Femi Kuti Interview 19991201

In 1999 there were democratic elections in Nigeria. Do you think it’s going to be a problem that President Obasanjo is a man who embodies the old military structures?

He won by votes according to the elections.

Do you think he really changed his mind?

The problem is, even if he changed his mind, he was trained as a soldier. So he will still rule like a soldier, which is not his fault. If you put a lawyer in power he is going to do things like a lawyer, put a doctor in power he is going to do ... you know, it’s like a doctor trying to run the life of a musician. It’s not possible. It’s like a musician trying to say he wants to live the life of a lawyer. It’s not possible. So, that is why people have to distinguish, they have to know what they want to do in life. What do you want to do? Do you want to save the people? That is a very big responsibility. People ask me: “Do I want to go into politics, do I want to be President?“ and I say “No“ This is why I am doing what I’m doing. I say “Because of my son, because of my life, I want to have a happy life and if I have no light, no water, bad clothes, bad education, no health care in the country I’m staying, I should fight for it. Not because I want to save, I’m complaining, I want these things to be rectified. Now that is the biggest responsibility of our worlds leaders, and people in the world they do not understand that kind of responsibility: to save people. You are a savant. Why do you call yourself a President, you are nothing but a savant, go out and make sure the country is run properly.

I do not understand what democracy means because if you’re in power to run the country properly there’s only one way to run the country properly. What is democracy? What is voting? Voting, we shall have light? It’s stupid. What are we voting about? Stop killing ourselves? For everybody to have enough money to have a good life? Are we voting about that? Who is the man that can produce this? What are we voting? Now, if the man is there, okay stay. Everybody should run away from that power because it is the biggest responsibilty in the world to make everybody happy. You see now, people do not even understand, it’s like a game: democracy, they start to give the system a name: capitalism. Sharing democracy, what’s to be named? There is no name ...

It can never be pure, it’s always mixed up with something?

Okay, what I will say to that is then everybody should shut up. There’s never going to be fairness in this life. Everybody should shut up. All the TV stations, all the human rights, red cross, everybody should shut up. Right? Stop returning to the world. Stop returning to the children. Stop teaching that in schools. Do you see that going to happen? It’s not. And if it’s going to happen, they will just start from now. Right now. Simple.

But you are perhaps into politics by making your music. And you make opinions change.

I’m into politics because it is the name. Then everybody should be into politics, you should be into politics. What I’m talking about evolves. Whatever happens to me could happen to you, could happen to anybody. It was Rome before, it was Greek, it was Africa, it’s America, it will be god knows who tomorrow. You see, today Europe, everything is going soars to Europe. But what about tomorrow? So, the only way to ensure that Europe is safe is to make sure that Europes surroundings are safe. Cause if one these days, anywhere is on fire, it could catch on, easily. It’s important, politics, so that everybody must be into politics. I’m just talking like a human being, just talking like ..., I’m just talking, I don’t see nothing wrong that I am talking about. Everybody should be talking like this, it’s a normal day-to-day discussion. It should be unintellectual. What else should we discussing about? Okay, let’s talk about girls, I give you one girl, but you need money to have a girl, you need money to raise a family. We all go to pull down to that same question. Oh, I want to go to a party, I want to have a good time tonight, you need money. We’re back to the same question.

You need money for almost everything.

Excuse me, you need money for everything. If you want to drink water now, you need money. You need to buy water, if you want to drink good water, you have got to buy water. That’s what this world has come to.

What about the movement M.A.S.S.? What’s the meaning of ’Second Slavery’?

That’s the slavery of freely mind of the African man. The first level was the physical aspect. But the mind of the African man is still enslaved. He doesn’t like his clothes, he doesn’t like his name, he wants to be American or European, our women want to be white, they’re all bleaching. See, they don’t believe in themselves anymore. Our TV programs are about Europe. If the white man arrives in Nigeria, they think Jesus Christ comes. Now, how is all that? Nobody goes to church in Europe, we pray five times a day, everyday, to whom?

So people build there own prison, their prison of thoughts?

It’s what colonization left. It’s the aftermath of colonization. And unfortunately, we’ve had bad leaders and unfortunately, some people in Africa only thought about themselves. So we had useless and greedy leaders. Okay, come on and give me this for free, those leaders are just making their pockets full and forgetting about their people where they should have been true leaders. Even if Europe allow Nigeria, just Nigeria to withdraw all the money stolen from Nigeria a lot of European companies might even collapse, cause it is too much, 160 billion euro in european banks. Now how can they spend that kind of money? Why don’t they build schools, hospitals, researching to African traditional medicine. People look for employment, how to get employment, how to get great jobs?. You have to build, that is the only way, to build.

But often the money is in the wrong hands.

Always, always.

And it’s still a lot of corruption.

Of course. Even right now, if Obasanjo himself is a good leader to run that country right now. He doesn’t even have an ideology. You need to have something to motivate people at this point in time. Now, he only has his party. Even his party are laid together. You see, this kind of democratic process cannot work in Africa at this point in time. The people are too desperate, they want to have quick answers to their problems, quick. I think it’s like an injection, you’re starving from a fever. You don’t want something to keep you at bay. You want something to wake you quick. Have to give him the money, give him security, there is no security, and so riots are just springing up in different parts of the country. Why are the people desperate? It’s the younger generation, it’s not the older generation, it’s the younger genration , 15-30, who are desperate, who are been watching films, they’ve been told in schools, hey, 12345, go marry, buy a house and have children. Hundreds, Thousands have come out, and they roam industries, no walk, no money. Where’s that dream, they can’t find that dream. They don’t want to be thieves, they don’t want to steal, who wants to be thieve? He is pushed, he is forced into the corner, then he picks up the gun, ripping, boom boom boom. Why? It’s the whole system. It’s hypocritical.

What about the different peoples in Nigeria, do you think Obasanjo can hold them at bay?

The matter of Nigeria is very simple. It’s about sincerity. If the leaders in Africa are sincere, are truly sincere, with themselves first, they don’t want to solve the problem. It’s power. You control the money, you control your TV, you control everything, you control the army. Not just Nigeria, the whole world. I ask what is the problem with this life? To make people happy is a problem. It’s because people want power, everybody wants to be in control, that’s all. People have forgotton that education did not teach us one thing in school: we leave to die. So we’re born and we’re going to die. But between that space we can decide even to just make it chaotic or pleasant. So the people in control can decide that. It’s about propaganda. When you’re teaching lore of law understanding in school, teaching the children about. “Aah, when I in school I was told about cowboy and indians“, kill, kill, kill, shoot. My mother told me about the dangers in school I was told to want to kill. Now everybody’s killing everybody in America, and they’re wondering why. Your education, your films, everything teaches you that. Everything teaches you that life is nothing. You must be a macho man, you must be a strong man, disrespect women. men disrespect men, so everybody’s disrespecting everybody.