Opinion

Fela Legacy: How Long Drawn War With Binitie Family Cost The Kutis Fela’s Shrine (pics)

Fela Used To Make Me Write His Lyrics While He Used The Toilet”
Fela’s eldest son, Femi Kuti

Years before the death of Afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Pepple street in Ikeja was a Mecca of some sort for his energetic fans who throng the area every week to be thrilled to free live music mostly full of innuendoes attacking politicians and the elites. The street housed Fela’s club turned ‘worship’ centre – The Afrika Shrine, but shortly after his death, his family lost the facility to the real owners after a legal battle.

The club formerly known as Afro-Spot was located on the junction of Folarin Street, opposite his former house on 14A Agege Motor Road, in Mushin, Lagos. At Afro-spot which he later renamed ‘The Afrika Shrine’, Fela held regular gigs where fans were privileged to hear his new songs before they were recorded and released. Most of these songs were direct attacks on the government and discussions on current affairs.

After the February 18, 1977 attack on his home ‘Kalakuta Republic’ by soldiers which inspired the song ‘unknown soldiers’, Fela built another house (a two-storey building) at 7, Gbemisola street off Allen Avenue (present day Kalakuta Museum) and relocated to Ikeja. He also moved his club ‘The Shrine’ to Pepple Street, in Ikeja. A fence demarcated Pepple street from the Nigerian Police Force College.

On Sunday and Tuesday, Fela held performances that put pressure on Pepple street with the large crowd of mostly young people, he added a ‘Divination Night,’ on Saturday where he incorporated ritual services into his musical compositions, and on Fridays were for discussions about current affairs and politics. On these days, mobile marijuana and alcohol traders, and a swarm of fans besiege Pepple street. It was fun for them but pain for many residents of the area, especially members of the Church of Christ which was directly opposite The Shrine on Pepple Street.

A member of the Church told The Sun in 2016 that while Fela was alive, the church was constantly praying to God for a miracle that would either move the Shrine or the Church away from Pepple street when they couldn’t bear the menace of Fela’s fans who adopted the church premises as their escape route whenever police invaded the Shrine.

“In those days, anytime the police came for a raid they would jump over our fence in order to escape from them. But the problem is, they would still be smoking their Igbo (Indian hemp) and filling everywhere with the smoke while they were hiding inside the church premises,” the resident said.

The club grew to become one of Fela’s image, unarguably, one of his biggest legacies besides his music, and Pepple street was the convergence point of all lovers of his music and protégés. Unknown to many of the fans who throng ‘The Shrine’ every week, the property where the club was built on Pepple street is owned by the Binitie Family who leased the site to Fela.

Maybe the prayer of the Church of Christ, Fela’s neighbours, was eventually answered, when Fela died in 1997, the Binities demanded their land back and insisted they would not deal with Fela’s family leading to a long drawn legal battle. According to PM News report on October 20, 1998, the Federal Court of Appeal’s judgement of October 19, 1998 ordering the Anikulapo-Kuti family to move out of Afrika Shrine on Pepple street by January 31, 1999, laid to rest the years of legal battle between the Kutis and the Binities.

On December 30, 1998, one month before the agreed deadline, the Binities “accompanied by police, threw out musical instruments which included loud speakers, drums and amplifiers on the streets as members of Fela’s ‘Egypt 80 Band’ looked on helplessly,” Inter Press Service (IPS) reported on January 12, 1999.

Bayo Binitie, one of the owners, told IPS that the fight to take back the property from Fela began 16 years before the judgement in 1998. He had claimed his brother, Michael Binitie, who rented out the property to Fela in 1978, did him a favour after his home was attacked by soldiers. “That time nobody wanted Fela near him or her,” he said. “We gave him a place to perform, but today we cannot wait till January 31 to effect the court order”.

After the forced eviction, Jide Ogunye of Femi Falana chambers (Kutis lawyers), had threatened to institute another court case after the property were thrown out before the agreed date. “We had made all plans to leave before January 31,” Ogunye said. “But because of the new development the court might intervene again. We are likely to take them to court for damages and for disrupting our shows which should have come up on the New Year eve and on January 1, 1999 at the shrine.”

Fans were disarrayed by the eviction, many of them who had adopted the Shrine as their second home and place of comfort became heartbroken. Today, the land which once housed The Afrika Shrine is occupied by the Mene Binitie Plaza in the heart of Computer Village.

Fela’s eldest son, Femi, had said the band must perform rituals to appease Kuti’s gods before the shrine could be moved to a new site. “It will be unwise to just move the shrine without first appeasing Fela Kuti’s gods,” he said.

Fela’s fourth child and second son, who manages the Kalakuta Republic (now a museum), Kunle Anikulapo-Kuti told The Sun in 2016 while lamenting the loss of the building, “I feel very bad whenever I am passing through Computer Village and see that structure. That is something that should have been preserved. But I understand the owners wanted it back.

“We offered a deal but they refused. We lost the case in court. But I would have loved it if the state government had intervened and acquired that place. There’s a great history there.”

The New Afrika Shrine

On October 15, 2000, Fela’s eldest son, Femi Kuti, who has been promoting his legacy through his music opened the New Afrika Shrine in Agidingbi area of Ikeja, Lagos, which is bigger and has more space than the old Shrine, now surrounded by shopping complexes where computer and mobile phones are sold. 20 years later, the New Afrika Shrine has grown to become a tourist attraction. On July 3, 2018, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron visited the Shrine thus becoming the first president to visit the centre.

New Afrika Shrine
French President Emmanuel Macron shares stage with Femi Kuti on his visit to the New Afrika Shrine in 2018.    Photo: Aljazeera

“Fela was not just a musician. He was a politician who wanted to change society,” Macron said during his visit. “So if I have one message for young people, it’s this: Yes, politics is important; yes, be involved.

This story was first published on June 11, 2020.Cover design by Tobi Yinka

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *