Nigerian singer-songwriter and actress Simisola “Simi” Kosoko has broken her silence after netizens unearthed her old, disturbing tweets.
PREMIUM TIMES gathered that the 37-year-old faced backlash after she spoke out about rising concerns over rape allegations in Nigeria, following claims by TikToker Mirabel that she was assaulted in her apartment.
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The “Duduke” singer, in a post shared on her X page on 17 February, stated that women were increasingly terrified to go out and no longer felt safe even in their own homes.
However, the situation escalated after Mirabel, during a telephone conversation with activist Martins, “VeryDarkMan (VDM” Otse admitted that she wasn’t raped.
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The development placed “Ogaju” crooner at the centre of criticism, with some netizens accusing her of reacting hastily and calling on her to retract or clarify her earlier statement.
Amid the backlash, social media users unearthed tweets she posted in 2012.
In one of the resurfaced posts, she referenced a four-year-old child allegedly having a crush on her and “acting like he wants loc lip”.
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In another tweet, she said the same child was “trying to put hand inside my shet (sic)”.
Responding to renewed criticism, Simi stated on her X page on Sunday that she authored the tweets.
The “Joromi” crooner noted that she was 23 years old at the time, early in her music career, and was also assisting at her mother’s daycare centre when she made the posts.
She wrote: “I haven’t been on Twitter today – but someone brought a few of my old tweets to my attention and I can’t address them. 14 years ago, I was 23, so I was definitely not a child. I’m not here to make excuses because I don’t have anything to make excuses for. What I can’t let anyone do is twist my story to fit false narratives.
“In 2012, I lived and helped out at my mom’s daycare while I was hustling my music. I tweeted everything that happened in my life, as we all did at the time. Kids can be mischievous. If a child did something I found funny, I tweeted about it. Kids are cute and lovable. I want to hug, kiss and cuddle them. I tweet about it. Nothing I tweeted was from perversion.”
Ignorance
Simi further argued that her resurfaced tweets had been taken out of context and manipulated to support misleading narratives, stressing that she had never been morally corrupt.
READ ALSO: TikToker Mirabel recants rape claim as Ogun govt hands her to police after treatment
She explained that her public profile now placed her past statements under intense scrutiny, adding that she had never tried to conceal who she was or deny that she had once been a young woman freely expressing herself.
The singer also disclosed that her team had begun deleting some of the older posts out of consideration for her family, even though she had initially been hesitant to take them down.
“I was not famous, so maybe if I were, I would have understood that anything is open to whatever interpretation, including being used falsely by a faceless mob. I’ve never been depraved in my life. You can retweet all the tweets in the world about me loudly crushing on people I admire/d and or being a cheeky young woman. I wasn’t trying to hide it, because I don’t have anything to hide.
“My team has been deleting some of my tweets because of how sensitive they are to my family. I did not want to. I have always spoken against rape and sexual assault, even before you knew I existed. It’s not a costume I’m wearing, it’s who I am. I’ve never claimed to be perfect. I’ve never claimed to know everything. I said Stop raping women. I stand by it,” Simi said.
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