How Governments Conspire with the Rich to Rob the Poor in Africa – Seun Kuti

Seun Kuti

Published By: Ayorinde Oluokun Grammy nominee, Seun Kuti, is a study in commitment and activism. The internationally- renowned  Afrobeat musician, who has since the demise of his father, Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti, been fighting for the betterment of the lives of the African people, is set to release his latest album, “Heavier Yet (Lays The Crownless Head)” on Friday 4th October, 2024. In this interview with  NEHRU ODEH , he speaks about the album, the continuing pauperization of the poor and how professionals in Nigeria work hand in hand with governments to rob the poor. Seun is also set to embark on his European and UK Heavier Yet tour which starts on 10 October. Congratulations on the release of your latest single, “Stand Well Well” and your album, “Heavier Yet (lays The  Crownless Head), which will be released tomorrow”. Tell me about the single and the album. The album is called “Heavier Yet (Lays the Crownless Head)”. It is out on the 4th of October. And as the title suggests, it is a working-class rethought of the popular phrase which says heavy is the head that wears the crown.  So I reply, “Heavier yet (lays the crownless head)”.  Regardless of how the elites want us to feel like their position brings them all these worries and stress – at least they can sleep on their comfortable beds in their big houses and turn on their air conditioners –  we must still concentrate the efforts as a nation on the upliftment of our people, the restoration of their dignity. And so that is the idea behind the album. “Stand Well Well” basically addresses society’s impact on the psyche of young people, and their misplaced priorities especially when it comes to how we exercise our freedom. The young African people are not educated to understand that freedom is a responsibility. We are made to feel due to the excesses of our leaders, both business and political,  that freedom is about excesses, to do how you like. But that is irresponsibility. Freedom is truly self-discipline. Do as you like is easy – drinking, smoking, being rude, being unsympathetic, unempathetic, not caring, as they say, not giving a f..k. These are easy things to do. Freedom is the ability to make the hard decisions. That is where freedom lies, in that responsible, self-disciplined act of knowing that one must sacrifice pleasure for growth. That is what “Stand Well Well” really means. It stands for real but in more simple terms, in musical terms. You are also interrogating George Orwell’s popular dystopian novel, “Nineteen Eighty-Four“, that you prefer Aldous “Huxley’s Brave New World”. Could you speak to that?  History has proven Orwell’s critique to be wrong. Because he predicts socialist repression, this future is under socialist repression and everybody under mass surveillance, like the world will be controlled by mass surveillance. I cannot deny that there is mass surveillance in the world quite alright, but that is not what controls people.  Aldous Huxley, in “The Brave New World” accurately predicts that the world will be controlled by the conditioning of the professionals, of the classes, the conditioning of the classes that would lead to self-censorship. So nobody needs to tell you. You will tell yourself, “Bob don’t misbehave”. And most especially many of the Big Brother aspect of the world is fought for today by capitalist governments, not the Party socialist government Orwell depicts in Nineteen Eighty-Four).   These repressions, these endless wars he speaks of If he had predicted it as the natural evolution of capitalist societies, then it would have been true.  But is a big critic of socialism, even in his book, “Animal Farm”, which we all are forced to read here as kids so that we don’t understand the political concept of it, Nigerian people understand “Animal Farm “like oh everybody is the same kind of thing, but we don’t understand the. So Aldous Huxley’s description of a ‘spiritualized’, ‘desacralized’ self-censored conditioned future is more accurate. If you read Aldous Huxley, he even predicts TikTok in a way. He predicts Tinder. Being that he wrote the book in the 1920s, there was no word for these things. There was no way for you to know that there will be social media that is what we would use to fashion this. When you hear a song, through TikTok, everybody is programmed to dance the song the same way.  Sex is just swiping randomly and you have it with anybody you like with a push of a button. It is not even advisable to have a partner. Nobody wants to say I have a girlfriend.  Celebrity is the personification of the status quo. How many celebrities do you see will say I’m in a relationship?  Because the status quo does not accept being in a relationship anymore (laughs). It predicts all this. So that is why I think he is accurate. How long did it take you to produce “Heavier Yet (Lays the Crownless Head)”? I can’t say. My last album was six years ago.  