By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi.
26-4-2025.
A television interviewer once mentioned to Fela Anipolakuti that many people from the Southern Nigeria showed their disapproval that he gave a special gift to M. D. Yusuf, the Inspector General of Police, who happened to be a noted Northern Nigerian Prince. Many notable Sotherners who avoid Northerners, were said to have raised eyebrows .
The Afro King instantly and unambiguously replied thus, “I don't care about any raised eyebrows, I care only about the person that saved my life and my career.
“During Gowon's regime, a certain policeman known as Sunday Adewusi made life unbearable for me. He promised me that I will never rest, and he made sure I never had rest because I was always arrested, beaten up, and charged to court almost on weekly basis on the orders of Sunday Adewusi. Now tell me, is Sunday Adewusi a northern Nigerian?
“Let it be known that when Murtala came to power and made M D Yesufu the inspector general, my house was never raided, not even once. I have evidence of people going to meet M D Yesufu to raid my house and get me jailed but he always replied them that "...Fela is not a criminal..."
“Why do you think Obasanjo sent soldiers to burn down my house? It was because M D Yesufu refused to obey his orders to send policemen he controlled to do such an illegal thing. So is Obasanjo a northern Nigerian, and Murtala and M D Yesufu, are they southern Nigerians?
“Even when Abiola owed me money, and I occupied his Decca building to force him to pay me my money, it was the same M D Yesufu that settled the matter. Instead of paying me my money, Abiola went to court to get a court order mandating police to arrest me and detain me but M D Yesufu refused to obey court order to arrest me but instead spoke to me like a brother. So, tell me, was Abiola a northern Nigerian, or was M D Yesufu a southern Nigerian?
“Even when I sued Obasanjo to court for burning down my house, was Justice Dosunmu that threw out my case from court a northern Nigerian? Even Tunji Braithwaite that was my lawyer at that time, didn't he bungle my case from the beginning, using me to get popular in Lagos? Was Tunji Braithwaite a northern Nigerian?
“I will never join anybody in believing that everything from southern Nigeria is good, and everything from northern Nigeria is bad. I've been helped by many Northern Nigerians, and I've been victimised by so many Southern Nigerians - Sunday Adewusi, Obasanjo, Abiola, Tunji Braithwaite, you name it.
“M D Yesufu was good to me, even though he is a Northern Nigerian, so why won't I go to his official residence to present him the gift”?
The above narrative is not primal, but an extract from the book, ‘Fela: This Bitch of a Life’, by Carlos Moore, PhD.
FELA the Afro King was the founder of this GENRE of music which was continued by his biological son, Seun Fela Anipolakuti, before it EXPLODED on the GLOBAL scene with its special dance moves, cherished in Southern Nigeria and most European and Asian countries. Many of its proponents are of course BLACK people, a lot of them are Africans in diaspora.
The country under the Presidency of a so called Muslim, is today DELIBERATELY being bisected along RELIGIOUS line by the number one citizen, EDGED on by his wife and the First Lady of the country, Senator PASTOR Remi Tinubu, who is alleged to be behind the posting of most of the people of her faith into positions of absolute authority, power and privilege in the country.
It is an incontrovertible fact that many places headed by non Muslims do not allow Muslims to perform some fundamental duties enforced on them by their religion. They are denied the rights to pray, among others. This is the voluntarily made confession of a non Muslim human rights campaigner and intellectual, who works as a lecturer in one of the First generation universities in the Southern part of Nigeria.
For example, the Friday prayer time is always assigned for some compulsory national assignments, such as writing the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) exams, while Saturdays and Sundays are made every government work-free days to allow Jews and Christian, respectively, to attend to their religious obligations.
If Muslims do that, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) would quickly allege that the country was going to be ISLAMISED. But will be DEAFENINGLY loud by its SILENCE, when the victims are Muslims.
By the way, the president’s wife, who is said to have borne him three (3) children, namely Zainab Abisola Tinubu, Habibat Tinubu, and Olayinka Tinubu, is alleged to be shuttling between non Islamic communities in the North, playing the religious card, urging the people to dump the Hausa/Fulani Muslim majority, embrace and vote for her husband in 2027, to get even more better deals.
No sincerely followers of any religion, except they are devil worshippers, would prefer that millions (literally) suffer, while they themselves enjoy the most that the moment may provide for them. To be that callous is not the teaching of any self respecting religion, like Islam.
The First Lady is a bonafide Pastor in the Redeemed Church of Christ, a Church said to belong to the immediate past Vice President of the country, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, who had served as the Justice Commissioner of Tinubu, when he was the Governor of Lagos State.
By the way, as far as the average Southern Nigeria people (the voters and the thugs are among them) are concerned, ALL Northerners are the accursed Hausa, Fulani Muslims, whether or not one is so. The narrative is almost always propagated and encouraged by many of the elites in the region.
Some of the so called members of the Establishment (elites) In Churches, traditional institutions and a few in the business sector, even go out of their way to discourage their fellow Southerners from visiting the Northern part of the country, painting it with the blackest of paints, using the blackest of brushes to achieve their EVIL ambition. And they know that they are lying, all along, because some of the things they accused the North of, do ACTUALLY take place in some places in their backyard.
May God save us, and Nigeria as a whole, from the clutches of CLUELESS and CORRUPT leaders, who only feel safe when they divide the people along religious and ethnic lines, which are in no way respecters of poverty and hunger, the TWIN evils that are NOW rampant in the country.
Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.
