Beyond the Music: The Hard Truth in African China and Eedris’ Lyrics, Food No Dey! Water No Dey!!

Sometimes, when I look at Nigeria today, I remember old songs from African China and Eedris Abdulkareem. Back then, people thought they were just making music. But now, it feels like they were actually talking about the country we are living in today.

African China sang, “Food no dey, water no dey, our road no good.” Eedris Abdulkareem also cried out, “Nigeria jaga jaga, everything scatter scatter.” At that time, many people treated those songs like exaggeration or just street talk. Some even felt the artistes were disrespecting leaders.

But fast forward to now, and you begin to wonder were they really wrong, or were they simply saying what others did not want to hear?

Because if we are honest to ourselves, many of the things they sang about are still around us today. Roads in many places are still very bad. Cost of living is not just high, but very high. Water and electricity are still not stable in many communities. People still struggle daily just to survive. The names of leaders have changed, but many of the problems are still the same.

This is why those old songs now sound different. They no longer feel like just protest music. They feel like early warnings. Like someone pointing at rain clouds when others were still saying the sky was clear.

The painful part is that these messages were already loud years ago. But Nigerians didn't take them serious. Now, we understand.

Ordinary people understood them immediately because they were living the reality already. But the real question is did those in power really listen?

Every government comes with promises of change, development, and a better Nigeria. But for many citizens, those promises often feel far away from daily experience. And so the same frustration keeps coming back in different forms.

Maybe the issue is not that Nigeria was never warned. Maybe it is that the warnings were not taken seriously enough.

Now in 2026, looking back at those songs, it is hard not to feel that they were describing more than just their own time. They were describing a cycle, one that has continued longer than expected.

And if the same lyrics from over twenty years ago still match what people feel today, then the real question is no longer about the musicians.

It is about leadership, responsibility, and whether anything has truly changed for the people they were singing about.

Because in the end, songs fade but the truth inside them does not.