And we were ready to record this album four years ago.  Although the project has changed in between we have done other projects in between. I have released two side projects in these six years. But I just want to release a full album. I can say it took that six years to make.   I can say it took one year to make. And both will be accurate (laughs). Seun Kuti Did you face any difficulties trying to get it done? My band changed in between. During Covid, due to the lack of work, most of my band members decided to relocate to the United States. So I had to get a new band in between. And my tour was about to start.  I was about to record last summer And before then I didn’t have time to even prepare because I had the whole police issue in Nigeria. So yeah in the beginning it was quite hectic. But once I got into the rhythm of it, it was okay. You’ve been on the music scene for decades, right from when you were very young. So how has it been, considering the kind of socially conscious music you play and the way the country is right now? Have things changed? Do you mean musically or nationally? I mean nationally. The struggle continues. Nationally, globally, it’s true. And even locally, in our communities, the struggle continues.  We as a people in Nigeria don’t look at how far we have come. And certain people must block our hindsight so we don’t have a perspective of how far we have come. When I was growing up in Nigeria, it was almost a death sentence to be a journalist. You can’t even move at night. And gently through struggle, through agitation, we’ve gotten to this stage. Maybe we were a bit tired after 33 years of battling the military,  from 1966 to 1999, and the people took a break. But I think that spirit of progressive ideals, of revolutionary instinct, is being reborn in our nation again. It is not only due to our natural proclivities but also due to the nonchalance and deliberate wickedness of our business and political elite who have refused to fulfil their side of the social contract but continue to heap the responsibilities of developing Nigeria on its people. The neoliberal principle is that only the working classes and poor should pay for the development of the country, whereas the people who are benefiting from the resources can just keep the money, stash the money away and enjoy the money as they will with it. You mean there are huge demands on the poor, while the rich get things easily … Yes.  There are huge demands on the poor while the rich get things easily without any responsibility back to society, even though they are the ones who are given all the benefits of our society. You once said we’ve all been kidnapped. How? Yes, we have all been kidnapped. If you are a Lagosian, you’ve been kidnapped. Whether you like it or not you must have been kidnapped. No Lagosian that has been walking on the street has ever experienced this one day, Danfo just parked next to you, heavily armed men jump out, carry you and put you inside.  And you’ve done nothing. And your family will come and pay to bring you outside. Bail is free. So the one that they pay to bring you outside is not bail.  It’s ransom. So that’s kidnap. The biggest kidnappers in Nigeria are the Nigerian police. Anybody can be kidnapped in Nigeria.  Na police teach kidnappers work (laughs). Funny enough, immediately I said it, everybody was online yabbing me. Police people were saying rubbish. The next two days the Ogun State Police Command caught three police kidnappers. I said, Ehn ehn (laughs). Since then they have caught more than 20 policemen involved in kidnapping. So, when it is part of the real job, the so-called job, you are seeing your people that you should be protecting, you just carry them and put them inside danfo. You know. All these kinds of things. You worked with Damian Marley on Dey, which has already been submitted for the Grammy. What was it like working with him? We were not in the studio at the same time when we did it. He was in Jamaica but we were communicating. We had a good relationship. It was just something we wanted to do so that we could make this moment happen in history, where the Kutis and the Marleys did something together. You once said the Nigerian media doesn’t talk about your Grammy nominations the way it should. Can you shed more light on that? What I said is that even when the albums that got the nomination got nominated no awards ceremony in Africa gave us any nomination for the same record.  So it was a bit weird. What was the cause of that? I don’t even want to know. You’ve always spoken about the love you have for your wife, Yeide. Yet many consider some of your views about marriage unorthodox, for instance, you once said you don’t believe in marriage … Not in the normal concept, people believe. Generally, I don’t believe that love is ownership. Because it is the capitalist interpretation of love that it is only things that we own have value. If you don’t own it it should have no value to you. But as Africans, we’ve always known that your neighbour’s child is still your child.  