The day Fela’s Kalakuta Republic ‘met’ Unknown Soldiers

On February 18, 1977, about 1,000 Nigerian soldiers “visited” Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s Kalakuta Republic.

Make you no go anywhere

Thirty-eight years after, we recall the event using Fela’s hit track dedicated to the event – Unknown Soldier – and comments from various sources as a guide.

So don’t go anywhere!

Just wait there make I tell you something

Fela, you don come again!

I never come again

I still dey faraway

Make you wait till I reach where I dey go o

Where you dey go?

Make I reach

Where you dey go?

Make I reach

Where you dey go?

Don’t ask me

Where you dey go?

Wait and see

Where I dey go

I say, I say, I say…

This thing wey happen

Yes, what really happened?

So, you didn’t know that a week after the end of the second World Festival of Black Arts and Culture (FESTAC) which Nigeria hosted in 1977, about 1, 000 soldiers paid Fela a visit at his residence?

You said that earlier!

Happen for my country

Na big big thing

First time in the whole world

If you hear the name

You go know ooo

Government magic

Tell me the name now

Government magic!

Dem go dabaru everything

Government magic!

Dem go turn green into white

Government magic!

Dem go turn red into blue

Government magic!

Water dey go, water dey come

Government magic!

Water dey go, water dey come

Government magic!

Dem go turn electric to candle

Government magic!

Dem fit turn electric to candle

Government magic!

Government magic

Government magic!

Government magic

Government magic!

I say I dey come

Small, small

Looku oo, looku o

Left, right, left, right, left, right, left!

One thousand soldiers dem dey come

Left, right, left, right, left, right, left!

People dey wonder, dey wonder, dey wonder

Left, right, left, right, left, right, left!

One more time

People dey wonder, dey wonder, dey wonder

Left, right, left, right, left, right, left!

Stevie Wonder dey there too

Na one week after FESTAC too

 

And dey broadcast t on American satellite

Around that time too now, I say to you

Left, right, left, right, left, right, left!

Where these one thousand soldiers them dey go?

Left, right, left, right, left, right, left!

Looku oo yeparipa

Left, right, left, right, left, right, left!

Na Fela house Kalakuta

Left, right, left, right, left, right, left!

Dem don reach the place

Dem dey wait

Left, right, left, right, left, right, left!

Dem dey wait for…

Order!

Now listen

Left, right, left, right, left, right, left!

Dem surround the place, kwam kwam kwam, Dem dey wait

Left, right, left, right, left, right, left!

With dem helmet and dem guns

And dem petrol and dem matches

Then again aa…

Stand at ease!

Michael Veal has keen sense of history.

“This afternoon – ironically, 80 years to the day after the British invaded the Benin Kingdom in the punitive expedition – over a thousand armed soldiers surrounded Kalakuta,” he wrote in his book, Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon.

Fela dey for house

Beko dey there too

Dem mama dey there too

Beautiful people dey there too

Frenchman dey there too

Press man dey there too

One-fifty of us dey there too

Then suddenly

Suddenly, suddenly, suddenly…

Jagba, jagba, jagba, jagba, jagba…

Jugbu, jugbu, jugbu, jugbu, jugbu…

Jigbi, jigbi, jibgi, jigbi, jigbi, jigbi…

Jagba, jagba, jagba, jagba, jagba…

Dem dey break, yes

Dem dey steal, yes

Dem dey loot, yes

Dem dey fuck some of the women by force, yes

Dem dey rape, yes

Dem dey burn, yes

Dem dey burn, yes

Dem dey burn, yes

Dem commot one student’s eye, yes

Dem break some some head

Dem break some some head

Veal, who once played as a guest saxophonist with Fela and his Egypt ’80 band, played back the event of February 18 further.

“After barricading the building and parading with signs imploring area residents to run for their lives, soldiers set fire to the generator that electrified the fence, stormed the compound, and severely brutalised the occupants,” he wrote.

Dem throw my mama

Seventy-eight-year-old mama

Political mama

Political mama

Ideological mama

Influential mama…

Dem throw my mama out from window

Chief O.O. Davies, an ally of Abami Eda now the Baale Oju-oluwa (the Tani-Toluwa I) said Fela exaggerated the action meted out to his mother, in the hands of soldiers.

“Fela said his mum was thrown from the window of the one-storeyed building; but it’s not true. She was not thrown,” Davies said.

But Mabinuori Kayode Idowu, a member of Fela’s Young African Pioneers (YAP), castigated Davies in a Facebook chat with this reporter.

“How can you say all that bullshit about Fela? Fela Lied? Was he telling the truth or not when he claimed 1,000 soldiers burnt down his home,” Idowu, the author of Fela: Why Blackman Carry Shit, said.

“Your so-called source accused Fela to have lied that his mother was thrown from the balcony, who set the house on fire?”

When reminded about what he wrote in his book on the event of February 18th, Idowu still went for Davies’ “jugular”.

“That is not the issue, how can your source use a little detail like that to wash away such injustice? It’s a massive injustice no doubt. And whether she was thrown or not won’t change that.

“So why call Fela dishonest when he said his mother was thrown out of the window. At 77 years old she was passed through the balcony of a house on fire. I saw it with my own eyes and not hear say. Even if she was carried, can you imagine the trauma?

Idowu was informed that the Baale only wanted to debunk the long held theory of being “thrown out from window” even though the injustice far outweighs the details of the incident.

“Debunk long held theory? What is more important, we had at least 40,000 Nigerians watching while 1, 000 soldiers committed such crimes against its citizens. Can you imagine if it was happening today and Fela could use text message to mobilise the waiting crowd against the soldiers? That is what you should look into and not details of how her rights were violated as a mother and grandmother!”

