Fela

by Moore, Carlos

  Fela protects himself

  Photo: Peter Obe Photo Agency: from album cover of Alagbon Close

  14

  From Adewusi to Obasanjo

  I was free. Back on the streets, back to playing at my Shrine. Ooooooooooh, the place was fuckin’ packed every night! The shit with the police had made me more popular than ever. But every single day for the four and a half months that my first case lasted, I had to appear in court. I’d thought, “Everything is finish-o.” But, man, you don’t know Adewusi! Guess what he did, that man? They had set the date for judgment on 27 November 1974. And on 23 November police showed up at my house. They said they were looking for a girl. Again, a girl! The police were many, man. That time, they almost … killed me! They beat the hell outta me, man! My head is still scarred. You can see it. That was the first violent attack I experienced. It was terrible, man. It was so fuckin’ terrible that I don’t want to talk about it any longer. . . . They said they were looking for Folake Oladende. She’s no longer with me either.

  You see, to protect myself and my people from police and keep these fucking police from just walking into my bedroom like that, I’d decided to put up a three-and-a-half-metre-high barbed-wire fence around the entire Kalakuta Republic compound. I also kept guards at the gate. But one day the police came anyway with axes to cut down the fence. That was November ’74. They threw tear-gas and beat the shit outta us. They’d come – so they said – to look for one girl they say I “abducted”. Fela abducting woman? Oh, man, these people! They tried using her against me but the girl didn’t co-operate. She refused. The bastards! Ooooooooh, I was beaten by police! So much. . . . How can a human being stand so much beating with clubs and not die? I was cut, bleeding profusely. Couldn’t even stand up, or walk. This time I was taken to hospital, not jail. I was there for three days. Police wouldn’t allow visitors to see me. Later, I was taken to court. Again I got bail and went home. It was bad, man. It was horrible! Another cycle of horrors had begun in my life.

  When I went for judgment on 27 November, I was all in bandages and had to lean for support on my friends. The case was thrown out of court. But Adewusi still wouldn’t give up. The next year again, in February ’75, he did it to me again. You know where? In Ilorin. Adewusi’s hometown. Arrangements had been made for me to go and play at the university there. It was a trap; I’m convinced of that today. When I got there, the police were ready for me, man. Road police, just to raid me again. Raids. Raids. Raids. This shit went on for about two or three weeks at Ilorin. But I fucked the whole police up in Ilorin.

  I got out of the Ilorin one. It was a real mess for Adewusi and his stupid police. By now everybody was convinced Adewusi and his police were after me for nothing. After that one they laid off until ’76. But in ’75, there had been so many raids. You know what I mean? I’ve only talked about the three main ones. You can’t count how many times they beat my people – in my house, on the streets. . . . So I had to go out and face them, man. They did many things, you know. Like arresting my people anyhow, anyway, for anything!

  Then around the middle of ’75, I think, M.D. Yusufu rose up in rank. He became the IG. Inspector-General of police. It was he who cooled everybody down. When he said, “Fela is not a criminal,” that took the heat off. You know, a coup d’état had overthrown General Yakubu Gowon. It was the military who overthrew him on 29 July 1975. And the new Head of State, General Murtala Mohammed, appointed M.D. Yusufu Inspector-General of the police. Right then and there, Yusufu said I wasn’t a criminal, just an artist. That I had my ideas and that the police should stop worrying me. That’s exactly what happened. Because as IG, he controlled the whole police and secret services. So police didn’t worry me again until Obasanjo came to power.* Then that man started his own shit against me, man. Not right away, though. He used soldiers against me, not police, ’cause M.D. Yusufu controlled the police. Obasanjo began his shit in ’76, shortly after taking power. He was so cruel, man! He’d have my people beat up all the time he’d worry them, provoke, attack. All sort of harassments, man. Until one day when he sent one thousand soldiers to Kalakuta Republic … to kill me, man.

  Supposedly Obasanjo’s family knew mine. At least, that’s what I’ve been told. But I can’t remember meeting him when I was a child. One of my friends told me I had. He even showed me a picture of Obasanjo visiting my school. He said we’d met at that time. He even told me that Obasanjo would often come to our school to play with us. But I don’t remember him, man. I swear. He’s only a year older than me, so we’re about the same age. We were born in the same town. We went to school at about the same time, he to Baptist Boys’ High School and me to Abeokuta Grammar School. Both schools always had things together, like sports and things like that.

