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Descending from Fela’s Afrobeat to Wizkid’s Afrobeats

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Ayodeji Balogun popularly known as Wizkid and Fela Anikulapo-Kuti

Descending from Fela’s Afrobeat to Wizkid’s Afrobeats

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, January 30, 2026)

Three occupants of a black Mercedes-Benz were heading to work on a good Friday morning. One was the driver, another was the aide, and their oga patapata. They came to crawling traffic on George Street in Ikoyi, Lagos, en route to Obalende, their office. The Federal Secretariat was at a touching distance.

Suddenly, a hail of gunshots rained on the black Benz like a hundred stones from the devil’s sling. Then the tyres screeched away. Then silence. Rivulets of hot blood trickled from the heads and torsos of the driver, the aide and General Murtala Ramat Mohammed. This was February 13, 1976, the first bad Friday I knew.

The second bad Friday was on February 18 of the following year. I had bounced off to St Paul’s Anglican Primary School, Idi-Oro, Lagos, in the morning, having celebrated a quiet birthday a day before. Except for the khaki-wearing planners of sorrows, tears and blood, no one else had a foreboding of what lay ahead in the day.

My class was in full session on the middle floor of the school’s two-storey wing when the news broke and shattered peace and learning. “Soldiers are attacking Fela’s house! Lagos is on fire!”

Yeepa! Fela’s house was a stone’s throw from my school. Before the teacher finished passing the information to the class, she had grabbed her bag, just as the school bell sounded, summoning everyone to the assembly ground. Exhibiting no emotion, a fair-complexioned, slim and fatherly teacher, Mr Mayungbe, disclosed the reason why the school was closing abruptly, strictly warning pupils to head straight home.

He said pupils whose homes were around Fela’s house in the Moshalashi area should wait behind for their parents and guardians to come and pick them up. Subsequently, our class teachers brought out the registers containing pupils’ addresses, calling those whose houses were not around Fela’s house to head home. My name was called. I jumped out, my bag slung across my back and headed towards the gate.

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At the school gate, I thought it was a betrayal to go home and not witness the injustice soldiers were inflicting on the beautiful white house of my hero; the house located by a bend, the house whose architecture I beheld and ogled at during incessant truancy trips. So, I headed to Fela’s house located on No 14 Agege Motor Road, Idi-Oro, where thousands of soldiers were deployed to destroy a harmless civilian, his family and livelihood. Yes, livelihood, because the house had a recording facility. It also had a free health clinic. This was during the military regime headed by General Olusegun Obasanjo, an Egba man like Fela. The barbaric soldiers threw Fela’s 78-year-old mother through the window of the storey building. And she died.

To weigh in on the supremacy fire raging between Fela’s son, Seun, and Afrobeats star, Ayodeji Balogun, popularly known as Wizkid, the aforementioned background from the eyes of a little boy sheds light on the indomitable spirit of the Abami Eda, and why his legacy as the founder and father of Afrobeat is forever encased in gold.

Without ever meeting Wizkid, I wrote a two-part article titled “The god that cut soap for Wizkid” in THE PUNCH more than two years ago. The articles, published in the month of September 2023, extol the humility of Wizkid’s mother, Mrs Morayo Balogun, and the grace upon the life of her superstar son, Ayodeji.

On Friday, May 19, 2023, in a public show of shame, Seun slapped a police officer on the Third Mainland Bridge. I penned “Seun Kuti’s double-edged slap” to criticise Seun’s arrogance and stupidity. Seun’s action on that day exposes the impunity men and women of power and influence inflict when relating with people they consider lower on the social rungs. Fela, despite his avowed stance on human rights advocacy, reportedly fell short on that account on a number of occasions. Neither is Wizkid a saint in this regard. Nigeria’s big men, more often than not, exploit the weakness in law enforcement to get away with any crime. A power monger called Wasiu Ayinde disrupted a flight and attempted to stop a plane from taking off; instead of a time in jail, he was given an award. Because he was close to President Bola Tinubu.

