2 6 Years after Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, the godfather and exponent of Afrobeat, passed on, his relevance as a global icon and the recognition of his message was delivered to a global audience, with the Broadway musical production, Fela. Afrobeat fans have long appreciated his jazz-inspired musical arrangements with a horn section at par with the likes of Brass Construction and Earth, Wind and Fire. More recently the neo afrobeat genre, is taking the global audiences by storm with Bruna Boy, Whiz Kid, Davido and Asake to name a few.

Fela used his prodigious talent as a tool to fighting injustice, highlighting social, economic and political problems. The activism in the Ransome-Kuti family can be traced to his mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, an early anti-colonialist and women’s rights activist. She also holds the record of being the first woman in Nigeria to drive a car. His Gentleman Reverend father in retrospect, must have silently supported and approved.

Fela’s strength lay in is his intrinsic ability to tell stories about his experiences. He gauged, felt and connected with the economic, social and political issues of the common man and arranged his songs and music around them. Consequently, Fela’s recordings such as, ‘Chop and Quench’ ‘Yellow fever’, ‘Follow Follow’ Zombie’, ‘Suffering and Smiling’, ‘Power Show’ and ‘Authority Stealing’ have become an integral part of the Nigerian vocabulary and cultural landscape. Prophetic nature of Fela’s music is affirmed by the contemporary situation in Nigeria today. Poverty, lack of social infrastructure, corruption and institutional theft, are still rampant almost 30 years after his original releases highlighted these same issues. The last two years especially, has witnessed serious challenges and shocks to the fundamentals of the Nigerian Economy. Exchange rate in a year went from 460 to1000 Naira/Dollar and Inflation from 11-30%.

In 2016, GDP Growth rate crashed from 6% to -2.25% plunging the economy into recession, currently recovering within an upward trajectory growth of 2,8%. This is however still lower than our population growth of 3%. The overall impact is reflected by price increases across board, and stagnant income levels, leaving Nigerians struggling to adjust to a new reality with fuel price increase and single window exchange rate mechanism. An entry level saloon car which cost 4Million Naira 5 years ago is now retailing for 40Million Naira. In economic terms, what we have experienced in the last two years in Nigeria, is stagflation; the impact and interplay of negative GDP growth, high Inflation, high interest rates and exchange rate devaluation, resulting in high price levels, erosion of purchasing power and savings. The new government is yet to respond, despite a finance and economic coordinating minister and a new central bank governor. We await the 2024 budget to get a better idea of what the future holds. Fela already had visions of the state of Nigerian economy in 2023. In his 1989 release ‘Overtake Don Overtake Overtake, ODOO’, Fela who was not a trained economist, once again captured the mood prophetically. The song, graphically illustrates the economic reality we have experienced over the last two years. After a medley of his old songs, warning that he had sung about certain sociopolitical situations before and the issues were still current, he proceeded to tell the story of a level three civil servant saving to buy a fan. The civil servant started to save for the fan when it was 75Naira. Unfortunately by the time his savings had reached that amount, the price of the fan had gone up to 200Naira. Not to be deterred our subject saved diligently until he met up with the new price. On his way to the store to buy the fan, there was breaking news that the government had devalued the currency and introduced a second tier foreign exchange system. As a result the price of the fan had gone to 700Naira, proclaiming a situation of perpetual poverty for the common man as a result of adverse economic policies. “Government announce second tier everything tear to pieces, second bass jare”.

The turnaround expectations for the new government are high. With 95% of revenues going towards debt service and unstainable debt levels, stagflation and massive devaluation of the Naira, one wonders what Fela will make of Nigeria’s current economic predicament.

Fela was a thorn in the side of the Nigerian Military dictators, and most of his recordings were about the misrule and illegal regime of “Soldiers” and how they jailed and mistreated him. “Soldier go Soldier come” Lucky for this administration he is no longer here to comment.

With a new generation of millennials exposed to Fela’s music and the unfiltered proliferation of his music online, perhaps the best recognition of the impact Fela has had on our social, political and economic consciousness, is for the broadcast commission censors to lift the ban on certain songs, allowing unrestricted public airplay for all of Fela’s recordings.