If there was one thing Fela Anikulapo Kuti never got over after the 1977 destruction of his Kalakuta Republic home where he lost several material things (including master tapes of his early recordings); it would be the death of his mother.
Olufunmilayo Ransome-Kuti was a renowned activist who was in Fela’s house when the soldiers ran it aground. She was thrown off the second storey of the house and later died from injuries sustained on that day.
On his subsequent releases, Fela sang ever so sadly about of the events of that day, first on ‘Unknown Soldier’ where he gave a lengthy moving narrative of the attack and his mother’s death and then his reaction after his mother died on ‘Coffin For Head of State’.
Unknown Soldier was an explicit detailing of February 18, 1977: rape, looting and extreme violence.
Even today, the lyrics make for painful recollection of that day.
‘One thousand soldiers them dey come
People dey wonder, dey wonder, dey wonder
One more time: people dey wonder, dey wonder, dey wonder
Stevie Wonder dey there too
Na one week after FESTAC too
And dey broadcast on American satellite
Around that time too now, I say to you
Where these one thousand soldiers them dey go?
Look o
Na Fela house Kalakuta
Them don reach the place, them dey wait
Them dey wait for…
Order!’
He continues describing the event and his voice broke as he sang about his dearly beloved mother.
Them dey break, yes
Them dey steal, yes
Them dey loot, yes
Them dey fuck some of the women by force, yes
Them dey rape, yes
Them dey burn, yes
Them dey burn, yes
Them dey burn, yes
Them commot one student’s eye, yes
Them break some some head
Them break some some head
Them throw my mama
Seventy-eight-year-old mama
Political mama
Ideological mama
Influential mama…
Them throw my mama out from window
Them kill my mama
Them kill my mama
Them kill my mama
Them kill my mama
Them kill my mama…’
One would think that the man would be overcome with grief and be silenced. But on ‘Coffin For Head of State‘, Fela takes a defiant tone and told of how he took a coffin (presumed to be that of his mother) to Dodan Barracks in Lagos, the residence of General Olusegun Obasanjo, the head of the military regime at the time.
It was something of a symbolic procession in hopes that the military would accept the coffin along with responsibility for its actions.
‘I see see see
All the bad bad bad things
Them they do do do
Them steal all the money
Them kill many students
Them burn many houses
Them burn my house too
Them kill my mama
So I carry the coffin
I waka waka waka
Movement of the People
Them waka waka waka
Young African Pioneers
Them waka waka waka
We go Obalende
We go Dodan barracks
We reach them gate o
We put the coffin down..
Them no want take am
Them no want take am
Who go want take coffin?
Them must take am
Na the bad bad bad things
Wey they don do
Them no want take am
Obasanjo grab am
Yar’Adua carry am
Yes, them no want take am
Obasanjo carry am
Yar’Adua tow am
Them no want take am
Them no want take am
E dey for them office
E dey there now now now now now
E dey there now now now now now’
While these songs struck a nerve in the government (a tribunal was set up to investigate the events of the day), no justice was served. The arson was said to have been committed by ‘unknown soldiers’.
No formal apology has ever been made, and the government till this day does not accept responsibility for the murder of Fela’s mother.
For generations yet unborn, these songs will serve as a pointer to one man’s struggle against injustice meted out to him by his country’s government.
No Fields Found.
