What began as a budding musical career in England and the West African Coast in the early sixties exploded into a paroxysm of mixed emotions at the burial a year ago in Lagos of one of Nigeria's musical maestros, the enigmatic Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Fela's admirers and particularly the youths of Lagos came in droves to witness, or rather to celebrate, the passage of a maverick folk hero. On the surface the Kuti family did not have much to do with what became in essence a public burial of an idol. They came to idolize a vacuum filler in a country whose long history is short of transparent leadership. In the midst of a generation that is overwhelmed by failed governments fraudulent transition programmes and rogue leadership, many a leader would have turned green with envy at the tumultuous spectacle that Fela's burial was.

On that sunny day in August 1997, I watched from a distance the tens of thousands of young people who thronged the Tafawa Balewa Square venue of the laying-in-state ceremony (or was it a carnival), in honour of the Afrobeat King, the self-styled Chief Priest of Africanism, the President of Kalakuta Republic, the original "Abami Eda." As I watched from a safe distance, away from the suffocating smoke of marijuana that beclouded the horizon, and the deafening noise of the wild mourners that threatened the peace of heaven itself, my heart went out in sympathy for the jobless and hopeless youth population of Nigeria who indeed had lost in Fela the symbol of the sub-culture to which they have been reduced by a callous, uncaring, and hypocritical adult generation. For these youths, Fela aggregated the aspirations of the masses of Nigeria and indeed of the black race, by his fearless denunciation of human rights abuses at the hands of successive occupation forces. He did this bluntly, venemently and consistently, at a time when the "saner" segment of the society preferred their private peace.

Fela was part of a tight thoroughbred family of talented siblings, but in his own way he stood apart, and his genius was no less obvious in his calling. A world renowned entertainer, Fela was a master of the wind instrument he played most - the saxophone. He developed his music to a unique and distinct art form, the Afrobeat, easily recognisable by his avid fans across the globe. His lyrics and his "yabis" were a veritable instrument of social commentary from the perspective of the underdog. His musical genre and the peculiar form of his poetry were understood by everyone. He condemned Eurocentrism and what he called "colonial mentality" in the dominant culture, and sort to do with Afrobeat music what Kwame Nkrumah, Leopold Senghor and Julius Nyerere tried to do with their concepts of "Pan-Africanism," "Negritude," and "Ujama" respectively.

Fela's encounter with Black America in the late sixties honed his combative instincts against any form of oppressive leadership and set the tone for his life long skirmishes with a succession of civilian and military governments in Nigeria. The evolving corruption ridden social and political environment then and now was tailor-made for Fela's musical expression against the status quo. He thus captured the mood of the masses in his lyrics and, as a symbol of defiance, offered the youths an escape notch to vent frustration at their country's manipulators. In song he hit at the perpetrators of injustice and oppression and incurred the wrath of the leadership with his cutting insults. His contempt for despotic and dictatorial leadership of the black peoples of the world in Africa and particularly in Nigeria was total and uncompromising.

His message in song were direct, unequivocal, unflattering, challenging, scathing, daring, rebellious and factual. He gave no quarter to the adversaries represented by the establishment and asked for none. A generous activist he was bent on echoing the voices of the down trodden masses with a defiant anti-government stance. His patriotism shone through his unalloyed love of his country and its citizens, a far cry from the pretentious and duplicitous shilly-shallying of pseudo patriots that our country has in quantum. The Fela phenomenon became a standing indictment against Nigeria's leadership that had neither the same focus, the same conviction, the same devotion, nor the same energy and endurance for social struggle. Fela's attraction to the youth was effortless. They had long lost faith and confidence in a degenerate leadership. In a land where the elite class was more concerned with personal comfort than fighting causes, there were precious few role models worthy of emulation. This is a vacuum which Fela appeared to have filled in the minds of many youths.

From the human angle Fela made virtually no attempt to check or hide his foibles, and in fact sometimes went to a garrulous extent to express them. He excited different, sometimes conflicting, emotions in people depending on their moral viewpoint. His unbridled demonstration of sexual promiscuity was legendary. His marijuana smoking habit bred a core of bleary eyed disciples. His nudist disposition (pants-only dress code) was an affront on decency. His anti-convention life-style was poor influence on the young and an agonising dilemma for their families. A traditional spiritualist of sorts, Fela's iconoclastic bent had an anti-religious impact on his brood of hangers-on and drifters.

So Fela the music star was not Fela the moralist. If everyone took the moralistic liberties he did, society would strain and groan under the weight of the consequences. And if Fela, in spite of himself, could touch so many hearts without holding any public office, there must be a warning in it for the elite and the leadership, that the masses, if need be, will look beyond them and beyond the rule book for their heroes, albeit deviant ones. The idolisation of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti by the popular class is an indication of a developing protest culture which hinges on social deviancy and non-conformism. In death Fela will continue to send dangerous vibes to the country's leadership now and in the future, for his legacy became a potent weapon in the hands of a restless and disillusioned youth that are on the verge of despair. His life story has exposed the so-called authentic leadership for what it is - compromising, sycophantic, hypocritical, callous and self-serving.

August 1998