Merriam Webster defines censorship as the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or ‘inconvenient.’
Censorship of Nigerian music by the NBC on Nigerian radio
Around 6:00 am on Wednesday, November 11, 2021, a Nigerian radio station was slamming early morning jams when Joeboy’s hit single, ‘Sip (Alcohol)’ came into rotation.
The song’s hook starts thus, “I sip my alcohol, I don’t wanna reason bad thing no more…”
For whatever reason, ‘Alcohol’ was censored on the song. As if that wasn’t bad enough, another song came on after ‘Alcohol.’ A part of the record had the Nigerian colloquialism, “Bad belle” in its hook. But for some reason, “bad” was censored.
According to reliable sources, Joeboy already changed the title of ‘Alcohol’ to ‘Sip (Alcohol),’ because he was mindful of irking NBC’s stricts rules by risking a ban.
This continues a befuddling sprawl of censorship by Nigeria’s top media watchdog, the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission [NBC].
The NBC, as established by Decree 38 of 1992, later amended as an act of the National Assembly by Act 55 of 1999 and now known as National Broadcasting Commission Act of the Federation 2004, CAP N11.
By virtue of Section 2 (1) (a) parts (d), (h) and especially (i). Sub-section (i) provides that part of NBC’s power is, “promoting Nigerian indigenous cultures, moral and community life through broadcasting.”
A key part of that section is NBC’s power to promote “morals.”
As part of that mandate, it regulates patterns of acceptable language on radio and television. Thus, certain music videos that’s perceived to be immoral will never play on channels like MTV or Trace.
In the same vein, artists and labels have to submit censored versions of songs, which bleep out ‘sensitive’ parts, and sound like the clean version of a Lil Wayne rap song. Some songs also get implicitly or explicitly banned.
Over the past two years alone, Naira Marley’s songs like ‘Soapy’ and ‘Coming’ were scarce on Nigerian radio. Even without explicit instructions from the NBC, Nigerian radio stations continue to comply with NBC’s strict codes of conduct by refraining from playing songs like ‘Coming.’
The worst part: some of these stations also request that artists ‘re-censor’ some parts of their popular songs, because radio needs to play popular songs to maintain or boost ratings - depending on the time belt.
“Censorship of certain words depends on the time belt. The idea is that radio gets consumed by everybody, and children need to be protected from certain words,” says a veteran broadcaster. “In the nighttime, when it’s assumed that children are asleep. Words like alcohol and bad can be uncensored, depending on the radio station.”
But the problem is: what are we protecting them from exactly? Words like ‘alcohol’ and ‘bad’ are just words, they are not inherently wrong.
While words like ‘fuck’ or ‘shit’ are profane, words like ‘bastard’ are insulting, maybe not inherently profane. As much as abusive words can be derogatory, they can also be a large part of overall articulation of topics in music. Moreover, words like ‘alcohol’ or ‘bad’ are not profane.
They are just words that the Nigerian society associates with ‘immorality,’ especially when the connotation with which they are used. It’s what this writer calls, “Nigerian morality.”
Nigerian morality as a precursor to morals
Over the past few years, NBC’s censorship of Nigerian songs has become a sad result of an extreme pursuit of or adherence to the Nigerian standards of morality, which in itself is an incidence of wanton hypocrisy.
We live in a country where certain corrupt politicians, who are also unfaithful partners, pump their chests as bastions of values in public and the national assembly, to bemoan immorality amongst the youth.
Especially in the public eye, ‘Nigerian morality’ is a particular system of values and acceptance conduct, as predicated upon conservative, classic and sometimes primitive customs associated with acceptable behaviour for a Nigerian.
As much as Nigeria is decentralized by tribe, respect and ‘values’ are a core part of our culture. Topics like sex, alcohol consumption, partying, debauchery, hedonism are largely outlawed by Nigeria’s unwritten customs, regardless of tribe.
These classic standards of morality aim to keep people rooted in a life with little distractions, which can distract from society’s acceptable patterns of ‘enjoyment,’ which come by way of marriage or advancement in age. Even when you’re married or advanced in age, society still treats these concepts like Voldermort - they must not be named.
These standards are also rooted in protectionism of younger people, which is meant to nurture them and ‘steer’ them onto the ‘right path.’
Equally, it doesn’t help that these standards share core values with standards of acceptable religious behaviour: especially Christianity and Islam.
