Popular Afrobeat star Femi Kuti has expressed strong displeasure over claims linking him to former President Muhammadu Buhari. He recently had his say during an interview on Arise Television, and Nigerians have been reacting.
According to him, suggestions that he campaigned for President Bola Tinubu are very false and hurtful because it would be impossible for Fela’s children to align with any government that does not genuinely serve the people.
Femi added that the prestigious Grammy awards honour represents global recognition of Fela’s lifelong resistance against dictatorship, corruption and injustice in Nigeria.
His words, “When people say that somebody like me supported Buhari, that lie irritates me. Or when people say I campaigned for Tinubu, those things hurt me as a person.
As Fela’s son, it is impossible for us to be part of any government that is not for the people, especially governments he opposed — people who beat him, arrested him or jailed him.”
On the posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recently conferred on Fela Anikulapo Kuti, “Everybody is very happy. We’re excited. I’m in Los Angeles right now, and it’s hard to explain, unless you were alive in the 1970s, what my father did fighting dictatorship in Nigeria. People were very frightened of the military.
It was raid after raid. The burning of Kalakuta. His mother being thrown out of the window; she later died from the injuries she sustained. We never knew when he would be arrested or released. It was arrest after arrest.
You have to understand how he developed his music. From the 1960s to hits like Lady and Shakara, then he went fully political, confronting regime after regime.”
WOW.
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