  But I don’t remember him from that time.

  Olusegun Obasanjo! No, he didn’t start all his horrors against me right away. I was even invited to participate in the Second World Black Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC). That thing was real confusion! Corruption left and right! People running in all directions with no orientation! FESTAC was just one big hustle, so a whole lot of little military men and useless politicians could fill their pockets. They chop plenty-plenty naira.

  It was around then that Sandra came back to Nigeria to record an album with me: Upside Down. She only stayed about two and a half months. That was in ’76. The album was heavy, man! Her voice is unique! The lyrics, the beat, the rhythm, the music, man! Ohhhhh, Upside Down was a fucking good album! It dealt with all the confusion and corruption of the Gowon-Obasanjo period. All the shit, man! The chaos! The foolishness of those Africans who look down on the names of their ancestors and take European names. Me, myself, I’d just changed my own name. . . .

  You see, at the end of ’75, I got rid of “Ransome”. I replaced it by … Anikulapo. My mother, too, she understood, man, and dropped “Ransome”. What does Anikulapo really mean? It means “Having Control Over Death”. Literally, it means having death inside your quiver. And Fela? Of course, you know: “He Who Emanates Greatness”. Kuti? It means “Death cannot be caused by human entity”. My full name means: “He who emanates greatness, who has control over death and who cannot be killed by man”.

  Original album cover of Upside Down with Sandra

  Design: Remi Olowookere

  Photo: Tunde Kuboye

  What’s the importance of a name? A lot, man. Malcolm X knew that. That’s why he chose “X”. Slavery had taken away his African name. So he preferred an “X” rather than the slave-master’s name. But so many people, man, are just brainwashed! They’d come and ask him: “Why X?” That reminds me of that French journalist who just the other day, there in Paris, asked me: “Why did you change your name from Ransome to Anikulapo?” I looked at him surprised. ’Cause he’d asked just the opposite of what he should have asked. That i-d-i-o-t! He should’ve asked why my name had been Ransome in the first place. Me, do I look like Englishman? But what was I talking about? Oh, yes … about Yusufu.

  Really, M.D. Yusufu was a heavy guy. Let me first of all tell you a story one boy told me about him, when M.D. Yusufu was just an intelligence officer. This boy had done something and had to run away to hide in Abidjan, Dakar, somewhere like that. Anyway, Yusufu was the one who was supposed to be looking for this guy. He finally found him sitting in a nightclub in Abidjan or Dakar. Yusufu just faced him and said:

  “I’ve got you! … But I’m not going to take you back. I’m going to leave you. That thing you did, you will never do it again, will you?”

  Imagine that guy’s surprise, man.

  “No, Sir, I won’t do it again. I promise. . . .”

  And Yusufu left him there.

  That’s M.D. Yusufu. A very humane person. He’s someone who really loves Nigeria. A real man! When I met him he was very revolutionary inclined. Yusufu really kept that government from messing up entirely, man. He kept it from doing too many atrocities. That’s what M.D. Yusufu did. That man doesn’t like blood-o! All revo
lutionaries in Africa have met him, know him. He was the liaison guy between the liberation movements and the successive Nigerian governments. He was beautiful to the revolutionaries in Africa. He’s not corrupt. When he left government in ’79 he didn’t own shit. He didn’t even own a house in Lagos, for instance. Every other government man was owning ten big houses in Lagos and he owned none. He’s a great guy. That’s what I want to say about him. All Nigerians love and respect that man.

  Yusufu himself came many times to Shrine. He understood what I was saying in my songs about African emancipation, the struggle against corruption, abuse of power, dictatorship, poverty. . . . And he protected me against those other bastards. One day, end ’75, I think, I said to myself: “What could I give M.D. Yusufu just to show small-small appreciation?” So I said: “I go make ’am something.”

  I made him a nice box of multi-colour spotlights. I made it, man. I conceived it and made it with my own hands. It was only for my very Close friends that I ever did that: J.K., Kanmi Oshobu – who was then my lawyer – and a few other friends. When I’d finished Yusufu’s, I took all my girls and boys, packed them in my bus, and went off to Ikoyi, where M.D.’s residence was then. You remember, he lived near military hospital. When we pulled up at the gate, guards with sub-machine guns came up to us.

