By Ishaya Ibrahim
Nigerians remember Fela, the Afrobeat singer who died 23 years ago. Fela has the credit for revolutionizing Afro music. His proteges have since given the music a new dimension – Afro Hip Hop.
Burna Boy, Wizkid and others have won BET award and Grammy nomination on that genre.
In music, Fela can only find an equal in Michael Jackson whom many think he is the god of sound
Fela devoted as much energy in music as in activism. To Fela, music is a tool to liberate his people from the grip of bad leaders and the underdevelopment that comes with it.
Fela, born in 1938, saw more military dictatorship than democracy in his lifetime. He was fearless, calling the soldiers who held the country for their pleasure Zombie.
In activism, he has no better comparison than Nelson Mandela who lived for the freedom of the South African People.
Fela’s voice is still being missed in Nigeria’s political landscape. Perhaps, he would have communicated better to the government through his song that poverty has reached an alarming height. He might have expressed in a poetic lyric, the message of insecurity plaguing the people, or that corruption is now determined by what side one belongs in the country’s politics.
Nigerians have held on to Fela’s lyrics. Their voice recently found expression in the battle cry – #RevolutionNow. They want something different, a hope to cling on, and so they tweet using that hashtag.
Fela was born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti on October 15, 1938, in Abeokuta.
His mother, Chief Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, was a feminist activist in the anti-colonial movement; his father, Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, was an Anglican minister and school principal. He was the first president of the Nigeria Union of Teachers.
Fela’s rebellion was in the gene. His mother fought the British. His Father fought them too. So, when his parents sent him to London in 1958 to study medicine, he rebelled against them. He, instead, decided to study music at the Trinity College of Music.
He was enfant terrible to the military government. In 1984, the government of the head of state, Muhammadu Buhari, jailed him on a charge of currency smuggling which Amnesty International and others denounced as politically motivated. Amnesty designated him a prisoner of conscience, and his case was also taken up by other human rights groups. After 20 months, he was released from prison by General Ibrahim Babangida.
Curiously, on the 23 anniversary of Fela’s death, loyal government protesters besieged the office of Amnesty International because it identified with the hashtag #RevolutionNow. On the other hand, Nigerians on Twitter are still tweeting the battle cry – #RevolutionNow.
