Daily Independent (Lagos)
Kunle Ajayi
2 September 2009
Lagos — King of Afrobeat, Femi Anikulapo Kuti, who came back to Nigeria penultimate week after a two-and-half month tour of Europe and America, has challenged African leaders to wake up from their slumber and ensure that the visions of the founding fathers of the continent are not defeated. He remarked that the focus of current African leaders is far from what the past leaders dreamt and worked for.
"The situation has to change. Few minutes ago as I came down from the airplane, somebody told me welcome to our country where nothing works. That's very pathetic. Very sad indeed! Everywhere we went during my tour, I was very happy at their responses towards us especially their political inquisition for Africa. Many people wanted to hear of Africa from African's point of view, not from the biased point of view of the Western media, but the point is how do we move Africa from where we are right now? How do we build railway lines from Nigeria down to South Africa, up to Morocco, Egypt, and Kenya? How do we connect Africa by highways like the ones I saw in America or Germany? I want to see Africa being the engine room of the world. How do we make this possible? We have been saying all this since the time of Kwame Nkrumah and people have died fighting for that African dream, which Nkrumah and the rest, dreamt about. I believe this is the age for it to happen. I believe Africa is ripe for a positive change. These were all the things we were talking about on the tour and it will continue until our leaders do the right thing," Kuti assured.
The Afrobeat musician thinks that for Africa to progress industrially, it must severe itself from the stranglehold of the super powers saying, "the more we keep looking up to the advanced economies of the world, the more backward we go."
He maintained that Africa has enormous resources, but that all it lacks is purposeful leadership. He suggested that African leaders should discuss frankly on how to end the war in Rwanda, Congo, the famine and cholera in Zimbabwe, the corruption in low and high places in Nigeria among other things plaguing the continent.
"All this mess can be cleaned up if African leaders sit down sincerely and talk about how to tackle poverty, insecurity, war, corruption, famine and disease in the continent. Now, only the rich people can afford good education for their children, because if you want to give your child qualitative education in Nigeria for instance, you are talking of school fees in the region of N450, 000 and above a year. How many people earn such amount of money here in Nigeria? Yes, we have oil, we have the human resources that if the government over the years had taken care of the welfare and demands of teachers/lecturers, doctors and so on, Nigeria and indeed Africa, would have been the envy of the world. But because of corruption and greed, which my father sang about, which his mother (Funmilayo Ransome Kuti) fought against at the beginning, and which we are still talking about, we lost that opportunity," he said.
Remarkably, shortly before Femi jetted out of Nigeria on the eve of May 29 for the tour, the agents of Lagos State government sealed off his niteclub, the New Africa Shrine (NAS). The Afrobeat king, who spoke about that incident for the first time, in Nigeria, however, said that the clampdown, which was effected by the Lagos State Ministry of Environment (MOE), became a blessing in disguise as it afforded him the opportunity to tell the world the state of things in Nigeria.
"My shrine was closed before I left. Initially, I was so angry about it, but I took the opportunity to expose their (government) mistake. The closure afforded us the opportunity to make noise to the outside world. Now the shrine must be respected like churches and mosques. This shrine, as far as I am concerned, is the place where we pay homage to great black people like Martin Luther King, Kwame Nkrumah, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. All great people, who fought for the emancipation of Africa, it is also a place of worship and we do it through music. This is where we respect our dignity, our heritage, and our culture. Something my father started, now a Mecca of some sort, and every musician wants to come and perform here. Great bands want to come and play at the shrine. And, when they bring all these foreign bands to Nigeria, many of whom are my friends, because of my long standing years of appearing in international concerts, the Nigerians that promote them would go to the ridiculous extent of warning them not to come near the shrine. They tell them that it is a dangerous place just to discredit us the way government has been doing all these years, yet the bands would still tell them, "we want to go to shrine, because it is the Mecca of African music," Kuti said.
He faulted the allegations of noise pollution and aiding street trading levelled against the shrine by MOE to justify its closure saying, "the talk of noise nuisance or pollution is a mere excuse because when this place was bought, it was an industrial area and we were so happy when we bought the land, because there would be no residents to complain of noise, and till date it is still an industrial area. Now, if you are talking about noise, churches make more noise everywhere. Everyday they put speakers outside to disseminate their messages. Mosques in the residential areas wake us up as early as 5 a.m. with noise blaring from their public address systems and as for the street traders, it is not within the power of the shrine to control people selling in the street around the shrine. The street or road does not belong to us and we cannot make law on how the masses should use them. They gave us 48 hours to respond to those allegations and less than 24 hours, the shrine was locked. Is that justice? Is that democracy? A democratic government behaving a like military dictatorship! Where is the rule of law and due process that this government has turned into a mantra?"
Though, he came back almost a month ago, he decided to take a well-deserved rest, something he was never used to. His usual Tuesday and Thursday rehearsals start tomorrow (Thursday) while his crowd pulling Sunday evening show will start on Sunday, September 6.
"It was the longest tour I have done in my life. It was very hectic and energy sapping. I am going to rest till the end of this month. I have to rest before I breakdown. I will start my rehearsals from September 3 and my Sunday shows on September 6. I want to give myself time to acclimatise to my beloved country, which I love so much and to get used to my food again. I have been away for too long," he concluded.
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