There comes a moment in every season of fame when the music gets too loud in a man’s head, and he begins to believe that applause is armor. For Dauda Kahutu, known to millions as Rarara, that moment seems to have arrived. The Kano praise-singer who rose from political jingles to national anthem has grown intoxicated by his own voice. With every contract, every rally, every crowd chanting his name, he has learned one dangerous lesson: that he can anoint and he can destroy, simply by picking up a microphone.
And so he does. For pay, for favor, for rivalry, for pride, Rarara steps into the ring with anyone. He sings men into glory in the morning and drags them through mud by evening, convinced that melody is a weapon and popularity is immunity. “Nothing will happen,” the adrenaline whispers. “I have godfathers. I have fans. I have survived daring the powerful before.”
It is this same bravado that has now led him to do what no praise-singer in recent memory has dared: to take on a man the public treats not just as a politician, but as a priest. In a blistering track, Rarara turned his guns on Dr. Ali Isa Pantami, the former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy and a cleric whose sermons fill stadiums. No veil. No metaphor. Just raw, brutal verses that cast judgment before any court could. In Rarara’s logic, if a musician can topple a governor with a chorus, why not a cleric with a verse? If music commands crowds, why shouldn’t it command theology too?
But here lies the miscalculation, and it is as old as Africa itself. Political scientist James C. Scott, in his work on “hidden transcripts” and public power, reminds us that societies run on two currencies: force and reverence. Music can buy you the first. Religion owns the second. Across Nigeria, and across much of the continent, clerics, pastors, imams, and traditional rulers are not treated merely as public figures. They are wrapped in what sociologist Max Weber called “charismatic authority”, a kind of power believed to come directly from the divine. To challenge them is not just politics. It is sacrilege. And communities, even modern ones, have long memories for sacrilege.
That is why Rarara’s song does not feel to many like criticism. It feels like a man walking into a shrine with muddy boots. African literature has warned us about this for generations. In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo’s pride makes him strike the messenger and defy the elders, not because he is wrong about change, but because he cannot bend. His fall is read by the village as the gods withdrawing.
In Achebe’s Arrow of God, Ezeulu’s stubbornness as chief priest costs his people a planting season, and the community concludes that heaven itself has rejected him. In Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not to Blame, King Odewale fights fate with rage and fulfills the very prophecy he runs from. Even in Nollywood epics like Igodo, Oracle, and Egg of Life..the plot is almost always the same. A bold man insults the king or mocks the oracle, and when sickness, exile, or failure follows, the people do not ask for evidence. They call it nemesis.
The proverbs say it plainly. “The lizard that jumps from the tall iroko tree will praise itself if no one else does.” And, “He who fights the gods with bare hands rarely wins.” These are not calls for blind obedience. Scholars like Prof.Nimi Wariboko argue that African thought is deeply pragmatic: it teaches humility not because truth must be silenced, but because symbols hold societies together, and to tear them carelessly is to invite chaos. Emotional intelligence, the ability to know when to speak, how to speak, and to whom, is what separates courage from recklessness. Psychologists studying “celebrity hubris syndrome” find that prolonged admiration often erodes that intelligence, making public figures believe they are exempt from consequence.
Yet to say Rarara was wrong in tone is not to say the question he touched was illegitimate. Politics in Nigeria is war without guns. It is a brutal marketplace of survival, entitlement, and loyalty. And when religious men enter that market, the line between piety and patronage blurs. Pantami himself once boasted publicly that he used his privilege under the Buhari administration to secure jobs for many indigenes of Gombe state in lucrative MDAs. In politics, that is called constituency service. In the pulpit, it is called favor. The tension is real, and it deserves interrogation: can moral authority and political power coexist without one corrupting the other? That was the conversation Rarara could have started.
But he didn’t. The song drowned the argument. By choosing contempt over critique, stereotype over substance, he turned a potential debate about leadership and character into a spectacle of personal attack. And spectacle, as communication scholars have shown, always generates sympathy for the target. The moment Rarara struck, Pantami stopped being a politician in many eyes and became a “man of God under attack.” The backlash was instant, fierce, and predictable. The very community that might have listened to questions about fairness and access instead closed ranks.
That is the cruel irony of daring the gods. You may be right, but you will not be heard. You may have evidence, but you will be seen as envious. You may want reform, but you will be remembered as the one who threw the first stone.
Rarara wanted a boxing match and got a religious war. He wanted cheers and got warnings. He wanted to be the voice of the people and ended up reminding everyone why people whisper before they speak against the anointed.
This is not about whether Pantami is flawless or whether Rarara is evil. It is about the ancient rule that still governs us: pride blinds, humility preserves, and communities will always interpret misfortune as judgment when you dare what they hold sacred. The music can move a crowd. But only wisdom moves a nation.
Bagudu can be reached via bagudumohammed15197@gmail.com or 07034943575.
