A Muslim Rights Group Wants Falz to Remove 'This is Nigeria' or Face Legal Action
The Muslim Rights Concern considers Falz's viral video a "hate video" for its depiction of Chibok girls and Fulani people, and are demanding it be withdrawn within the next 7 days.
"This is Nigeria," is Nigerian rapper, Falz's critique and social commentary of Nigerian society inspired by Childish Gambino's "This is America."
The powerful video, which exposes and explores issues pertaining to the negligence of the Nigerian government, consumerism, the influx of web scammers, fraudulent religious leaders and other societal issues, is now being challenged by The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) who have threatened Falz with a lawsuit unless he removes the video and issues a formal apology to Nigerian Muslims within the next 7 days.
"Dialogue, Not Violence" is MURIC's motto. It is an anti-terrorism and violence condemning human rights organization which "promotes, protects and projects the rights of Muslims."
As reported by The Cable, MURIC calls Falz's video, "spiteful and intended to denigrate Islam and Muslims," "a hate video," and "an assault on the self-dignity of every Muslim," and "freedom of expression gone haywire," due to its scenes depicting the missing Chibok girls and Fulnai herdsmen.
Falz's video incorporated representations of the abducted Chibok Girls as well as the normalization of the atrocities of the Boko Haram. Clearly, the playful nature of the dancing girls in the video do not literally represent the actions of the missing girls. Yet instead of trying to decipher the symbolism behind the choreography in the music video, MURIC simply stated "Only the scenes portraying police brutality and the money-swallowing snake in the video are near the truth." A statement which seems to discredit any of Falz's messages that connect to Islam.
MURIC has called for the film and video regulatory agency, The National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB), to ban the video, which they believe was both created and released outside of its watchful eye.
The Cable quotes MURIC's official statement:
It is a hate video. This video has the potential of causing religious crisis of unprecedented dimension. It is an assault on the self-dignity of every Muslim. It is freedom of expression gone haywire. We therefore demand its withdrawal and an apology to Nigerian Muslims within seven days or the authors and their agents will face legal action if they fail to comply.
To some degree, MURIC's actions, only further prove Falz's overall point about the current reality of Nigerian society.
Falz himself is a lawyer, as well as his father, Femi Falan, who is also a human rights activist and the Senior Advocate of Nigeria.