Popular human rights activist, Femi Falana, SAN, has spoken concerning why his son and rapper, Folarin Falana, popularly known as Falz, embarrasses the government.
Falana explained that Falz’s perceived hatred for the government is as a result of what he was made to experience while growing up.
The famous lawyer made this disclosure, while speaking at the 2nd anniversary of Oluyinka Odumakin Lecture in Lagos on Sunday, according to The PUNCH.
He said his frequent arrests as a legal practitioner always bothered his son in the past, which even caused Falz to raise a question if his father was a criminal getting arrested often.
This development is coming just days after Falz released his controversial single titled “Yakubu” featuring his fellow rapper, Vector the Viper.
The song has spurred a lot of questions and caused no small stir on social media, as fans reacted to the messages passed through the song. The song is generally believed to be castigating the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Mamood Yakubu, for his alleged fraudulent role in the general elections.
Falana said, “One of these guys one day said, ‘Falana talk to your son; he should stop embarrassing the government’. I said which government? You mean that boy who is an adult? Can I give you his number so you can talk to him? But be careful because when that boy was growing up, I was being arrested from time to time. So, the only language he understood was detention, arrest and the rest of them.
“One day, when that boy was six, he asked his mother, “Our teacher taught us that only criminals were arrested. Is my father a criminal? Why is he always being arrested? And the mother had to say that in Nigeria, under the military, only two sets of people were arrested: Criminals suspects and political suspects. Political suspects are those who are out to expose the criminality of the government. That is what you see going on.”
This is not the first time Falz would be using the medium of his song to address societal issues, as he had done also in another single, “This is Nigeria”, a cover to an original by United States singer Childish Gambino, titled “This is America”.
Falz is one of the activists who regularly hold #EndSARS memorial in honour of those whom they believed lost their lives to police brutality in the country on October 20, 2020.
