Beast of no nation

By Joseph Edgar…

You know I got to watch the great Abami Eda only once in my life. It was at the famous University of Ibadan where he was invited by the iconic Sigma Club to perform. That he was an enigma is stating the obvious and a lot has been said and will continue to be said about his life, his insights and his uncanny understanding of the Nigerian social milieu.

It is within this context that I want to single out his classic song ‘Beast of No Nation’ for discuss in this write up. That song was a massive hit when it came out and apart from the sweet flowing afrobeat sound and the perfect arrangement of the horns which was quintessential Fela, the lyrics were quite punchy and acerbic in its direct hit at our leaders whose names he so fearlessly mentioned as he threw the darts.

But what has really caught my imagination is the fact that he was very apt with the machinations of today’s leaders who are acting exactly the way he predicted twenty years ago in the song.

The themes touched in the song included Human rights, mis-governance, corruption, leadership ineptitude amongst others. He railed about ‘animals’ who in the song typified our leaders wanting to give us what was already ours -human rights. We have seen leaders using this as a basis for legitimacy when it should not even be discussed. We are given our freedoms like it is a privilege. Fela screamed about this and just this year, our President is talking about how national security should take precedence over the Rule of Law. That was Fela shouting oooo.

As I watch Buhari wearing suit, wearing an Igbo costume in his bid to woo these votes, the song comes back to me. Fela screamed in an almost obvious pain, ‘animal dey put suit o” his uncanny understanding of the attitudinal non challance of our leaders needs to be continually respected.

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He didn’t stop at that. In this same song which should be kept almost at par with our National Anthem, he railed about our leaders going so far as the United Nations to denigrate our people. – my people are useless, my people are indiscipline, my people are senseless’ he went on, ‘I never hear am before oo….. na animal talk be that o’ which kind government be this o na animal talk be that o’. do you remember the international speeches deriding us as corrupt and lazy?

If I was not there, I would not believe that this song was written and performed so long ago as it perfectly describes the mannerism of our present leadership. They are going about asking for so much from the followership only to now want to better position us for massive looting and rape.

Fela was quixotic, he was eccentric and a renegade but he was a sage. He was derided, maltreated, beaten and scandalized. Today the same leadership who led the purge of his empire, who sodomised his women and who made sure he was jailed on spurious charges are now lining up to go to his shrine to evoke his spirit and get the support of his massive followership.

So the well respected Vice President found himself at The Shrine in one of the most orchestrated PR disasters in recent time. A shrine built in remembrance of a personality who was jailed by a government headed by his own boss. He went there and stood like a mannequin emptied of history, forgetting that this man, Fela, was a sworn enemy of totalitarianism, of headless leadership and of misgovernment. Forgetting that this man carried a coffin to their office, forgetting that this man had chidlren who were scared by the very torture their father went through and in one moment of thoughtlessness sought for their support.

The response was obvious.

He hadn’t listened to the song, because if he had, he would have heard, ‘na which kind talk be that o, na animal talk be that o………..

 

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