibilities of artistic creativity that should not be smothered under emotional manipulation.
He referred to the notorious case of ISESE in Ilorin, saying there are others, hundreds of others, far too weighty to evoke in relation to this mere piffle of religious sentimentality.
The Living Perfect Master stated: “The following should not be needed, but we appear to inhabit a nation space where memory deficiency has become an accreditation badge of competence in national affairs.
“No apology is required, None should be offered. Let us stop battening down our heads in the mush of contrived contrition – we know where contrition, apology and restitution remain clamorous in the cause of closure and above all – justice. Such apologies have not been forthcoming. In their place, we have the ascendancy of petulant censorship in the dance and music department. Just where will it end?”
Maharaj Ji added that most forms of worship – from the Hare Krishna to Hinduism and lesser-known religions – sought transcendental experience through the medium of dance.
“It goes beyond mere elation or euphoria and involves surrender of the ego to the mystical and sublime – through dance. The secularization of that medium stretches across religions, and offers the artistes’ a means of invoking a sense of spiritual community, through a common act of self-surrender.
“I insist on the right of the artiste to deploy dance in a religious setting as a fundamental given. Such deployment is universal heritage, most especially applicable in the case of Islam where a plot of land, even without the physical structure, can be turned, in the twinkling of an eye, into a sacral space for believers to gather and worship in between mundane pursuits,” he said.
According to Him, dancing in front of a mosque could not therefore, on its own, be read as an act of provocation or offence but as affirmation of the unified sensibility of the spiritual in human.
“Let us learn to read it that way. Those who persist in taking offence to bed and serving it up as breakfast should exercise their right of boycotting Davido’s products – no one quarrels with that right. However, it is not a cause for negative and incitive excitation.
“The greater responsibility is to face squarely the root issues of religion in the nation. That root issue is starkly stated thus: the sectarian appropriation of the power of life and death across a community of believers, other believers, and even non-believers alike, be it for real, imagined, or deliberately contrived offence.
“It was not Davido’s music that lynched Deborah Yakubu, and continues to frustrate the cause of justice. Nor has it contributed to the arbitrary detention of religious dissenters – call them atheists or whatever – such as Mubarak Bala, now languishing in prison for his 38th month. These are the provocations where every citizen should exercise the capacity for revulsion.
“They are the issues deserving of, indeed exercise primary claim on a nation’s capacity for righteous indignation. All else is secondary. Distractive piffle,” he stated.
“In Nigeria, so many people have been killed by fanatics on the pretext of fighting for God. Gideon Akaluka was beheaded in Kano in 1995 by a group of nine Wahabists. A man who eventually rose to the zenith of Nigerian banking was even alleged to be part of the conspiracy.
In May 2022, Deborah Yakubu, a Home Economics sophomore at the Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto, was gruesomely murdered for having “blasphemed” against Islam and Prophet Muhammed through a voice note on a WhatsApp group she left in response to another student’s post on Islam. She was forcibly pulled out of a room and her student colleagues repeatedly bayoneted her with stones and clubs. They then set her lifeless body on fire as they shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is great). Till today, Nigerian government’s connivance in this horror is manifest in that, no one has since been brought to book.
“There is no difference between the intolerance of those who killed Deborah, those who beheaded Akaluka, the ones calling for Davido’s head over the song of his protege, Logos Olori, and those heaping invectives on Oshoala.
“They are all united in pristine ignorance and Stone Age sheepish abidance to religious exegeses. One of such was a fellow called Bashir Ahmed, an aide to ex-President Muhammad Buhari who labeled the video “hurtful” and “disrespectful.” To who? Must he watch the video? Why not concentrate on listening to the usual Quranic recitation rhymes and leave those who wanted to enjoy Logos Olori’s songs to bother about it? Why should it bother me that someone is tearing the Bible? Those religious texts are not in any way different from Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Says Zarathustra. They only assume greater importance in the way we deploy them for the betterment of our lives. The problem is tyranny of the mind, a war that the two religions – Christianity and Islam – inflict on the other person. Why not be content with what you believe in and go to heaven and give others the freedom to go to hell if they so wish? Why play God?
“Wherever Davido is, he should know that Maharaj Ji is with him. What sin might he have committed that they are now threatening his associates? He is a God choosen person. One of his associates died about five years ago and another one died two years ago.
“He should be rest assured that Maharaj Ji is with him. He should go about his daily affairs. Maharaj Ji will always take care.
“He has become a star; an icon and a philanthropy who is taking care of the down throden. All those people threatening him should be careful. They should leave him alone. If they need anything from him, they should tell him.
“The cap is often fixed on the head that is fitted to wear it. Hence, I rejoice with Davido as worthy to wear the crown bestowed on you at this time of your carrier.
“Wearing a crown that is not beaded opens one to attack from the enemy because the beads act as armour protecting the head carrying the crown along the crown bearer.
“To this end, I employ him to draw closer to SATGURU to wear you the bead on your cap for full and absolute protection against all and any form of spiritual and physical attacks. SATGURU’s bead is “DIVINE KNOWLEDGE’ power for the ‘LIGHT’ that never fails. It enables you ascertain yesterday, access today and determine tomorrow without hindrance or doubt of any kind and progress of your activities is guaranteed hundred percent only with little love from you and no financial obligations.
“You stand the chance to beat others where they fail and excel to greater heights. To this end, the light becomes bright and shine brighter when you extend your areas of philanthropy by donating a place that can accommodate eight to ten Premies of Satguru Maharaj Ji to tap daily on the Light so that anywhere you go, you become number one because you’re the Light bearer with SATGURU as your engine room propelling you to greater heights always, as wished by the Creator.
“As you prepare your heart towards receiving this great gift of life, endeavour not to look at what people may say about your resolve to breakthrough where they fail as such is one of the draw back man has faced over the years to make it in life.
“This is the experience that made OBJ, Yar’Adua, Goodluck Jonathan, George Weah, Barak Obama presidents and Chimaroke Nnamani, Alao Akala, Kolapo Isola, Seriake Dickson, Michael Otedola, Olusegun Osoba, Raji Fashola and your Uncle become Governors.
“It is in colonized Africa that Satguru Maharaj Ji has been kept away or replaced with cults and societies with financial inducements to make the participants feel a false sense of belonging not knowing that their minds are being conditioned and manipulated to become passengers in life otherwise Michael Jackson, the man who became the leading banker in Africa who just established a university plus posh home costing 82billion Naira died on the way to watch the superball.
There are countless others like TB Joshua “the touch and fall” overseer who paid with his life for deceiving people about the ominipotent God that you cannot see while took the stage to make believe that heaven is up there. What of Sammie Okposo, the gospel singer?
“In America, China, Japan top men do go to temples. They say plenty meat does not spoil soup and as a result he should not be afraid. He should do this in a new house or in a house where there’s nothing like marital affairs.
“I had a press conference here in Maharaj Ji Village when he lost his son and I said Am giving him a twins, which came to pass.
“This is not the time to start threatening him. They should know how to forgive. The world is an illusion when you don’t love but when you love it becomes a reality.
“Maharaj Ji love him and cares for him. Always have it in mind that Am with you. No evil will befall you.