Let’s be clear from the outset, please. This article is not a magisterial judgment on who is right or wrong in the Seun-Wizkid fight. Mark my words – Seun-Wizkid fight, not Fela-Wizkid fight. To place Fela on the same pedestal as Wizkid is to compare the storm in a teacup with the roar of the Atlantic. Igi imu jinna si ori, the distance between the nose and forehead is far. It is arduous for the fingerless fellow to thread the thread through the eye of the needle. Fela is the creator, Wizkid is the creation.

A product of the University of Ibadan and the Imperial College, London, where he specialised in Sound Processing, octogenarian music producer, the legendary Odion Iruoje, is renowned as the producer of Nigeria’s first true pop music with his collaboration with the teenage sensation band, Ofege. Iruoje, who produced a series of Fela’s first hits, including ‘Jeun Kooku’, ‘Beautiful Dancer’, ‘Alijonjokijo’, and ‘Ojuelegba’, gave an insight into how Fela created Afrobeat.

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In an interview on popular online media, Agbaletu TV, Iruoje, who read Industrial Electronics and Control Systems, said Fela came to one of the foremost recording companies in the country, E.M.I, upon returning from England, where he recorded an unsuccessful album, ‘Won Fe Gba Aya Wa’, with E.M.I. in London. The sound guru described Fela as a troublemaker whom E.M.I London didn’t want to deal with.

“When he came to me, he said, ‘Mr Iruoje, I have a new sound now, and it is called Afrobeat’. I told him what sound do you have that I have never heard before? I didn’t understand what he was saying. I told him there’s no sound you are going to play outside Highlife. So, I went to audition (him). Goodness! I couldn’t believe it when he started the horns. I have never heard such a horn arrangement in my life. No one ever did that – plenty of horns – the arrangement, ha! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I have never heard such a sound before. I said we have to go to the studio.

“In fact, the MD (a white man) came to my audition, he was listening to it, he said, ‘Mr Iruoje, please, can you get this man into the studio before he changes his mind?’ I said no, I have not finished with the rehearsal, he (the MD) said no, no, please, Mr Iruoje, you know he is very unstable, he could change his mind. I told the MD that Fela would not change his mind on me.

“The MD and I did not believe him when he first came to announce that he had a new sound. But he said, ‘Odion, come to the Shrine and listen to it, and see what few changes you want to do to it, and I went, we did a few changes. His rhythm guitar was (new), and first-time of his time, then he added tenor guitar and lead guitar. So, Fela had more guitars than the regular Highlife band. The regular Highlife band had only one guitar and bass, but Fela had all four. Fela influenced Juju bands because they started introducing tenor, rhythm and other guitars.”

On Fela’s flip side, Iruoje described the political activist, culture advocate and social crusader as a troublemaker, whom recording companies did not want to touch with a long pole. Because he gave E.M.I. London troubles over royalties, Iruoje was told by the authorities of the E.M.I branch in Nigeria not record Fela.

“If he signs a contract which states that his royalty would be so much (amount), that is what he signed before going to the studio, once he goes into the studio and the song starts selling and becomes a hit, he would say, “That song is no more N80 o, he wants to get N100 or N200. At times, he would snatch the master tape,” Iruoje said.

If told he signed a contract, Iruoje said, “Fela would say, what is contract? Contract is ordinary paper. That music is more than what is in the contract. He would snatch the master tape now, (and say) he was not going to release it. He (would say) we had to change that. Maybe, at times, I may not be in when he’s making the trouble, when I come back, they would say, “See what your man is doing o. He has taken (the master tape). Then I would send somebody to call him. He would come to my office because he respects me.”