Everybody looks out for everybody.  Afenifere is a Yoruba way. Buntu in South Africa. Every culture in Africa has the cultural ethos that we share the same common destiny as a people so that we all look out for one another. But the rugged individualism of African capitalism makes us feel that if you don’t own somebody you can’t love the person. That is a different thing entirely. So I don’t believe in that concept of marriage that brings ownership into it. Seun Kuti: Coachella postponed till October You don’t believe in DNA testing too? No. Not that. I said the whole DNA discussion is a patriarchal issue of power, that all the men that are shouting DNA, DNA is because they feel they have something to lose. And men cannot get pregnant. So I explained that even you are sitting like this now.  If you meet the daughter of Elon Musk and she tells you to come and meet me at my house tomorrow. You now go to her house to see her the next day.  As soon as you see her, she says “Oh welcome.” She hugs you. She says “Follow me”. She takes you to meet her father and says “Dad, he is the father. He is the father of my baby.” Will you say no? (laughs) Will you say you’re not the father? You’ve not f..k oo. You’ve not seen her breasts before. Just that the daughter of Elon Musk has proclaimed that you are the father of her child. Elon Musk now says to you, “Go and do a DNA test.” Will you agree? (laughs). So, the whole DNA issue doesn’t have to do with paternity. It’s the power thing. It’s the issue of the belief that we have something to lose. It’s the belief that the person we are giving birth to is our blood that will inherit our property. But the only blood you can be sure of is the blood from the children of the mother. Do you believe in religion? If you do, what faith do you profess?  Africa doesn’t have religion, but I believe in the African spiritual system. That means you’re not an atheist. No. No. No. When I was younger I used to be an atheist. Atheism in itself is incomplete without the understanding of African spirituality. Atheism is against theism. So we can embrace the African spiritual system and still be atheists.  I don’t believe that atheism means you don’t believe anything bigger than man exists. Africa’s spiritual system does not tie into that. Because there are things that connect all of us as living things.  Even our DNA accepts that. All living things are connected. A human being is one chromosome removed from a firefly in our DNA makeup.  So that’s the connection between all living things. And atheism does not deny that connection. It can be both. Atheism for me is to say I don’t believe in any theory of spirituality. What is your take on President Bola Tinubu’s removal of fuel subsidy, considering the hardship that Nigerians are currently facing? It goes to show again the hypocrisy of the Nigerian professionals. I have said it all the time. If the Nigerian professionals continue to align with these oppressors, they will make sure that the chicken change they pay all of you is what you will be donating to run this country. They will never use out of the accumulated wealth to take care of their responsibility. Because if the Nigerian professionals are shouting today that things are hard – okay petrol price has gone up, dollar price has gone up, things are hard – I say let’s pause and go back to when one Naira was equal to one Dollar, were people suffering? They weren’t suffering as they are now. It is only people who had work that were not suffering.  Millions of Nigerians were in poverty.  That was when Fela was singing suffering and smiling. Dollar was one-to-one at that time.  Petrol was 25 kobo per litre. When it was 150 Naira to one Dollar, petrol was 65 Naira per litre. How many Nigerians were suffering?   65 per cent of Nigerians were living on two dollars per day. Even till now. Another five per cent on one dollar.  90 per cent of Nigerians have stagnated in poverty since 1980. The Nigerian professionals have ignored them. And they are shouting today that Nigeria is hard, as if it just happened yesterday as if it is not the same policies and principles that have kept the  90 per cent down. You’ve been able to drive your big cars around that they have given you money to buy and you are living in a nice apartment,  do “I am better than you”, and go and share testimonies in church to make them jealous. Nigerian professionals must align with their people. Are you talking about the elite? No. The professionals. We the working people. The elite. They are lost.  They can’t be changed.  There is nothing they can do to change. That is one important thing we must tell ourselves the truth about. For over 60 years they’ve not been able to fix one problem in the country, not even the problem of giving potable water to their people. They’ve not done it in 60 years. But all of them have private jets, build houses all over the world, all the best clothes, all the best cars, they don’t secure that one. Thoma Sankara said, “We must decide: Champagne for a few or water for everybody.”  