Dem kill my mama

Dem kill my mama

Dem kill my mama

Dem kill my mama

Dem kill my mama

Dem carry everybody

Dem carry everybody goooo

Inside jailaa

Fall out!

Everybody dey inside jail

We dey wait

Twenty-seven days

Dem lock us

Press dey shout

The military government headed by Lt. Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo shaken by this unprecedented attack on an individual, announced a public administrative tribunal to investigate the incident.

“The first sign that the army raid on Fela’s house had struck a nerve within government circles was that the government-owned newspaper “Daily Times” did not print a word about it the following morning. In fact, soldiers impounded copies of the Punch and Daily Sketch newspapers that carried stories about the army siege,” Idowu wrote in his book on the Abami.

Radio dey ring

People dey talk

Dem go burn Fela house

Wetin this Fela do?

This government e bad o

Wetin this Fela do?

Fela talk about soldiers

Flogging civilians for streets

Duro Ikujenyo, a member of Fela’s YAP and later a band member, told TheCable, what actually triggered off the attack on Kalakuta.

“I and another member of YAP were flogged by soldiers Obasanjo put on the streets of Lagos with horsewhip,” he said.

“Luckily for us, some people ran to Fela and informed him that some of his boys are being harassed by soldiers. Fela then mobilised some people to come to our rescue.”

This was corroborated by Idowu in his book, though, with better insight.

“According to the soldiers, they were there (in Fela’s house) to arrest some boys inside the house who after a fight with a Lance Corporal over a traffic violation had escaped and taken refuge inside the house. But in reality the soldiers had come for deeper vengeance; Fela’s refusal to participate in FESTAC, the publication of the YAP News condemning the introduction on our roads of an army horsewhip culture, and the uncompromising views as expressed in his (Fela) lyrics were the reasons behind the attack on Kalakuta Republic.”

Wasting money for FESTAC

“FESTAC! One big hustle, man! A rip-off,” Fela said in his biography, This Bitch of a Life.

“They tried getting me into it. I presented a nine-point programme to make the festival meaningful. 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!”

Wetin this Fela do?

This government e bad o

People start to talk o

Government start to shake o

Then suddenly

Suddenly, suddenly, suddenly…

Government bring instruments of magic

Dem bring inquiry

Dem bring two men

One soldier, one Justice

The name of Justice: Mr. Justice Agwu Anya

The other Justice: Mr. Justice Dosunmu

Dem start magic

Dem seize my house

Wey them don burn

Dem seize my land

Dem drive all the people wey live in area

Two thousand citizens

Dem make them all homeless now

Hm

Dem start magic

Dem start magic

Dem bring flame

Dem bring hat

Dem conjure

Dem bring rabbit

Dem bring egg

Dem bring smoke

Dem dey scream

Dem dey fall

Dem conjure

Spirit catch them

Dem dey fall,

Dem dey scream

Dem dey shout

Dem dey e

Dem dey say

Unknown soldier!

Na him do am

Unknown soldier!

Unknown soldier!

Government magic

The tribunal sat day after day, taking testimony from about 183 witnesses.

“Among them were firemen, who said the soldiers turned them back when they arrived to fight the fire, and Fela’s neigbours, who said they saw soldiers carrying jerry cans presumably filled with highly inflammable substance,” Idowu wrote in his book.

“The tribunal’s report of its findings was acceptable to the Lagos state government, which issued a White Paper incorporating the findings and recommendations of the Anyan tribunal. It said the fire was started unintentionally by ‘an exasperated and unknown soldier’.”

I get some information for you

I get some information for you

That my mama wey you kill

She fought for universal adult suffrage

That my mama wey you kill

She fought for universal adult suffrage

That my mama wey you kill

She is the only mother of this country

That my mama wey you kill

She is the only mother of Nigeria

Fela’s mother was the most important woman in his life.

“In her lifetime and beyond, she was (and still is) as much a legend as her son. Frances Abigail Olufunmilayo Thomas Ransome-Kuit (1900-1978) was one of the pioneers in the struggle for women’s rights and national independence in southern Nigeria,” LaRay Denzer wrote in Fela: From West Africa to west Broadway.

Which kind injustice is this?

Daily Express’ editorial of April 30, 1977 captured the injustice lucidly.

“It is rather sad that at this stage of our social development, some people can still believe that Nigerians are not discerning enough to make sound and correct judgment over issues of public interest,” it wrote.

“For how else can one explain the incredible findings in the report that it was some “Unknown Soldier” in sympathy with his colleagues after being exasperated…that set fire on “some rubbish” under the vehicles? If this is the best Anya panel could produce, then it is the view of the Daily Express that either the panel lacked the diligence or industry necessary to determine and identify the cause of the fire and to apportion blame, or the whole exercise was a theatrical mockery, staged in the National Theatre.”

 

Wetin concern government inside?

If na unknown soldier

I said, wetin concern government inside?

If na unknown soldier

We get unknown police

We get unknown soldier

We get unknown civilian

All is equal to unknown government

We get unknown police

Dem go kill nine students

We get unknown civilian

Dem go kill two soldiers

We get unknown soldier

Hahahaha

I say unknown police

And then unknown soldier

And then unknown civilian

All is equal to unknown government

Dem turn green into red

Dem turn blue into white

Dem turn green into blue

Uhn uhn

Unknown soldier…

(instrumental)

Unfinished matter!

 

With a track like this and others like Sorrow, Tears, and Blood and Coffin For Head of State the Kalakuta’s encounter with Unknown Soldiers will remain a continuous music to our ears.

And yes, an unfinished matter!