It all started when he met the black queen, Sandra, a student of Sociology and a member of a movement in the United States of America known as Black Panther. To her eternal credit, she introduced him to African history, tradition, culture and ancestors.

In those dark days, she proved to him that Africa was rich in knowledge, thoughts, ideas, what have you, and any African who spends time to understand these things was assured of not losing his or her way.

Theirs was a noteworthy story which went beyond love, intimacy and sexual attraction. He was a student of his lover and he learned under the canopy of her sleek bosom, which he would freely slide in his fingers and click on whenever he was tired of undergoing that onerous task called learning. What a good way to be a student!

Prior to her teachings, he was a man who was in every way lost. He had no voice of his own and was just another being in the dichotomous planet called earth, which made him want to fit himself into the odd ways of the Western world. He called it cool and lost in thoughts (KOOLA LOBITOS), unknown to him that the continent from which he emerged was that rich garden where the tree of human civilization was first planted.

He was a blind man walking with a stick, but Sandra gave him his sight. That transformative miracle which she performed begot the man we know as Fela: a justified prophet, voice of the oppressed, and the one and only Black President.

Once, this man was asked: If you were voted in as the president of Nigeria, what would be your socio-political ideology? He responded in classic Fela: No Marxism, no Leninism, pure Africanism.

Pan-Africanist, Philosopher, Rebel and Artiste. An okunrin meta. As a strongman who engaged in a highly demanding business, his trade required that he spoke consciously, veraciously and aggressively, yet he didn't shy away from those bubbling and bouncing triplets.

Fela carried out his daily business transactions in double legal tender: timeliness and fearlessness through a distinguished form of art known as music. Adjudged crazy and sick by the powers that be, but those who vomited those words were the stinky mouths whose ears and skin could not bear that devilish tickle that accompanied his scathing lyrics. It left them frantic with worry.

When he mounted the stage, all the musical instruments jostled for his attention, but vintage Fela who had an insatiable penchant for exquisiteness derived from a peculiar thirst for excellence would prefer to take each one at a time in order to achieve a combination of accurate sound, flow and tempo for the message he wished to pass across.

His instruments were ready and willing tools to aid his relentless cause for speaking against tragic personalities that rode over Nigerians roughshod. They were his uncompromising apparatus for downing the downpressors (apologies to Peter Tosh).

His lyrics were the ballistic missiles that kept the dangerous class restless, sleepless and in endless check. He acted as the fifth estate of the realm as such, he sometimes threw them off their shameful thrones. A constant thorn in the flesh of the establishments. He was like the proverbial cat that has nine lives. Kill him, he won't die as he already had death in his mysterious pouch.

He did things in his own unique way. No notable school of thought, no ideology can be attributed to him as an African philosopher. Abami Eda cannot be added to the same sentence as national Philosophers such as Senghor, who preached Negritude; Osagyefo Nkrumah, whom he admired; Julius Nyerere, nor his friend, who was assassinated by reactionary elements that, thwarted the grand ideas of that crusader for a united, and a newly-emerging Africa. May the killer/s of that Africa voice christened Sankara by his forbears not know peace.

Yet, he was an African philosopher of a quintessential pedigree. His love for African Traditional Religion (ATR), and belief in the practices and all that it constitutes could be seen in his constant romance with gods and goddesses in the Afrika Shrine. It's also embedded in his songs and interview sessions.

For instance, Water No Get Enemy, having bracketed the lyrics of that song just as it is within the epoché of African hermeneutics. Viewed through the prism of Husserl's Phenomenology and transcendental idealism, I am obliged to say Fela was extolling the powers of the Yoruba water goddess, Osun and elevating the idea of animism. He saw water as an extent force (apologies to Tempels) that can be used for miraculous deeds as Osun worshippers have proved countless times over the years hence it has no enemy.

But Fela had enemies, loads and loads of them. His enemies were the principalities and powers that have turned, twisted and taken the shine off this contraption of ours. His foes were the demonic figures that emerged from Nations. His foes were the Beasts who created the bad bad society, "'egbe kegbe." They were the Beasts of No Nation.

A reminder: Long ago, he saw that Nigeria was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode, it's no coincidence that the ruler who's detonating that bomb is the man he tagged "craze man in human skin." He's a Justified Prophet.

15, October 1938 --- August 2, 1997

Originally Written By: Dickson Omobola


https://iyeyiexprex.com/fela-a-justified-prophet/