  “Yes?”

  “I come see IG. Tell ’am Fela is here!”

  “Wait a moment, Sir.”

  Police never call me Sir-o! Then, after a moment, they said:

  “You can pass.”

  My gift was nice, man. It was a white box with four coloured bulbs fitted inside: green, yellow, blue and red. My favourite colours. And you could combine them together. For example, you could mix the red and green lights, the yellow and blue. . . . It was a wild spotlight box, man. Invented by Fela for someone he dug very much. Those lights were my creation. Just like my music. I felt so happy giving it to him. As happy as when I play. Oh, I could see he was moved. And me, too, I was moved. ’Cause I. . . . Well, I dug him a lot, M.D. Yusufu!

  15

  The Sack of Kalakuta

  “Sorrow, Tears and Blood”,

  “Unknown Soldier”, “Stalemate”

  FESTAC! One big hustle, man! A rip-off! They tried getting me into it. They started out being nice to me and that sort of shit, man. First, I was invited to attend a Nigerian National Participation Committee meeting which was being held at Bagauda Lake Hotel in Kano. That was in ’76. It was Major-General I.B.M. Haruna who’d called the meeting. Anyway, he started demagoguing, man, saying he was “open” to fresh ideas and that kind of thing. So I presented a nine-point programme to make the festival meaningful. The first point of my programme called for the participation of the people. Then I denounced the underhanded dealings going on; the way in which the cultures of Nigerian peoples were being treated trivially; and so forth. But Major-General Haruna rejected these proposals. It was then that I resigned.

  I didn’t know that my resigning would cause so much shit. You see, the stage was being set for a very serious confrontation. But I didn’t know it. I had asked myself: “How is it possible that General Haruna, a military man, could be the chairman of a committee which dealt with cultural matters?” Haruna felt offended. The next thing he did was to use the mass media to lambast me, saying Fela had refused to participate in the festival “because he wanted the government to purchase new equipment for him”. Now, you hear that shit, man? I wanted the government to buy equipment for my own motherfuckin’ use?

  You see, what was worrying Obasanjo was that by then I’d purchased a printing press. I’d started publishing a small-small newspaper, YAP. The name stood for Young African Pioneers, a youth organization I had launched. The military had imposed a ban on political parties since it took over in ’66. So we were printing our own anti-government propaganda, man. Denouncing those corrupt, unprogressive politicians and military men to the people.

  Fela playing at Shrine after Kalakuta attack: original album cover of Sorrow, Tears and Blood

  Design: Okanlawan Banjoko

  Photo: Femi Osunla

  So FESTAC came for one month, January to February ’77. I didn’t go to that thing-o! I stayed at Shrine and made my counter-FESTAC there! All the big musicians and artists FESTAC brought in wanted to see me, man. For one whole month, man, every night, Shrine was packed with Blacks from all over the world. And since they wanted to know what was happening in Nigeria I told them. I used the stage at Shrine to denounce all of the shit and corruption of that government which had invited them. That one they never forgave-o! But Obasanjo held off till FESTAC finished and everybody had left town. He knew he could not rely on M.D. Yusufu’s police. So this time it was soldiers of regular army, man, that he used. I’m telling you.

  Because of the FESTAC thing, the government had brought out an operation called “Operation Ease the Traffic”. It was a campaign against “go-slow” – traffic jams – in Lagos. To carry it out, Obasanjo had put soldiers in the streets with horsewhips. They had orders to deliver on-the-spot beatings. With no legal trials for offenders. None! Man, those street soldiers were so brutal that the people began to complain. Of course, you know me, I couldn’t turn a deaf ear to that, so I denounced that shit to the press and at the Shrine. . . . And then I set out to defend and protect the interests of those victimized, by denouncing the government for having taken those measures. I attacked Colonel Tarfa openly, ’cause as officer of the Nigerian Army he was also chairman of the “Ease the Traffic Campaign”. My public condemnations of the government’s actions and all the military and social oppression – at a time when something like 60,000 people had come together in Nigeria for this huge black Festival – brought a violent reaction.

