Anxiety over Naira Marley’s influence on undergraduates

The popularity and lifestyle of music artist, Afeez Fashola, popularly known as Naira Marley, is gradually permeating the society, as many young people are craving to be identified as Marlians.

But you cannot just wake up and be a Marlian, the artiste allegedly has a set rule and standard fans must meet before they can be identified or qualified to call themselves Marlians. To be a Marlian, you must among other things, be a follower and a fan of Naira Marley, and embrace some of his lifestyle, if not all.

The artiste, almost on a regular basis releases musical hits that sooths the young ones, but culture purists have alleged that his songs preach immorality and indecency.

On a daily basis, a lot of youths, as well as adults are striving to meet those qualities so as to qualify as one. Undergraduates in the country’s institutions of higher learning are also not left out. Many of them consciously and unconsciously are beginning to identify with the Marlians, by exhibiting the traits that could be associated to them.
 
Some of the major characteristics of the Marlians groups are academic dropout and no-belt gang. Naira Marley himself gave this as an instruction before you can be called a Marlian. Academic dropout is one of the very important rules of Marlians, “as Marlians don’t graduate, they drop-out. Also, if you see an undergraduate who does not want to use belt, that person may be a Marlian.”

Others attributes of Marlians are alcohol and drug consumption, hairstyles, zero manners, which suggests that Marlians don’t have manners, they are expected to disobey constituted authorities. He also, through his songs, preaches Internet fraud, as he believed that making money from dishonest means could be justified.

Just last year, he also made a revelation on the social media that “Having big booty is better than having a master degree.” However, some undergraduates who spoke with The Guardian affirmed that the desire to be a Marlian is fast rising in campuses, and many youths are willing to ignorantly abide by the rules.

A student who gave her name as Ololade, however rebuked this ugly trend saying, “his music promotes the use of offensive words and substance, and this has affected the so called Marlians by lowering their self esteem, as they lack to elders. Imagine a student telling a lecturer “oga e mafo,” meaning…

Affirming Ololade’s word another student, Temitope said, “sincerely I don’t like him, he is a bad influence on undergraduates, I don’t like his way of life, I don’t like his music because it preaches immorality.”

For Pelumi Odushe, “I think everyone likes his music because of the nice beats, but his lifestyle appeal only to those who are in that line already. I don’t know anyone that adopted Naira Marley’s lifestyle because of his music.”

Another student Eniola, said “His influence over the youth is high, reasons being that this same youths need someone to look up to, emulate and follow. But it is difficult for them to identify a role model. I don’t have anything against him, but many youths ignorantly, want to be among but in the actual sense it’s ridden us of what and who we need to relate and hook up to.”

“Naira Marley has more of negative impact than positive, his kind of songs, choice of words and slangs have done more harm than good to the youths. Most undergraduates now feel they have the right to be rude and mannerless based on what Naira Marley preaches in his music. Naira Marley is a graduate, I will blame the youths for choosing the bad side of his music,” says another student who gave his name as Tobi.