To be continued.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

X: @Tunde_Odesola

Descending from Fela’s Afrobeat to Wizkid’s Afrobeats

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The world dislikes the weak, by Hakeem Baba-Ahmed

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March 3, 2026

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Former Northern Elders Forum spokesperson, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed
Former Northern Elders Forum spokesperson, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed

The world dislikes the weak, by Hakeem Baba-Ahmed

The world dislikes the weak, by Hakeem Baba-Ahmed

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Our children must be kept away from Obi’s mob

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6 days ago

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February 28, 2026

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Vincent Akanmode
Vincent Akanmode

Our children must be kept away from Obi’s mob

Any Nigerian with an iota of conscience would be miffed at the content of a video that trended on the social media during the week. It was the motion picture of three children whose age ranged between 10 and 12 professing to be supporters of former Anambra State governor and presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 presidential election, Mr. Peter Obi. Oblivious in their pristine innocence that they were being initiated into the triple crimes of lying, cheating and forgery by those who contrived the issuance of voter cards to them, they heartily flaunted the cards meant only for adults above 18 years, threatening to vote Obi in the 2027 elections like they did three years ago.

Instructively, it was Obi’s supporters, led by the then Chief Spokesperson for the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, Dr. Yunusa Tanko, who embarked on a peaceful protest in Abuja against alleged registration of underage voters in the build-up to the 2023 elections.

During the campaign rallies that preceded the 2023 elections, the world had watched with bated breath as a 15-year-old boy identified as Alabi Quadri jumped into the road arms outstretched as Obi’s convoy approached during a campaign rally in Lagos. I was personally alarmed at the stupidity of young man’s action, seeing the possibility of him being hit by the advancing convoy of vehicles. But while I thought it was the dumbest act anyone could muster, Obi, rather than rebuke Quadri’s foolery, alighted from his vehicle, walked towards the scallywag and embraced him in the full glare of cameras. Obviously, the Labour Party presidential candidate was in full agreement that the rascal did very well staking his life for his (Obi’s) presidential ambition.

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Obi, who had earlier prided himself with not giving shishi (a dime), reportedly rewarded Quadri’s foolhardiness with an unspecified sum of money, which later put him into trouble with his colleagues and earned him a stay in Kirikiri prison for about three months after an alleged frame-up for armed robbery by some thugs in his Amukoko (Lagos) neighbourhood, who were said to be angry that Quadri did not deem them fit for a slice of Obi’s cake. They handed him over to the police, who kept him in custody until some human rights activists intervened and secured his release.

Not surprisingly, many other admirers of Obi celebrated Quadri’s display of obtuseness as a heroic act worthy of emulation by anyone worth the helm of the presidential aspirant’s black gown. Little wonder the teenager’s example has since caught on among his followers with other dumb actions and utterances. Last week, another youthful follower of the mob took the malady to the precincts of blasphemy, saying that Jesus Christ would lose if he contests an election with Obi in Nigeria. And rather than condemnation, this reckless delivery has enjoyed the approval of many Obidient members in a country where religion is as sensitive as the mimosa plant.

And before the dust generated by the sacrilegious utterance could settle, another teenager identified as Mc Aha from Imo State said he would gladly sacrifice his father and mother if that was all Obi needed to become the President of Nigeria. Commendably, the teenager’s obviously embarrassed father did not allow his son’s misguided utterance to go without a consequence. Convinced that the teenager’s outburst bordered more on crime than insanity, he ignored psychiatrists and psychologists and promptly handed his errant son over to the police.

I felt a sense of vindication on learning about the young man’s utterance, because a day or two earlier, I had been viciously attacked on Facebook for sarcastically posting that I once thought of becoming an Obidient but was discouraged by the long and tortuous process of having to undergo a surgery that would remove my brain and replace it with sawdust!

The question then arises: what exactly is the Obidient movement teaching our youths? What impact do Obi and his followers hope to make on the impressionable minds of innocent young boys and girls with the negative messages being passed to them by their mostly reckless, aggressive and abrasive older colleagues? A group that has turned discourtesy into an art. A group that has no place for the African culture of respect for the elder. A group to which age means nothing but sheer number. They address the elderly the same manner they do their apprentices and attack statesmen and eminent public office holders with the venom of a snake. A group whose leader is making a career of de-marketing his country and presenting his land of birth as the heaviest burden the rest of the world bears. What impact?

