Unpopular side with Thomas Oti
Email: thomasoti@qed.ng
A time like this is when one misses some of our deadest heroes. One very obvious icon I miss more than anyone right now is Fela. He was a great man. He was the voice of our generation. A generation that had suffered like no other deserved a voice of reason like no other. Fela was that voice of conscience that we all loved to hate. And hated to love. He said it as it is without shaking. No fears. No holdbacks. His punches stung. He danced like a butterfly round the government. He got swiped a lot of times like a mosquito. And each time like a cat with nine lives, he came at them again and again and again; fiercer than the last time. He was unstoppable. And he had to be. They couldn’t put a good man down. Like a phoenix, he rose from the ashes every single time. They killed his mum. They destroyed his house. They seized his properties. They labelled him a criminal. They dragged his name in the mud and threw him, the bathwater and the bowl away. He was a thorn in their flesh and they ‘dealt’ with him. But in all these, they still couldn’t put him down.
And it is at a time like this that some of us wonder if they didn’t give him AIDS to completely silence him. It feels like after they had done their very worst and couldn’t still get him, they handed him over to the doctors to finish him. And uncharacteristically for him, he cooperated with them; though not without an epic fight. Even as he wasted away and took his final breath, Fela never gave up. He fired salvos from all angles still. He inspired us. If he was alive, what would he have done? Or more like, what would he have sang? We probably will never know but maybe we can hazard a guess. That shouldn’t be too hard a task either. He has so much material to play with now that it would have been like putting a Winnie the Pooh in a castle made of honey. He would have been gleefully making that great brand of music of his that would prick our consciences and get us thinking, questioning, reasoning and dancing.
And oh what great material he would have had. From the second coming of Olusegun Obasanjo that heralded the return of democracy to the blot-in-the-face-of-history-reign of the leader that shouldn’t have been, Umaru Yar’Adua. From the leader whose only defence of his excuse of a ruling spree was that he didn’t know to the second coming of another general that Fela had not been hesitant to take aim at in the past and suffer imprisonment and battering for speaking up, Fela would have had very rich material to continue to cement his legendary status as Nigeria’s voice of reason in a world and a time like this that make no sense.
If Fela were alive at a time like this, what would he sing? I have taken the liberty to mock up lyrics of his song what could have been another chartbuster. I am of course inspired by one of Fela’s classic post prison releases. This one is 1986’s Beasts of No Nation. I am no Fela, so my intervention or interpretation is not nearly as tight but humour me anyway and enjoy!
Eeeehhhh! Gbos!
Igbo! Forest
Igbo irumole! Baba!
Everybody say yeh yeh!
No no!
Nay nay!
Ah! All of una dey craze o. No be yeh yeh I say make una say?
Baba, we no be zombie again o. We don become ode!
Na wa o! All of una don craze finish!
Yeh yeh!!!
I no blame una sha. Wetin dey happen these days reach to make person colo!
Colomental! We don craze finish!
My people, my people!
Tomato!
Igbo gbe!
Maalu!
Igbo gbe!
Wait o, which one concern malu for this matter? No be the Fulani cattle rearer you suppose face Fela?
Ehen, all of them na maalu na. Abi even your president get maalu wey he dey take kill people too. Abi e no declare am?
E declare am!
Declaration!
Fela baba!!
Eeeeehhhh! Gbas!
Long time ago
Long time ago!
Long long time ago
Long time ago!
Fela sing about Buhari o
Long time ago
Fela sing about Obasanjo o
Long time ago!
I sing about Idiagbon o
Long time ago
I talk lie at all o?
Long time ago
My truth dey bitter o
Long time ago
Dem send me go jail o
Dem send me go prison o
Dem lie for my head o
Dem destroy my song o
Dem try my name o
Dem try my family o
Dem kill my mama o
Dem scatter ground o
Long time ago
E be like yesterday o
Open wound no dey heal o
Dem put salt add pepper o!
Fela tomato nko?
That one, that one don dey expensive now o
Dem no born them to add am to my injury!
My people deserve them trouble
Which kain people we be sef
Oyinbo come he collect our people
Oyinbo man come he collect our precious everything
Oyinbo man enslave our mentality
Oyinbo man destroy and kill us
Oyinbo man change our black yansh
Oyinbo finish us we say yes
My people! Chai! There is God o!
Oyinbo don go but him servants still dey o
No be oyinbo be our direct problem now o
Na oyinbo curse still dey curse us now o
Oyinbo man teach us lootocracy
Oyinbo man teach us say stealing no be corruption
Oyinbo man e chop clean mouth o
And our people come dey chop dey go o
As we chop, we no dey gree to clean mouth o
We dey chop like say we never chop before o
We dey chop like say we dey chop and quench o
Chop I chop n aim we know today o
The more you chop the more you biggy man o
Chop chop chop our life don die oooo eh!
Obasanjo forget money for office for 1979 0
He come back to collect him craze o
He return him say him must die there
Thunder fire am so him get to go o
He chop he call am democracy o
He chop he give him friend brother to continue dey chop o
Yar’Adua chop but na the chop kill am o
Dem lie say Yar’Adua no die so they can continue to chop o
But dead man na dead man even oyinbo no fit rise am
Plus e be Muslim Jesus no go rise am sef!
Jonathan that one clueless thief o
He chop so tey him just dey craze o
Patience na him chieftess chopper
Chopping e dey dem blood o
Corruption na dem middle name o
Tell us wey our oil money dey o
Tell us wetin happen to billion dollars
Diezani that wan go soon go like her name suggest!
See stealing, see corruption
One act different names o
Fantastically corrupt na wetin dem call us
But the man wey call us name e worse pass us sha
Queen na the number one thief o
Cameron still dey try beside queen sha
Dasuki na dem true brother o
He steal on orders from above o
And I no mean order from the clouds o. Na proper order from above jor. Na soldier. He know how to obey the last order! Thiefbie!
Buhari don come again
Wetin my people dey look when them look for change o
How you go survive Jonathan and go for nonsesnsical Buhari
Changi da
We no see
Tomatoe da?
We no see
Fuel da
We no see
But we see na when e become N145 o. Abi na
Gaari da, we no see
Who dey chop milk even if na 50 kobo? To see am na die o!
Nepa da?
We no see
Light da?
We no get
Generator da?
E full ground
Corruption da?
E full ground
Excuse da?
E full ground
This government no be real government
This suffering na real suffering
My people dey suffer from north with book haram
Suffer from north with tomato disease
Suffer from south with Niger Delta blow ups
Suffer from west with Fulani death
Our suffer dey o kukuruku
Suffering continue kukuruku
Problem dey o kukuruku
Dying dey o kukuruku
Which kind trouble be this o kukuruku
Who go save us from this ourselves o kukuruku
Who go save us from our leaders o kukuruku?
When we go reach junction o prinprinprinprin
We no go stop
We no go rest
We no go sleep
We no go eat
This problem must stop
We no go gree
These leaders must go
We no go gree
These trouble must end
We no go gree
Wetin you go do
You go just dey look
Mumu!
Ok, that’s my own Fela something. I hope he finds these lines one day and considers it worthy of setting to his wonderful brand of protest and revolutionary music.
