By Mohammed Bello Doka
1 August, 2026.
When Davido called Rarara illiterate during their exchange over the Oyo school abductions, his defenders rushed to wrap him in a cloak of victimhood. Rarara is a Muslim, they cried. Rarara attended tsangaya, they reminded us. Rarara is a respected Northern musician who should not be compared with a Christian Southerner like Davido. Any criticism of Rarara, they insisted, was an attack on Islam and Northern identity.
Then Rarara sat before a screen and directed unprintable insults at Sheikh Isa Ali Pantami.
The same man shielded by religious sentiment has now desecrated the very faith they invoked to protect him. The same voices that cried Islamophobia when Davido spoke are now silent as Rarara spits venom at one of Northern Nigeria's most revered Islamic scholars. A professor. A former minister. A man whose decades of scholarship have earned him a place of honour in the hearts of millions. Rarara is a butterfly that mistakes itself for a bird, a glorified bagger who imagines he is a statesman. And when such delusions take hold, the fall is not a matter of if, but when.
In Hausa culture, the divide between a malam and a maroki is not merely professional. It is fundamental. A malam earns his place through knowledge, piety and service to humanity. His authority is built on years of learning and teaching, on guiding communities toward moral uprightness. A maroki, by contrast, is an entertainer whose craft is praise and whose survival depends on the patronage of the powerful. In its rawest historical definition, a maroki is a beggar. Not as insult, but as fact. He sings not for truth, but for the palace that feeds him. His voice is never truly his own.
This distinction has sustained Northern society for generations. Malamai have shaped families and communities. They have encouraged modesty, discipline and fear of Allah. Their influence rests on knowledge and character, not on applause or political favour. It is therefore a grave violation when a maroki dares to insult a malam. Criticism is one thing. Disrespect is another entirely. When Rarara aimed his venom at Sheikh Pantami, he was not criticising a public figure. He was attacking the very institution of Islamic scholarship that his own defenders claimed he represented.
Sheikh Pantami commands respect not because of any political office he once held, but because of decades devoted to Islamic scholarship, education and intellectual contributions. His influence transcends politics. His authority comes from knowledge and character, not from applause or proximity to power. That respect cannot simply be dismissed because of a song or a political disagreement. When Rarara insulted Sheikh Pantami, he insulted every Muslim who looks to scholars for moral guidance. He insulted every student who has sat at the feet of malamai seeking knowledge. He insulted every family that has turned to scholars for counsel in times of trouble.
Consider the staggering irony. Rarara's own mother was abducted by bandits in Katsina. He paid ransom. He said nothing against the government. He remained silent while his own family bled. Yet when Davido dared to speak for abducted children from Los Angeles, Rarara erupted in fury. He branded the Afrobeats star a terrorist. He accused him of exposing secrets. He boasted of his proximity to President Tinubu. A man powerless to protect his own mother lectured a global superstar on security. A man whose voice is owned by the palace attacked a free man speaking truth. The North suffers most from insecurity. Global attention on Nigeria's abduction crisis could only help. But Rarara saw it as a threat, not to his people, but to his patrons.
Rarara's own life tells the story of a man grasping for unearned legitimacy. His formal education ended at secondary level in Katsina. His claims to an honorary doctorate were publicly disavowed by the institution that supposedly awarded it, exposing the entire exercise as fraudulent. Here was a man desperate for validation, only to be humiliated. It is the tragic portrait of a beggar chasing a crown that was never meant for him.
Even his faith cannot save him. In strict Islamic interpretation, both music and begging are considered haram. A man who claims deep knowledge of the Quran yet builds his entire life on praise-singing and political patronage lives in a web of contradiction. He attacks a scholar whose lifelong service to Islam far outweighs his own fleeting relevance. He defends a government that Islam might require him to critique. He boasts of insider knowledge while powerless to protect his mother. He calls others terrorists while his own region bleeds.
Rarara has confused his usefulness to politicians with permanent status. He has mistaken access to power for power itself. He has forgotten that the palace that feeds him today can discard him tomorrow. Fame is temporary. Honour is earned over a lifetime. When influential entertainers disregard the cultural and religious norms that have sustained their society, they send a dangerous message to younger generations about how elders, scholars and people of knowledge should be treated.
Northern Nigeria has always reserved a special place for its scholars. Differences of opinion are inevitable. But they should never descend into ridicule or insults directed at those who have dedicated their lives to knowledge and moral guidance. Rarara has now committed the ultimate sin of his profession. He has turned against the very pillars that uphold his society. He has insulted a scholar. He has defended a government that failed his own mother. And in doing so, he has revealed himself for what he truly is: a bagger who confused his temporary crumbs for a crown.
Those who wrapped him in the cloak of Islam to defend him against Davido must now confront the truth. The same man has dishonoured Islamic scholarship itself. The Muslim identity they invoked so passionately is now the identity he has desecrated. They cannot have it both ways. If Rarara is to be defended as a Muslim, then he must be condemned as a Muslim for insulting one of Islam's most respected scholars.
When a maroki confuses his temporary usefulness with permanent status, when a bagger imagines himself a statesman, the fall is not merely possible. It is certain. The ground is already giving way beneath his feet. The only question is how far he will fall before he realises he was never flying in the first place.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
Abuja Network News
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