Our children must be kept away from Obi’s mob

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History and psychoanalysis of El-Rufai’s troubles with Ribadu – Farooq Kperogi

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6 days ago

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February 28, 2026

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Kperogi is a renowned columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism 
Farooq Kperogi

History and psychoanalysis of El-Rufai’s troubles with Ribadu – Farooq Kperogi

Given the depth and intensity of the friendship they cultivated over decades, many people are befuddled by why the personal conflict between former Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai and National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu has burst into the open with such virulence. As I’ll show, it’s inspired by deep-seated envy, ego trip and bruised self-construal.

Both were born in 1960 (with El-Rufai being about nine months older), graduated from ABU in the 1980s (with El-Rufai graduating three years earlier), have a reputation for boldness and outspokenness, and were stars of the Olusegun Obasanjo administration.

From the outside looking in, it appears to me that although both men had mutual admiration for each other, the scale tilted a little in favor of El-Rufai. I say this for at least two reasons.

One, according to a recent social media post by presidential aide Gimba Kakanda, who appears to be close to both men, Ribadu named his son in honor of El-Rufai. I am not aware that El-Rufai requited Ribadu’s gesture even though he has had boys. If my assumption is wrong, I apologize. If it’s right, that bespeaks a deep, unspoken, but nonetheless significant inequality in admiration.

Second, on page 358 of El-Rufai’s 2013 autobiography titled The Accidental Public Servant, which has made the social media rounds, El-Rufai revealed that when the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua sought Ribadu’s support to be president and said Obasanjo had already endorsed him, Ribadu rebuffed Yar’Adua, saying, “Well, Obasanjo has not told me, and as far as the presidency is concerned, I have my candidate for president, and that is Nasir El-Rufai. I am going to have to speak to Obasanjo about this.”

So, El-Rufai internalized the asymmetry in their admiration for each other. He took for granted that Ribadu thought higher of him than he did of Ribadu. There can be no greater endorsement of this fact than Ribadu’s perception that El-Rufai was the best Nigerian qualified to succeed Obasanjo.

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However, in 2011, when Bola Ahmed Tinubu was shopping for a young northern candidate to fly the flag of the ACN, he commissioned a public opinion poll to determine which northern candidate enjoyed the most national acceptance, according to Akin Osuntokun’s February 20, 2026, Arise News interview.

Osuntokun not only worked with both men during the Obasanjo presidency, he is also friends with them. Plus, I’ve heard this story from several people close to El-Rufai and Ribadu, but this is the first time it’s out in the open.

Osuntokun’s revelation that the national poll showed Nuhu Ribadu with a significantly higher rating (about 45 percent) compared to Nasir El-Rufai (around seven percent) is consistent with what I’ve heard.

Based on that result, Tinubu backed Ribadu’s candidacy within the ACN. It also marked the beginning of Ribadu’s relationship with Tinubu.

El-Rufai’s exaggerated self-construal of his superiority over Ribadu was badly shattered, and he couldn’t take it. But I am not surprised by the outcome of the poll. It occurred at the height of Ribadu’s popularity in the country.

As I pointed out in a past column, my own paternal uncle, a UK-educated health professional, named his son Ribadu, not Nuhu, in honor of Nuhu Ribadu’s exploits at the EFCC. When I told him Ribadu is the name of a town in Adamawa State where Nuhu hails from, he was surprised. We still laugh over it.

El-Rufai’s ego was badly bruised because he had a hard time accepting that Ribadu, who didn’t think of himself as presidential material in 2007 and who instead thought El-Rufai should succeed Obasanjo, should be considered worthier of being president in 2011 by more Nigerians. As a result, the previously impregnable walls of friendship between them began to collapse irretrievably.

By 2015, El-Rufai rode on the coattails of Muhammadu Buhari to become governor of Kaduna State. According to people familiar with the dynamics of their relationship, El-Rufai studiously used his influence in the Buhari government to exclude Ribadu.

