By Mohammed Bello Doka
17 June, 2026.
On June 10, 2026, the glittering lights of Los Angeles bore witness to something far more profound than entertainment. At the FIFA World Cup Countdown Concert, Nigerian superstar Davido transformed a global stage into a megaphone for the voiceless. His customised jacket, emblazoned with the names of 39 schoolchildren and seven teachers abducted from Oriire Local Government Area in Oyo State, became a silent testament to a tragedy that has dragged on since May 15. As mid-June arrived and the victims remained trapped in captivity, Davido did what true artists do: he used his platform not to bask in adulation, but to cast an unforgiving spotlight on Nigeria's festering wound of insecurity. Here was a billionaire's son, choosing conscience over comfort, courage over convenience.
Yet back home, the reaction from certain quarters was not solidarity, but bile. Enter Rarara, the Hausa praise-singer whose career has been inextricably hitched to the All Progressives Congress wagon. In a tirade that stunned many, he accused Davido of "tona asiri" – exposing secrets – as if drawing global attention to the abduction of innocent children amounted to high treason. He branded the Afrobeats icon a terrorist, lectured him on the government's efforts against banditry, and boasted of his proximity to President Tinubu as if proximity equalled superior wisdom. In Rarara's distorted universe, Davido was somehow promoting Ansaru, conveniently ignoring that the world has long been aware of Nigeria's nightmare. He even dismissed the United States as strangers, apparently forgetting where Davido drew his first breath.
To place these two men side by side is to confront a chasm that is at once cultural, psychological, and deeply historical. Davido is a singer in the truest, most liberated sense. Rarara is a beggar. This is not mere insult or metaphor. It is literal fact, rooted in centuries of tradition, social reality, and unvarnished truth.
In Hausa society, musicians who perform for rulers have historically belonged to the Mawakan Fada, part of a broader class known as Maroka – beggars. Their craft is praise, their sustenance patronage from the powerful. Rarara embodies this archetype to perfection. He sings not for truth or justice, but for the palace that feeds him. Davido, by contrast, belongs to the world of Afrobeats, a genre forged in the fires of rebellion, where artists dare to confront power rather than cower before it. One performs at the pleasure of kings. The other performs with the freedom to challenge them.
The contrast deepens when we examine the foundations upon which these men were built. Davido's path was shaped by elite education: British International School in Lagos, studies at Oakwood University in Alabama, and a music degree from Babcock University in 2015. Rarara's schooling ended at secondary level in Katsina, supplemented by Islamic studies in Kano. He has openly acknowledged his limited academic advancement. The 2025 saga of his honorary doctorate from the European-American University only compounded the humiliation when the institution publicly disavowed the award, branding the entire exercise fraudulent. Here was a man grasping for unearned legitimacy, only to be exposed. It is the tragic portrait of a beggar seeking validation through illusion.
Even faith offers Rarara no shelter. In strict Islamic interpretation, both music and begging are often deemed haram. A man claiming deep knowledge of the Quran yet building his entire existence on praise-singing and political patronage finds himself ensnared in a web of contradiction. While he defends a government whose failures his faith might demand he critique, Davido – raised in a Yoruba and Christian milieu where musicians command respect – faces no such spiritual fracture. In the South, a gifted artist from a prominent family is celebrated. In parts of the North, a musician remains a social outcast, unworthy of equal lineage or marital alliance. Rarara is tolerated only as long as he remains useful to his patrons.
The tragedy is sharpened by recent history. Northern musical traditions once emphasised rigorous apprenticeship, ethics, and a deep understanding of one's place. That discipline has eroded, replaced by a generation chasing political largesse without restraint or masters. Rarara embodies this decay – loyal only to the hand that feeds, swift to attack any threat to his relevance.
The ultimate irony cuts deepest. Rarara's own mother was abducted in banditry-plagued Katsina. He paid ransom, yet uttered no public condemnation of the government. Yet when Davido, from the safety of Los Angeles and Atlanta, dared to speak for victims including those in the North, Rarara erupted. He attacked not a lie, but a truth spoken by a free man. The North suffers most from this insecurity. Global attention Davido helped amplify could bring intervention that benefits Rarara's own people far more than it costs Davido. Instead, the praise-singer bit the hand that might aid his community.
Rarara called Davido a terrorist while his family bled. He boasted of insider knowledge while powerless to protect his mother. He accused a man born in America of revealing secrets the BBC, CNN, and the US State Department have documented for over a decade. In that moment, he revealed himself not merely as a beggar, but as a man trapped by dependence, blinded by resentment toward a freedom he can never claim.
Davido soars like an eagle, his voice carrying across continents, illuminating darkness for the forgotten. Rarara buzzes like a mosquito – loud, parasitic, fleeting. The world does not change because of mosquitoes. It listens to singers who risk everything for truth. In that unbridgeable gap lies the real story: one man sings for the palace, the other for the people. And in the end, history remembers the singer, not the beggar.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
Abuja Network News
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