Where is the sacrifice on their part that they are asking you people to make? And the. Nigerian professionals have always agreed to make the sacrifice to spite the poor, instead of aligning with the poor to change the system. They want to hold on to their false privileges.  Pay one Naira per litre for petrol. Okay, we agree. From there to five Naira, we agree. Eleven Naira, we agree. Twenty Naira, we agree. Twenty-two Naira, they agree. Twenty-five Naira, they agree. All this while, all these policies, those prices are going up, and people behind them are becoming poorer and poorer and poorer.  More tied down. The ones who could send their children to school could not do it anymore. Fewer and fewer people will not be educated. Even the ones that have been educated could not be educated properly. Yet they agree. One day from 25 it goes to 65 Naira, and from there, it goes to 80 Naira. Yar Adua entered, dragged Am back to 67 for everybody, and they agreed. Ninety-seven, they protest. Now they have not agreed. Are you not seeing them going to work every day? He never reaches. Are you saying things are going to get worse? Even banks charging you stamp duty, this and that fee, anything they can use to dip their hand in everybody’s pocket is done.  You pay tax and then Value Added Tax. All this is paid for by the professionals of Nigeria. I’m telling you. See, during COVID, we shouted that all that palliative money they should not buy anything. They should just share the money directly for everybody’s account. Nigerians say they do trust the government. Finance minister and Lai Mohammed came outside to say they would have done that but only 48 per cent of Nigerians have bank accounts. So, people are existing in this country who don’t even have bank accounts. They no dey enter the spa. They no know all these things wey una dey do. You people are the ones that are wasting this country. Na una need funds, need a car. All the dollars from our crude oil, have to change to to support your consuming needs. And we are not willing to sacrifice any of these privileges. So that the majority of our people can come out of poverty. And really what they need from us is not to do anything more from us other than just to align with them to build a political alliance that we need to form a government that will represent everybody.  But we all think we are oppressors in waiting, millionaires in waiting. One day it will be my turn. So, that is what we must truly address. The elite of this country, both business and political, are always gonna be like this. They are always gonna be selfish, wicked and greedy. Why we align with them is the question we must ask ourselves. We can’t think of things only from our perspective.  When the dollar was one to one-, tens of millions of Nigerians were in poverty. So, what is the way out? I just said it- political alignment with the people That the professionals of Nigeria – the bankers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, lecturers, teachers, journalists, musicians, everybody  – they have been able to find some comfort within the oppression of this country. Align with the people, and politicize the people so that we can build political platforms that can bring true representation to the people. We are tired of mortgaging our souls just to pay school fees and house rents when we live in a country that can provide quality public schools and affordable housing. But we rather kill ourselves in this game than do the work to use our country for our benefit.  It is not by coincidence that there are no functioning public institutions. Some people coerce the government and lobby the government to defund these programmes. I wonder how much the budget of the National Assembly of Nigeria is. I am sure the budget for education in Nigeria is not up to, if care is not taken, what they spend for themselves in the executive. Anytime they want to do anything in Nigeria, they have to borrow money. But did you hear that they borrowed money to buy a presidential jet?  When the government needed 150 million dollars for jets,  that is how much? Over a trillion Naira in today’s money. Trillions of Naira. Did they say PPP (Public-Private Partnership)? Did you hear that? Did you hear PPP? The money came out. If they decide to build one hospital now, one road, school they will start to wax poetic about how we have to go to China, to go to this and that to source the money.  