Nigerian News

My son watched me get arrested during military era – Falana explains why he won’t stop Falz from ’embarrassing’ government

Human rights lawyer, Mr Femi Falana (SAN), has addressed concerns raised by some persons that his son, Folarin Falana aka Falz is embarrassing the government.

He said people reached out to him to call Falz to order over his utterances and activism which is putting the authorities in bad light.

According to Mr Falana, he queried the person who made such suggestion and said that Falz is an adult who is aware of his actions.

He further recounted when his son often watched him get arrested countless times during the military era, when he was fighting for democracy.

The Senior Advocate spoke on the back of a song which his rapper son released where he dissed the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Mahmood Yakubu.

He 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.”

Falz recently hit the studio to record a song tackling the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.

He featured Hip Hop star, Vector on the track which is named after the INEC boss ‘Mr Yakubu’, aimed at condemning the conduct of the 2023 general elections.

The activist released a snippet of the music video on his official Twitter page and it peaked the interest of social media users.

He had earlier criticised the electoral body for budgeting N300 billion to conduct an election that many international and local observers, as well as well-meaning Nigerians have described as a sham which was not credible, free or fair.

He also released a sample of what is believed to be a representation of the result sheets which were tampered with after Nigerians cast their votes.

Falz and Vector have decided to express their views about the election in the diss track.

The son of Femi Falana SAN, called out INEC, its Chairman, and political parties allegedly involved in the electoral malpractices.

His lyrics said; “Mr Yakubu! Ę ma ń se bi fraudster, you don’t want to prosper, come and collect, oscar 300 billion te gbà lówó ìjoba, kí le fi se ná sir.”