  The shit really started on 12 February 1977 when a group of armed soldiers fought with youth in the area around Kalakuta Republic. The soldiers were beaten up by the boys, but they vowed to come back. They did a week later, on 18 February 1977. But this time, there were about a thousand soldiers, armed to the teeth.

  Let me tell you how the thing went-o!

  I’d sent one of my boys out to fetch something. He came back saying that when he was coming back he had a row with some soldiers over a one-way street. The boy had answered them back, so they beat him up. The other boys tried to retaliate, since the incident happened only three hundred yards away from the house. Man, they’d almost beaten my boy to death. So we carried him into the house and were gonna put him into our car to take him to hospital. But then the army men showed up. There were eight of them. They wanted the boy they’d beaten up. I told them:

  “You want who? He’s wounded. You can’t have him.”

  The boy is so badly wounded, you know. But even if he weren’t injured I wouldn’t give him to anybody, to any police or soldier.

  “You can come with bazookas, rifles and bombs if you want. . . .”

  The soldiers had no right to arrest anyone. So they went back in the streets and lined up there. I realized they were going to try and force the gate open. They started to cut the fence.

  Since the last police raid on Kalakuta, when they’d already cut my barbed-wire fence to come in, I’d taken my precautions. I’d bought a big 65 Kwt generator, put it on a Ford truck, so as to electrify the entire fence around Kalakuta. I had a system in the house which allowed me to switch the electricity on whenever needed. You see the type of shit I was forced to do then? Just to protect myself and my people, not from robbers, but from the authorities! I’d never electrified the fence till that day. When I saw the soldiers trying to cut it, I switched on the electricity. The soldiers jumped and moved back.

  I went upstairs to the balcony and I saw Kalakuta completely surrounded!!! I saw a high officer going around in his car. There was a flag on it. Then I felt so happy. I said, “Oh, good. When this big officer will see this commotion, he will stop this thing from happening.” But that’s precisely when everything started. ’Cause that officer was there to … lead the shit-o!!!


  From then on, everything happened very quickly. The military put fire to the generator, like they did to the bus and my cars. They used petrol to start the fires. Then, they came in, busted the gate open, broke the door down … went everywhere in the house … beating … flogging … kicking ass with their boots … hitting with rifle butts. . . . The first one they brought out was Najite, one of the girls. Ooooooooooh! They beat her! When I saw that, I said to myself: “The way they beat her, today they will kill me!” They beat her, tore her clothes off, naked her. . . . Then they began flogging her, to make her run to the barracks. . . . Oooooooooh! It was too much, man. They were flogging away, beating everybody, cutting, using bayonets, broken bottles … raping the women! It was terrible! Ooooooooh!! Terrible!!!

  At that moment I was still up on the balcony. I’d been calling out ’cause I wanted all Nigerians around to see it wasn’t me who’d started the trouble. I wanted to speak to the Nigerians with a microphone. It was then they switched off the electricity altogether. The soldiers were everywhere! All in the yard, inside the house, in all the rooms on the ground floor. They beat up the girls, raped some of them and did horrors to them, man. They beat up my boys. Then they stormed upstairs. They beat my brother, Dr Beko, who was trying to protect my mother. They fractured his leg, his arm. They beat him so bad he had to be taken to hospital. My brother was in a wheelchair for several weeks after. Then, they grabbed my mother. And you know what they did to this seventy-seven-year-old woman, man? They threw her out the window of the first floor. And me? Oh, man, I could hear my own bones being broken by the blows! Then, the whole Kalakuta Republic – at 14-A Agege Motor Road, Surulere – went up in flames. The soldiers had set fire to the house.

  First, the hospital. Then prison. I stayed in jail for twenty-seven fuckin’ days with wounds all over my body and several bone fractures. I was told by my lawyer that all of my people who were in the house were either in hospitals or in jail. My mother was in hospital with a leg fracture, contusions and bruises. I was taken to court and charged. Imagine that! I – not the army – was taken to court. So I sued the Chief of Staff of the Nigerian Army along with army officers from Abalti barracks for twenty-five million naira for special damages. After a one-year delay, the court ruled that I was not entitled to compensation. An official inquiry was made on the attack and burning of my house. In that inquiry I was called a “hooligan”. No apologies to my mother whose leg they broke.