Martins Owoseni

The Facebook account of one Dauda Kahutu Rarara, a popular Nigeria’s ruling party, APC’s praise singer, has been deleted due to mass reporting by his followers after he posted a song praising President Bola Tinubu.

The musician’s official Facebook account, Dauda Kahutu Rarara, with over one million followers, could not be found after Facebook deleted it on Saturday.

Amid the economic hardship and wide spread hunger in the country, Rarara uploaded a song praising President Tinubu “for making Nigeria great” and saving northerners from “hunger and insecurity.”

“Tinubu has made Nigeria great. Northerners have said goodbye to hunger, insecurity and poverty,” he said in the song.

Rarara’s mother was recently kidnapped by armed bandits in Katsina State last month. She was later freed after some days in the kidnappers’ den.

Nigeria is facing its worst economic crisis in decades, with skyrocketing inflation, a national currency in free-fall and millions of people struggling to buy food. Only two years ago Africa’s biggest economy, Nigeria is projected to drop to fourth place this year.

The pain is widespread. Unions strike to protest salaries of around $20 a month. People die in stampedes, desperate for free sacks of rice. Hospitals are overrun with women wracked by spasms from calcium deficiencies.

The crisis is largely believed to be rooted in two major changes implemented by a president elected 14 months ago: the partial removal of fuel subsidies and the floating of the currency, which together have caused major price rises.

A nation of entrepreneurs, Nigeria’s more than 200 million citizens are skilled at managing in tough circumstances, without the services states usually provide. They generate their own electricity and source their own water. They take up arms and defend their communities when the armed forces cannot. They negotiate with armed kidnappers when family members are abducted.

But right now, their resourcefulness is being stretched to the limit.

Some folks are planning protests to voice their concerns about the economic situation, including rising inflation and poverty, under President Bola Tinubu’s administration.

Rarara’s song comes in the wake of the planned nationwide protests to begin August 1. 

The protests are expected to happen in the north and other parts of the country, but residents and leaders of the south-eastern region, inhabited by the Igbo ethnic group – have made it clear that they are not going to be part of the mass action.

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