A three-night music festival at a cultural centre in Kano in northern Nigeria, KANFEST, was cancelled by the Kano State Censorship Board, reported AFP.
The annual music festival is funded and organised by the French embassy in northern Nigeria.
“We have banned the music festival for the reason that we were not notified and our permission was not sought.” Abubakar Rabo Abdulkarim, head of the film censorship board in the northern region, told Agence France Presse, AFP.
The French embassy confirmed that they had been told they could not stage the event at the local French cultural centre in Kano as they did not have prior authorisation.
“Following a notification by the Kano State Censorship Board, the Kano festival of music is cancelled,” the French embassy said in a statement emailed to AFP.
The embassy has organised the three-night KANFEST music festival for the past six years through its cultural centre in Kano, featuring performances from Nigeria and other African countries as well as French musicians.
Freemuse report
It would be recalled that a French freelance journalist, Jean-Christophe Sevant, had covered the theme of music and censorship in Nigeria, including the Sharia-implementing northern Nigeria. He came up with a report, 'Which Way Nigeria', which was published by Freemuse in April 2003.
For the last four years, he has been making reportages on Anglophone Africa (in Nigeria and South Africa, mainly) for such magazines and papers as Le Monde Diplomatique, Liberation, Liberation, Nord Sud Export, and Worldpress.org.
Blog banned
Also in March 2010, Kaduna's Magajin Gari court, an Islamic court, banned a blog and an online debate which had been launched to discuss human rights and Sharia law on the occasation that it was ten years ago Sharia law was introduced in 12 northern states of Nigeria.
Reported to Freemuse by Sola Olorunyomi with additional information from the Nigerian ‘BusinessDay’ of 2 March 2010.
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