But by 2023, when Tinubu became president, Ribadu got his groove back. El-Rufai believes that the rejection of his ministerial nomination by the Senate on “security” grounds was inspired by Ribadu, who was retaliating for El-Rufai’s own underhanded exclusion of Ribadu during the Buhari presidency.

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Most regular people with no hangups would take it in their stride and wait for their “time.” But El-Rufai isn’t a “regular” person. He must be in on the action or everything must be scattered. So, he set out to do at least three things to get at Ribadu: 1. Show that Ribadu is dangerous and vindictive. 2. Show that he is incompetent. 3. Show that he is a craven fellow who can’t return, much less match, El-Rufai’s lethal rhetorical salvos.

These points overlap. If you are vindictive but are afraid of being seen as such, then you’re a coward. If you’re a coward and you control the security of the country, then you’re also incompetent. If you don’t respond to my personal attacks, it’s because you fear that I’ll reveal more damaging information and also lack the rhetorical and intellectual firepower to fight back, which harkens back to your fitness for the job of protecting the country.

Of course, El-Rufai knows that Ribadu is anything but a coward. In The Accidental Public Servant, El-Rufai recounts an incident from their undergraduate days at Ahmadu Bello University to illustrate what he presents as Ribadu’s boldness.

According to El-Rufai, Ribadu was confronted by an armed robber who pointed a gun at him. Instead of complying or retreating, Ribadu slapped the robber and challenged him.

El-Rufai told the anecdote as an example of Ribadu’s fearlessness and impulsive self-confidence during their student years and to sketch Ribadu’s temperament early on, suggesting that Ribadu’s later public persona as an anti-corruption crusader was consistent with traits visible even as an undergraduate.

In his only public reaction to El-Rufai’s constant personal attacks, Ribadu was conciliatory and even-tempered. “Despite the incessant baiting and attacks, I have never spoken ill of Nasir on record anywhere,” he wrote on February 24, 2025. “This is out of respect for our past association and our respective families. I will not start today.”

El-Rufai’s supporters read the statement, whose grace should have disarmed anyone, as evidence of cowardice. But had he attacked El-Rufai back in the fashion that El-Rufai savaged him, the public, which tends to side with the underdog (in this case anyone outside the orbit of the reigning government), would see El-Rufai as the victim and Ribadu as the villain.

This gave El-Rufai the illusion that he was winning the war and led him to dig in even deeper with that self-sabotaging Arise News interview, which overstepped the bounds of reasonableness and landed him in the hot water he is in now.

In spite of people’s natural predilection to sympathize with the underdog, outside of partisan political circles, El-Rufai’s troubles aren’t eliciting the profusion of support, outrage and empathy anyone else would have received. And it’s because he is being given a taste of his own medicine.

For those who want to sympathize with him, which is perfectly legitimate, I leave you with these words he uttered on January 22, 2012, at the Yar’Adua Center, Abuja, at a presentation at the T2T (Transformed To Transform) Nigeria Conference for Youth Corps Members:

“We have no politics of public interest or public good. And you know the politicians proudly tell you that politics is about interest. If they don’t get what they want, they’re ready to collapse the system.

“Every military coup in Nigeria’s history was engineered by civilians. They have lost elections, right or wrongly. If a politician contests for a position and he doesn’t get it, he’ll not support a party member that got the nomination.

“He would rather move to the opposition and ensure that the person that defeated him fair and square loses the election. So, we have a political culture where the primacy of personal interest trumps everything else.

“Now, what is the difference between human beings and animals? So it is with most Nigerian politicians: everyone for himself, no one for the country, no one even for the party. It’s an interesting political culture. And it’s ingrained. Politicians believe that is the way, that is politics, and to change it will take quite an effort. This is a problem.”

History and psychoanalysis of El-Rufai’s troubles with Ribadu – Farooq Kperogi

Kperogi is a renowned Nigerian columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism.

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