But when they needed a Presidential yacht, five billion. How much was that? Hundreds of millions of dollars. Now, now now.Buah! Without announcement that they needed PPP. That one dey sweet them, PPP., PPP (laughs). Before you ask anything, PPP (laughs). They want to build a two billion naira refurbished Aso Rock hospital,  you cannot hear PPP for that one. Vice President House, twenty-something billion. You cannot hear all these things. The money is there. But when it comes to delivering any service for Nigerian people, they will say PPP (laughs). “We need to go to China, World Bank. Everybody come o, we want to do 100 metres of road. For some people”. When they are building their private house. They dey tar the whole compound pass express before you reach the main house. And they go tar am, they go do light. Nigeria is a different place … Just recently there was this #Endbadgovernance protest which rocked the whole country. And another one just took place on October 1. Do you think protest is the solution? Yes, protest is part of the rights of the people.  But we must not protest alone. We must protest and also actively participate in politics. When Fela transited in 1997, you were 14 years old.  Yes. And since then you’ve been the the leader of the Egypt 80 band. How have you been able to cope with transitional changes due to the vagaries of time,  old age of band members and other unexpected circumstances? Time does that but the good thing is that we always train people. As the band is growing up, they are under study to make sure that there can be ease of transition. Seun Anikulapo-Kuti You are a pan-Africanist. What do you think is the problem with Africa? Why is it still underdeveloped? The underdevelopment of Africa is tied to the fact that it is still under the imperialist control of foreign governments. There is a direct relationship between European predators, African slavers and the African elite today. What is missing is that Africans have been excluded from the decisions that relate to Africa.  We’ve not been allowed to be in charge of our affairs as African people.  What we have is black faces in high places, but they don’t serve the interests of African people.  And a lot of money is spent to keep that the way it is. A lot of assassinations have happened to keep that the way it is. But I know that in every generation Africa moves scale a bit forward to get to the point where we can be proud of, to say okay we are leaving something great for the next generations of Africans. Africa’s underdevelopment is a direct consequence of colonialism. And also we are in the peculiar position where we have an elite that is not on the side of their people. I think that is one of the biggest handicaps for Africa as well. Many of the people who control power in Africa do not believe that they are African people.  When Buhari was president, I said to someone, imagine if a nuclear bomb escapes from a silo in Europe or America and this nuclear bomb has gone rogue, you can’t tell it to go anywhere else, it has locked on Mecca, Saudi Arabia or Lagos, Nigeria and we have a President, Buhari and the American government calls him. They didn’t even call Saudi Arabia, they call Buhari. They say, President Buhari, of Nigeria, “Please tell us, this our bomb where should it go, Mecca or Lagos? Choose. It is where you choose that we will send the bomb.” Where do you think in your mind that that bomb is going? And the fact that this is a hypothetical question, answers my question (laughs). But do you think Africans are united or can ever be united? What we understand as unity is some kind of dancing outside, holding each other’s hand and that we must like each other. Unity is to have a goal in common. That is why I say our elite are not on our side. They don’t have national goals or visions in common. They have individualistic goals and vision. None of them come together to improve or build anything. They are like individual titans holding on to their positions. There is no cooperation to develop. Say this year we want to concentrate on getting a working steel mill so that we can start producing metals in our country. Let’s research and develop a proper rubber mill to get things that we can start making our plastic. All these industries that we need to develop, our railroads, our roads, and the transport system take a unity of purpose that they lack because they are individuals. They see themselves as individuals. They don’t see themselves as part of a country or in charge of anything. So that has failed us as a people, the fact that they don’t have the unity of purpose.  They make it seem as if it is tribalism- “Nigerians don’t like themselves,  the Igbo hate Hausa” etc, say. This is a global thing. I went to school in England and I know for a fact that in the United Kingdom, nobody likes themselves there. Within England, everybody in the north hates everybody in the south. Within the United Kingdom itself, the English hate the Scots, the Scots hate the English, and the Irish hate themselves. They divided themselves into two countries, which shows how much they hate themselves. The Welsh don’t like anybody, nobody likes the Welsh. Is it Europe? They have a European Union that works together for a single purpose.  But within those countries did they like themselves? Hell no.  The French don’t like the English, the English don’t like the French, the Belgians don’t like the Germans. Nobody likes the Germans.  