In the modern world, these customs have since snowballed into what does and what doesn’t constitute acceptable behaviour. They are still geared towards protectionism and ‘proper’ grooming of children and young people.
Since radio is one of Nigeria’s biggest media for information dissemination, and radio content can be consumed by any Nigerian of any age, profession, tribe or class, information is now regulated by standards of Nigerian morality. Which is geared towards protectionism and appropriate grooming of young people.
That’s why Nigerian artists use euphemisms like ‘banana’ or ‘cassava’ to replace ‘penis’ or ‘dick,’ and Nigerian radio censors those words. NBC/Radio judges the intent behind the use of those words, not those words in their ordinary state. Those words connote sex, and therein lies the problem.
The idea is to still project things like sex, alcohol consumption, partying, debauchery and hedonsim as inherently wrong or immoral. The idea is to outlaw them and steer young people onto the ‘right path’ of abstinence and chastity in a decadent society, where themes like sex, alcohol consumption, partying, debauchery, hedonism are becoming more commonplace and/or normalized.
The idea is that only bad children participate in sex, alcohol consumption, partying, debauchery and all-round hedonism.
Nigerian music promotes and normalizes things sex, alcohol consumption, partying, debauchery and all-round hedonism. Hence the concept of censorship of Nigerian songs on Nigerian radio stations. To the average Nigerian - especially baby boomers and Gen Xers, who control the affairs of the country, they are ‘immoral.’
Nigerian morality is why American radio plays a clean version of Cardi B’s ‘WAP,’ depending on the time belt, while Nigerian radio scarcely plays a censored version of Naira Marley’s ‘Soapy.’
The conflict with post-modernism
The world has since gone through different phases of evolution since the 1800s. In the 60s and then the 80s, the roots of Nigerian customs and acceptable behaviour were incredibly grilled and shaken by the importation of modern American culture through music, television and all-round pop culture.
Before even when Nigerian communities were supposedly driven by high doses of ‘Nigerian morality,’ young people were challenging the norm. They were having sex, partying and following their hedonistic inclinations.
While ‘morality’ is still firmly implanted into Nigerian culture, there is a continued departure from that truth in this post-modern world. Young people are more driven by questions and freewill. They also want to live according to the dictates of their conscience, not by societal standards of morality or acceptable behaviour.
Thus ‘avant-garde’ realities like liberal looks of androgyny, dreaded hair, revealing outfits and more are co-existing with a will to experiment with sex, question religion and morality and more.
These ideas then project the censorship of words like ‘alcohol,’ ‘bad,’ ‘cassava,’ ‘banana,’ and ‘idiot’ in Nigerian music, by the NBC on Nigerian radio as utterly ridiculous, hypocritical, insincere and unrealistic.
It feels like the makers of Nigerian laws are autocratic Gen Xers, who want to bury their heads in sand, and be intentionally obtuse to the constantly evolving standard of living amongst young Nigerians.
Gone are the days when even profane words like ‘fuck’ were heavy amongst young Nigerians.
By the time an average Nigerian child is 13, he is cursing in English and Yoruba. As much as ‘Nigerian daddies’ at NBC have a different perception of morality, and aim to steer young people onto ‘the right path,’ they are wasting their time.
Cursing does not make a young person bad. All of these things are a social construct. Moreover, words like ‘alcohol’ are just a description. What’s the difference between calling Johnny Walker a drink instead of alcohol? The answer is social conditioning. They literally mean the same thing.
Extreme words like ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ are still sensitive by cultural connotation and they can be censored till further notice, but censorship of random nouns like ‘alcohol,’ ‘bad’ or even ‘penis’ - in its ordinary state’ is utterly ridiculous. We all say these words. Our children will say these words.
If we want to push the envelope even further, censorship of words like ‘fuck’ achieves nothing in the real world. Either you censor these words or not, your children and mine will speak all the profanity in the world.
We then need to ask ourselves: What does censorship really achieve?
The answer is nothing. Censorship has become that normalized cultural staple, rooted in primitive conservatism, that the world has outgrown, but nobody dares to question.
If you don’t play these records, internet radio will play them.
Instead of its baseless fight with censorship, the NBC should focus on monetization of content and other profitable matters for Nigerian artists, not censorship of harmless music. Instead, it also wants to put Nigerian social media users in a chokehold of morality.
There are more potentially harmful things in the Nigerian society than words like ‘alcohol’ and ‘bad,’ or even euphemism like ‘banana’ and ‘cassava’ or even profanity like ‘fuck.’