The event was quaintly tagged ‘AFRICA FUTURE’. The date was 26th November, 2015.
It was billed to start at 6 pm. The venue – the grounds of First Foundation Place, Opebi, was more familiar as a watering hole for medical groups for their conventions and meetings, and it was a strange setting for a gathering that promised to feature Fela’s famous protégé – Dede Mabiaku as its centre piece, playing the music of his idol – Fela Anikulapo Kuti.
Many of the invitees, as they drifted in, admitted they were mystified at what might be on offer. They were a motley group, made up of politicians, business people, bankers, media icons, big name Nollywood actors and government officials.
The design of the invitation letter had the names of all the invitees embossed on the page, and you could see them at a glance.It was a full, rich house. Senator Seye Ogunlewe and Senator Olorunimbe Mamora sat together at a table up in front, near the klieg lights. Other VIP guests were scattered all over the place. Near the entrance, there was a ‘red carpet’ in front of a large banner of the Africa Future project. Dr Tosin Ajayi, portly, smiling, was there to welcome new arrivals, and to take photo shots with them.
It was a slow start, but the champagne and other wines were flowing, and nobody seemed to mind.
At length the Master of Ceremonies took the microphone and announced the commencement of proceedings.
The formality, such as it was, was very sparse. He welcomed everyone to the unique event. He gave a little background story which began to provide an insight into the questions in many people’s minds – ‘ Where is Dr Tosin Ajayi coming from in all this?What is this business about Africa Future?
The man was a notable medical practitioner. The locale itself even had a place of sorts in Nigeria’s social history. It was to First Foundation Hospital, located in these premises, that the shredded body of Dele Giwa had been brought after he was blown up by a parcel bomb. So many memories. So much angst.
The doctor had moved on from there, building up a mighty presence in areas ranging from medical equipment to medical education and e-health. He had established partnerships with some of the most prominent international brand names in the healthcare industry. He was a front-rank figure in healthcare in Nigeria, working from these premises.
The MC disclosed that the Ambassador of Finland had recently paid a visit to First Foundation Place. Looking round, and getting a talk from Dr Ajayi on his projects and plans, she had been so impressed that she proceeded to invite him to be a panel member at an event the embassy was proposing to hold at the Wheatbacker, a stately hotel in Victoria Island. Dr Ajayi had readily accepted.
That was the beginning of a story within a story, according to the MC. The focus of the Finnish event was how to improve the health indices of Nigeria, and Africa, using the model of grassroots ‘Family Medicine’ that was the hallmark of the healthcare system in Finland. In the audience were medical practitioners, figures in the media and entertainment industry, government officials, and prominent persons from the private sector.
Finland was acknowledged to have one of the best healthcare systems in the world, and the standard of well-being of its citizenry was the stuff of legend. A Professor of General Practice from Finland was invited to give a keynote address. After this a panel, which included Dr Ajayi, was brought up on the podium to discuss ways by which Nigeria could borrow from the Finnish example or chart its own course in reducing unnecessary death and ill-health among its teeming population. A lady talked about her Cancer charity, which was perpetually in the news. To her, deploying more resources to Cancer would be a major game changer in the country. Other people talked in positive, optimistic tones. By and large, they drew inspiration from the Finnish example, and acknowledged that the Scandinavians were world leaders not just in organized wellness, but in standards of living.
When it came to the turn of Dr Ajayi to say something, the expectation was that it was going to be more of the same. He was an ‘elder statesman’ of the Medical profession in Nigeria, and surely had something to say for the future of the profession? What was the road to Nigeria’s future Health, he was asked. And what were the prospects?
‘I don’t know’ he responded.
The hall was stunned. The facilitator persisted.
‘Surely there is something we can do? Surely there is hope?’ It was a tentative question, and no longer carried the certainty of a statement.
‘I don’t know what we can do. Maybe we should invite the foreigners to do it for us.’
This was a Nigerian doctor with decades of experience in the field, and a known passionate advocate in the cause of Health.
You could hear a pin drop in the hall. The facilitator – the famous television personality Ebuka – offered a few tepid jokes to break the tension, took a few comments from the audience, and soon announced that it was time to break for cocktails.
The Master of Ceremony this evening at First Foundation Place recalled this event graphically, and tied it to the reason why they were all gathered here at the behest of Dr Ajayi. They were gathered to share the frustration that led to the outburst at The Wheatbaker, and that frustration was not just about Africa’s Health but about the continent’s whole being. They were here so he could urge them to begin to develop a vision that could give Africa a future.
The picture was beginning to get clearer, even as the victuals landed on the tables and Dede’s band tuned up in the background.
Tosin Ajayi came up on the podium to explain himself, and share his mission, in a process of self-exegesis.
In his sixties now, and looking to be in reasonably good health, he peered myopically at the audience over the rim of his spectacles. He still had a good many years to go, from all appearances. Of course they could not be as many as the years gone before. He picked his words and enunciated slowly, but he was not reading from a script. He was free-associating, speaking from the depth of his soul. Here was a man clearly frustrated by the lack of progress in his nation, and his continent.
‘I have been here a while…’ he started.
