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The week-long celebration began with a seminar, ‘The Fela Debates 2’. Speakers drawn from different professional backgrounds spoke on the life of the late Anikulapo-Kuti who used his music to fight against military oppression and injustice in Nigeria. The moderator of the debate, Femi Falana, a legal practitioner and human rights activist, described the Kuti family as comprising “some of the greatest Nigerians in terms of fighting for the independence of this country.” “We are here to celebrate a great Nigerian who is being honoured in other parts of the world,” he said. “If there is one cultural ambassador Nigeria has produced, it is the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.”

Activist to the core.

Dipo Fashina, a renowned activist and former President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), described the music legend as the first person to stand up for human rights in the country. “Fela confronted government, Fela fought on behalf of the people, but inside him, Fela was a gentle introvert,” he said. “When you sit down with Fela and talk to him deeply, you see that he was somebody who had much more than his political views. Fela was not a simple person. He lived simply but he was a very complex person. Fela crossed the class boundary not because he was rejected by his family. Fela could have become part of the ruling class. Fela was the first to start the activism for human rights.”

He also emphasized the need to continue the fight that Mr Anikulapo-Kuti started. “We have to create a political movement that will address the issues of the masses, the issues of culture, the issues of how to play our role in liberation of the world,” he said. “This life must not be wasted; we must create a political movement.”

Yemi Osinbajo, a former Attorney General of Lagos State, spoke on Fela’s music and how he managed to use it as a weapon of protest. “Fela through his music, created a bridge across tribes, across classes; a bridge that was built on the collective anger of the people consistently traumatised by the ruling class,” he said. “Fela’s protest against military dictatorship was founded on his own encounters with military injustice. Fela’s characterisation of our neo-colonial forces is apt in many respects. Fela’s self-appointed role was to speak the truth rudely and tauntingly and at great personal risk. His defined and unionistic stance against the fierce brutality of the state especially under military rule encouraged many. Fela left no doubt that he wanted his songs to anger the ordinary man enough to propel him into action.”

The fight must continue .

While expressing hope of a better future for Nigeria, Mr Osinbajo charged Nigerians not to succumb to the conditions that oppress them as a nation. “For as long as we remain in opposition to the conditions that humiliate us as a people, then there is hope,” he said. Also Carlos Moore, a friend of the late Mr Anikulapo-Kuti and author of his biography, ‘Fela. This Bitch of a Life’, described him as a man who stood up against injustice and who at a time felt like committing suicide because he felt that he was fighting alone. He added that the late Afrobeat legend was greatly missed and would not have been a part of the throng of musicians who celebrated what was not worth celebrating.

“If Fela were alive, he would not have joined the musicians who went to Abuja to celebrate 50 years of poverty, 50 years of hypocrisy, 50 years of manipulation and 50 years of oppression,” he said. Mr Falana also advised Nigerian musicians to sing songs that protest against the injustice being experienced in the country just like Mr Anikulapo-Kuti did. “We need protest music to continue in our culture so that we can liberate our country the way Fela would have wanted it,” he said.