Veteran Nigerian rapper, Eedris Abdulkareem, has clarified that his latest track, Tell Your Papa, is not a personal attack on Seyi Tinubu, son of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Speaking on Rubbin’ Minds, a Channels Television programme aired on Sunday, Abdulkareem said the song was a response to Seyi’s public statement describing his father as Nigeria’s best-ever president—a comment made during a visit to Yola, Adamawa State, in March 2025.
According to the rapper, his new song ‘Tell Your Papa’ was not an attack on Seyi but a call for the president’s son to tell his father to address Nigeria’s economic and security challenges.
“Nigerian youths are just asking for basics: electricity, security, enabling economic environment, job creation and not palliatives.
“So, why should I attack Seyi Tinubu personally? If Seyi Tinubu never talked about it, I wouldn’t have recorded a song like that. So, I am replying to the video that he made. If he had kept quiet, I wouldn’t have said anything. I am inspired by Seyi Tinubu to record that song,” he said.
Recall that the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, immediately tagged Abdulkareem’s new song as inappropriate and banned it on radio and television.
Many Nigerians, including Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, have criticised the ban.
Soyinka described the development as a return of censorship and a threat to the right to free speech.
Eedris Abdulkareem, during the television programme, lamented that 24 years after he released a previous song, ‘Nigeria jagajaga’, the song is still relevant because Nigeria has not experienced the necessary development.