It was the mother of understatements. The ‘here’ had several layers of meaning, surely. Here, in Opebi, where he received the shattered body of his friend, Dele Giwa. Here in Opebi, where he built First Foundation into a veritable behemoth, but found he could not do anything about the equivalent of one plane load of Nigerian women dying in childbirth every day. Every day. Here in Nigeria, where you could not comfortably run a lift up the several floors of First Foundation, because the power often failed. Here in Nigeria, where he could not stop healthcare workers walking off at the drop of a hat, leaving the hapless citizens to die. Even doctors.
‘What about the Oath’, he had often asked his young colleagues, in his perplexity?
What oath was their response. Some even derided him as a government puppet. He – Tosin – a puppet?
In all that span, totaling almost half a century of Nigerian history, he has been a presence here in Opebi, Lagos. You sensed that he could feel a sense of urgency, of time running out with not a lot accomplished. Not money – that was not the issue. What was money, in the midst of all this misery?
He had never had the gift of the garb, and this evening, he expressed himself as much by what he did not say as what he actually said.
Africa needed to have a future. Did that mean he had given up on the present?
On the screen close to where he stood, messages and quotes were slowly scrolled.
‘Africa Future… Bridging the Development Gap…New Agenda Now Or Else…’
He was not talking a lot, but he was communicating about a continent that did not govern well, did not innovate, and did not have the respect of itself, not to talk of others.
And even the things he did not say were scrolling up in the minds of his audience. The barbs from the rich, racist buffoon who could well be America’s next President – Donald Trump.
‘…Look at African countries…those people are stealing from their own government and go (sic) to invest the money in foreign countries. From the government to the opposition, they only qualify to be used as a case study whenever bad examples are required…I hear they abuse me in their blogs but I don’t care because even the internet they are using is ours and we can decide to switch it off from this side…These are people who import everything including matchsticks. In my opinion most of these African countries ought to be recolonized again (sic) for another 100 years because they know nothing about leadership and governance…’
Words like poison arrows in the heart of an old warrior like Tosin Ajayi. Was he in despair?
No, not despair, it turned out. Only an invocation, a call to action for this privileged audience.
‘Let us prime ourselves and enjoy the Emancipation songs of Fela Anikulapo Kuti, produced by his protégé – Dede’
And with that he left the stage.
At the table near the stage where the band would play, Senator Ogunlewe and Senator Mamora engaged in friendly banter about ‘Change’. They talked about the legacy of Awolowo.
Dede came on, and the evening erupted.
He looked like Fela, dressed like Fela, spoke like Fela. Even his mannerisms were Fela-esque. The ‘young’ Dede was getting on himself now, and under the klieg lights the age was beginning to show. He would be in the fifties, or was it sixties? An acclaimed actor, the son of a Warri High Chief, he had found Fela early in life, and never left him, despite being ‘excommunicated’ by his parents and his clan.
He started with ‘yabis’.
‘The future of Africa can never be in the hands of anybody but Africans…the truth – was what Fela stood for…The first African ever to be represented on Broadway was Fela…Have you listened to his lyrics?…There is depth… and knowledge…’
Then he launched off into ‘Water No Get Enemy’.
The crowd pulsated. Even the Senators were swaying.
Many in the audience, movers and shakers in society, truth be told, would not have given Fela the time of day in his day. Now that he was safely dead, and a world icon, they all owned him, and many were already standing at their tables and dancing away like ‘Shrine’ regulars as the trumpet went off in a riff.
Dede was doing something to Afrobeat – he was adding Scat. It made a provocative delicious blend.
He played some of his own material. He had ‘over 50 records’ ready to go, he announced off-handedly. Which raised the question – why was he not recording?
He brought on his guests. Gloria Ibru – who played with an uptempo Itshekiri rhythm. Majek Fashek, back from wrestling with his private demons, brought the house down with ‘Send Down the Rain’.
And Seun Anikulapo Kuti took your breath away. He played ‘Rere Run’.
It was part of the set he had played a few months ago when he had his gig at Ronnie Scotts- the most famous Jazz venue in the world. He was clad in t-shirt and shorts, and he admitted he only got the invitation to this event from Dede twenty four hours ago. He didn’t even know he was coming on stage – he had omitted to bring his sax. But Dede was his mentor – as Fela had been Dede’s mentor. He had taken him under his wing at his moment of epiphany. There was no saying ‘No’ to him.
So yab he did – afterall he was Fela’s son.
‘Dede no tell me say na show – e just say na event about Africa Future…’
When he began to sing Rere Run the atmosphere became electric.
Hidden beneath the lyrics was a conundrum. On the surface it was a diatribe against the military and authoritarianism. The deeper meaning was the tragedy of a people disconnected from their highest Art, and their highest Artist. Bogged down in the trivia of law and order, they could not mobilise for higher purpose. Would Fela have sung the ‘Change’ mantra and helped to mobilise for true Change, for a change? Afterall nobody could remain an outsider for ever. True PMB had jailed him in a previous incarnation, aborting an epochal American tour because he possessed cannabis, which Feladubbed Nigerian National Grass? Suffering from a crisis of un-belief, would Fela’s voice have helped the masses to believe, at last? And believing, would it have helped them to transform, and to become the best they could be – both in their lives and in their society?
Or was it a vain and hopeless delusion?
Excitedly, Tosin Ajayi was dancing by the footlights with the rest. His demeanour had an uncanny resemblance to the writer Lyndsay Barrett when he danced at Fela’s Shrine, a stocky man with his spirit uplifted, and a glint of fever in his eyes.
Soon it was time to go.