And the Germans don’t like anybody (laughs). The Dutch and the Belgians, rivals. The Spanish and the Portuguese cannot stand themselves, they don’t want to see themselves. The Italians and Spanish, do the same thing.  The rivalry is intense, so intense that these people have fought fratricidal wars. Two world wars in our own time alone, think about it.  Still, their elite can be imaginative enough to share goals and purpose. This is where our so-called elite is lacking because they are not true elite in any way. They’re just puppets. Africans still need to rear their own true, pan-Africanist elite that comes from their own people’s wishes and will for development.  This elite has come from exploitation and individualism. Maybe that is another reason why they are the way they are. They also talk about tribalism as the reason we are not united. Tribalism is only for Nigerian issues. Nobody discusses tribalism when it comes to their own companies.  All these big companies in Nigeria have all kinds of Nigerians from everywhere working with them. But they all make big profits, even the banks,  every year, all the banks. Tribalism doesn’t affect them inside there. Everybody is working there – the Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Benin – and they are all making profits. But Nigeria is the only country that cannot develop because these people are living there. It is a construct. It is an excuse that they empower so that they can use it as a crutch. It doesn’t truly exist, if it Is not fed. And they don’t feed it in their companies. All Nigerians want is to make a profit. Tribalism doesn’t crumble it. There is so much insecurity in the country, and cases of missing persons every day. What is your take on that? There is no time since I have been growing up that insecurity has not crippled us in this county.  It’s just that now the people are telling the truth. What their eyes see, the government cannot bribe only you people not to report it.  People have their phones.  For instance, look at the Jukun and Benue people. My former manager is from Benue. I have known him for 26 years. There is no day they have had peace in his community. For 26 years there have been kidnappings, and killings in that community. Different crises have always been rocking the poorer regions of the country The last time one was exposed was the military of this country that went to eradicate the people of Odi.  It was one of the last publications of Champion newspaper, if I remember correctly before they shut it down. Was it bandits that went to do that? Was it the bandits that went to Zaki Biam and killed everybody there? Or was it bandits that came to my father’s house? Our governments and the elite of this country are the only ones who have enjoyed killing ordinary Nigerians. And we refused to call them out for what they are.  Who can afford a gun?  As I said the professionals of this country  So that is the issue we have in this country, the fact that people are not told the truth. We say it to Nigerians in a sensational way. All these things are just escalating now. Look at how things are bad in this country. Instead of them knowing that things have been bad for a long time so that they will be more active, we are making everything look like it is new.  Let them know that it will never stop if they don’t do something about it. It has been happening since I was born in this country.  Now the reason why they dey calls them bandits be said there are cameras all over the country.  They just wear their uniform and go do what they do normally.  In many of these places that they go, Very Dark Black Man went to that community in Jos where they went to kill people last time.  Wetin’ full the ground? Mineral resources. It’s a land grab, chasing people out of rich, fertile areas so that rich corporations can come and excavate there, take the resources or farm there, whatever they want to use it for.  Nobody can tell me that Boko Haram attacking schools is not directly correlated with the fact that if you remove schools from any neighbourhood, all the poor people must leave that neighbourhood. Because education is the only way for their kids to leave their situation. Poor people value education more than the rich. If rich man pikin say he dey comot for school, im parents go say eh what do you want to now do with your life But poor man pikin no fit even talk am.  They go beat you eh, you go wake up when you graduate (laughs).  That beating wey they beat you na when you graduate you go wake up from am. You say,” Ha how did I reach here? How did I graduate?”You’re just waking up from a coma of like 12 years. You have been on autopilot for 12 years since that beating (laughs) So Boko Haram knows full well that if you attack schools people will move. That opens the fact to me that is what all that is going on  – the displacement of poor Nigerians.  And nobody can tell me that rich people are not involved in the insecurity of this country.