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| Eedris Abdulkareem |
Prolific Nigerian pop music artiste and ‘Nigeria Jaja-jaga’ crooner, Eedris Abdulkareem, says he accepts money from the Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomole, because he loves to be identified only with Governors that are popularly acknowledged to be ‘doing well’.
The pop artiste declared this position during last Saturday’s SaharaTV’s Inspiration segment with Omoyele Sowore, in effect saying he could not accept a gift from those politicians who are failing to serve the people.
During the interview, Eedris also talked about his famous feud with Nigeria’s former President, Olusegun Obasanjo; his tussle on a plane with American rapper 50cent; and other controversial issues.
On former President Obasanjo, Eeedris opted to refer to the embattled man as ‘Baba’ throughout the interview. He insisted that he has never taken money from Obasanjo, nor did he assume a low profile for some time after he released his famous Jaga-jaga album because he was jittery.
“I have never collected any money from Baba before. Eedris Abdulkareem
is a social crusader and my responsibility is to use music to add values to the lives of common people who can’t speak for themselves”, he declared.
“As a social crusader, back in 2000, I came up with “Mr. Lecturer,” which talked about sexual harassment on our campuses and “Jaga-jaga” came up after millions of youths voted me to represent them at the Olympic Torch Relay, which automatically made me an authority as an Olympic Torchbearer, and my responsibility is to speak for my people.”
Eedris pointed out that the former president became angry at him after he released the Jaga-jaga album. The title, he told SaharaTV, was adopted from a childhood game and suggests things gone awry. He further said that the Jaga-jaga album was motivated by his aspiration to reflect the ills in the Nigerian society occasioned by widespread corruption and the selfish activities of the country’s rulers.
Attempting to clarify the stoic silence which followed the threat from the former President after his famous Jaga-jaga album and his subsequent behavior which seemed to have been aimed at reconciling with the Government, Eedris said his album which followed Jaga-jaga was ‘Letter to Mr. President’.
That album, he said was to explain to the Government what he meant by Jaga-jaga in his prior album that had seen him crossing swords with Obasanjo. He denied that his subsequent meeting with Obasanjo’s successor, Late President Yar’ Adua, was to engineer peace with the Government and to regain his “restricted” freedom into the society.
Asked about his thoughts on a recent musical video by Rick Ross which portrays musical artistes as individuals solely interested in money, Eedris heaped condemnation on Rick Ross, saying he doesn’t watch or give recognition to such artistes.
“I don’t watch people like that because they don’t add value to my life, my country and my people,” he said.
“People like Rick Ross who act songs that talk about champagne, illuminati, money and all that are not adding values to our lives. So, I don’t recognize people like that and I don’t listen to their kind of songs. I am a social crusader and I love songs that will add values to the lives of my people. You should not come to Africa and say because you see people are poor you are throwing money at people. That is stupid; it is disrespect to my people,” he said.
Eedris suggested a realistic way to show interest in helping our poor people. “If they want to add value to people, what I expect them to do is to come down and put up a non-governmental organization that will take care of anything that has to do with food shortage that the United Nations and the World Bank are talking about,” he said.
Source: Naij.com
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