Ben Bruce-Murray calls on Buhari to officially apologise for jailing Fela following Macron's visit

BAYELSA East's Senator Ben Bruce-Murray has called on the Nigeria government to officially apologise to the family of late Afrobeat king Fela Anikulapo-Kuti for sending him to jail in 1984 following the recent visit of French president Emmanuel Macron.

Last week, President Macron paid an official visit to Nigeria and as part of his trip, he made a trip to Fela's famous shrine in Lagos. Once an intern with the French embassy in Nigeria, President Macron said Fela symbolised African culture and while at the shrine, encouraged Nigerian youth to do more to sell such culture worldwide.

In 1984, when President Muhammadu Buhari was a military head of state, Fela was arrested and tried on trumped-up currency charges and spent over a year in jail. Describing Fela as the greatest leader to come out of Africa and a tourist attraction, Senator Bruce-Murray said it took a president of a former white colonial master to recognise him and the African Shrine, while our own president, burnt his house, broke his jaw and even jailed him.

Senator Bruce-Murray added:  "Fela is an icon, the greatest in Africa. Fela is a tourist attraction and more people know Fela than the name of any president in the history of Nigeria.

"Fela is Mr tourism, so the federal government must apologise to Fela and offer him restitution. It took a president of a former white colonial master to recognise Fela and the African Shrine, while our own president, burnt his house, broke his jaw and even jailed him for having £1,600 in his pocket.”

During his lifetime, Fela had constant run-ins with the Nigerian government due to his constant criticism of successive regimes. In 1977, when former president Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was military head of state, about 1,000 soldiers attacked Fela's Kalakuta Republic, burning his house to the ground.

In the inquiry that followed, it was revealed that Fela was severely beaten and his elderly mother, whose house was located opposite the commune was thrown from a first story window. Fela's studio, instruments, and master tapes were destroyed in the fire and he claimed that he would have been killed had it not been for the intervention of a commanding officer as he was being beaten.

Since Fela's death in 1997, there has been a revival of his influence in music and popular culture, culminating in another re-release of his catalogue controlled by Universal Music, Broadway and off-Broadway biographically based shows. In 1999, Universal Music France, remastered the 45 albums that it controlled and released them on 26 compact discs.