Fela’s forgotten legacies

Sir: The Afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti passed on several years ago, leaving a vacuum that has been quite difficult to fill. Fela was not only a musician with an unparalleled mastery of the art, he was also a great defender of the downtrodden, indeed someone in the semblance of a messiah who laid down his life for his people. Throughout all his entire short lifespan, Fela gave his all in the defence of the people, and indeed lost everything to the struggles and even died eventually from complications resulting from his torture and incarceration leading to a severe health challenge. Since his demise, Nigerians have lost a great fighter for justice and good governance. Without anyone to continue where Fela stopped, Nigerians have continued to face untold hardship with thousands dying in silence.

Fela’s life and times has become an annual festival named Felabration, where artistes from all over the world gather to honour one of the most iconic artists of all times. There are, however, some of his legacies that ought to be reviewed as a reminder to all those who no longer remember or give them any thought. Throughout his life, Fela taught his fellow citizens by personal example the need to stand up for their rights and never be cowed by the threats of their highly callous and insensate leaders. According to him, man must be man in his own country and whoever cannot stand up for his right cannot make it. He did not only say it but also lived it for all to see. It is, however, one of the legacies that Nigerians continually fail to imbibe. Inability of the people to rise and fight for themselves has now given rise to a situation whereby the citizens live like slaves in their own country through the activities of so many non-state actors spreading all over the entire landscape like a plague making living in Nigeria an excruciating experience.

Fela also taught his people about the need to stay in their own land and join other progressive forces in the building of a virile nation where everyone is happy and fulfilled. He emphasised it on different platforms that migration to Europe and America was tantamount to surrendering oneself to second slavery and that the western world where people run to were built through people’s sweats and there was nothing stopping Africans from replicating and achieving the same feat by working assiduously to achieve an overall development. And in order to prove that saying it was not what matters but living it, in spite of his general acceptance everywhere in the world, and despite the untold hardship he suffered at home in the hands of successive governments, Fela never flirted with the idea of relocating out of the country but remained with his people and fought for them till the very end. This is another legacy that most Nigerians, even his most ardent followers, or supposedly so, have jettisoned under various excuses and guises as most of them have now living abroad.

Nigeria is such a wonderful country where people hail others for standing out of the crowd but are never prepared to do what others did differently. It is always easy for Nigerians to feign massive admiration and support for whoever they observe to be bold and courageous to stand up against oppressors and oppression. But rather than take the same stand resolutely, they always prefer the short cut by running away from the problems thereby leaving others to continue battling with them.

This is why most artistes who had pretended to be Fela’s greatest admirers are now living abroad because they felt that staying behind to fight the way Fela did was not what they are ready to do.

After rising through the peoples’ goodwill and patronage, they abandon their land and their people to the struggles. Such abandonment of one’s land is actually behind Nigeria’s stagnancy. This is because all those that matter in the society and whose views can make much difference to those in government are now cooling their heads in foreign lands. It may be argued that everyone has the right to live wherever he chooses but it becomes something of betrayal when people rise through the acceptance and support from the masses and then abandon the same masses to the struggles. Bad as Nigeria may appear, there are some areas in which Nigeria still lives up to its expectation. For instance, Nigerian doctors are in high demand all over the world because of the high standard of the training facilities in the various universities. But rather than stay behind to serve the people of the country that made them what they are, most Nigerian medical personnel troop abroad for greener pastures. Nigeria then becomes the loser as the hospitals are deserted out of self interest. Right now, most of Nigeria’s hospitals are fast becoming mere consulting clinics with many people being lost to simple ailments because of inadequacy of medical personnel to attend to the teeming patients. The same applies to lecturers, nurses and other professionals running abroad after their training here in Nigeria. If only Nigerians can embrace Fela’s legacy of staying behind to build one’s country, most of the challenges facing Nigerians today would never have happened.
• Jide Oyewusi, the coordinator of Ethics Watch International, wrote in from Lagos.