What Would Fela Think? Nigeria 30 Years Later

It is 2012, more than 30 years on since Fela Kuti released such landmark titles as ITT, Original Suffer Head, and Power Show, weaving political content into killer rhythms that just could not be ignored - neither by music fans nor by the authorities. In 1982, Fela was at the height of his international fame and toured the world as a star. But in his home country of Nigeria, Fela's activism was highly controversial in its day and led to his being constantly harassed, savagely beaten, repeatedly imprisoned and worse. Why? Fela used music as the weapon of the future to attack repression, corruption, squalor, and poverty in the Lion of Africa, one of the world's leading oil producing nations where, by his estimation, every black man should be a millionaire (or so the billboard says at the New Africa Shrine). 

30 years on and the military dictatorships of the 1980s are history, replaced by elected civilian rulers. Oil has continued to flow, bringing an estimated $500 billion into Nigeria's coffers since independence. The centrally-planned economy of the past is gone, replaced by privatization and private ownership. Nigeria is now classified as a middle income economy by the World Bank. GDP growth has been robust for decade. 

Last week I attended a workshop in Abuja and learned some startling statistics underlying the current state of development. The poverty rate in Nigeria has actually DOUBLED in the last 30 years. 42% of Nigerian children suffer from malnutrition. 80% of women and girls in the 8 northern states are illiterate. There are 100 million Nigerians living in extreme poverty. That is today, 30 years on, in this "middle income" country, not 1982 under the kleptocratic military dictatorship. Not to mention that 60 to 65% of Nigerian households still cook with firewood, leading to the world's fastest deforestation rate, even though the country is listed is the world's tenth largest oil producer. 30 years on from Tony Allen's NEPA and No Accommodation for Lagos, power outages are still chronic, housing is perpetually short, there is no sewage, no potable water, poor health care, collapsing public education...and the UK's Guardian newspaper estimated in late July that £196 billion (over $300 billion) in oil wealth has flooded out of Nigeria into offshore bank accounts since the 1970s, which is more than 60% of cumulative oil revenues. 

Fela departed this world 15 years ago. You better ask yourself, what would Fela think about today's Nigeria?