Fela, Marley as conspiracy theorists

I have put a bit of what I’ve learnt out there in the public domain, but there is more to come.  The quest is still on and I have availed myself of online resources, books and video documentaries to get to the truth about what really happened and what is still happening in this world.  […]

I have put a bit of what I’ve learnt out there in the public domain, but there is more to come.  The quest is still on and I have availed myself of online resources, books and video documentaries to get to the truth about what really happened and what is still happening in this world.  Well, maybe one will never be able to find the truth, but for academic purposes, it is good that one gets the two sides of a story.  Many watch CNN, NTA and BBC, read local and foreign newspapers and then form opinions.  That is a pity, for all those mentioned above have their paymasters, one way or another.  The antidote is to keep doing research, for then, one may stumble on the truth.  We must keep reading and get some alternative opinion and then analyse them.

It is with this mindset I bought the works of Naomi Klein, a young American (must be Jewish) woman, who is at the forefront of presenting another picture of issues as different from the establishment and mainstream press.  I was able to sit through her documentary titled ‘THE SHOCK DOCTRINE’.  It is the story of Milton Friedman and his belief that real change (towards the ideals of Capitalism – privatisation, free market economics etc – always occur whenever there is a disaster.  She calls it Disaster Capitalism.  Friedman in his time argued fervently that anytime disaster befalls a people or a country, capitalists should position themselves to seize the space – the land, the schools, even the minds of people, in furtherance of the agenda to ensure free markets determine life and living.

Of course, Friedmanism (with his influential disciples coming out of the University of Chicago), trumped Keynesian economics (which advocates for government intervention to some extent), from the early 1970s to date and with the advent of Margaret Thatcher  and Ronald Reagan, went full blast in the world, with mindless African countries like Nigeria, bearing the fullest brunt.  We haven’t recovered from that till today.  Charismatic military leaders like Augusto Pinochet (Chile), our own IBB, Mobutu Sese Seko, Noriega and co, were used in performing experiments on capitalism on their people.  

While watching the documentary, I had to rewind when I heard the name ITT mentioned.  In 1971, ITT controlled the national telecommunications company of Chile, and tried to frustrate the election of Salvador Allende, a Marxist who was popularly elected by his people; so said Naomi Klein.  Before then, Chile had enjoyed 41 years of uninterrupted democratic government.  Whereas ITT seemed not to have succeeded and even the CIA failed (and accounts to corroborate this was given in the documentary by two American Ambassadors to Chile to the effect that President Nixon asked them to put pressure on the Chilean military to remove Allende), the USA resorted to recruiting a ‘fine man’, General Augusto Pinochet, to oust Allende, by providing funding, the support of the press and by buying over Chilean troops to topple their government.  Allende shot himself during the siege led by Pinochet and Pinochet went ahead to conduct one of the most brutal governments in the history of governments, protected till his death by the USA and the UK.  

Back to ITT.  I remember Nigeria had its fair share of trouble with that company, and Fela Kuti took it to the cleaners.  So, I went online and googled what Fela actually said in his song about ITT.  Remember that I had heard from Klein that ITT was used to destabilise Chile.  I have also read the works of John Perkins, the author of ‘Confessions of an Economic Hit Man’, which detailed the activities of multinationals, NGOs and even so-called missionary societies, in subverting foreign governments, mostly in South America and most painfully in Africa where we have the lowest standard of living in the world and we are effectively treated as ‘the dregs of the earth’, the natural slaves to every other race.  I have travelled far and wide and realised that as things stand, that is the role we play.  I was amazed that we had someone like Fela in this country and we made him fade away in ignominy.  Woe betides anyone who says that Fela died of AIDS, when in fact that story is merely designed to decimate his importance and paint him as a charlatan. That is one genuine African prophet, unlike the fake ones that abound today!

Fela in an interview had said that he had read about ITT and their activities all over the world, and was therefore shocked to see them in our backyard here in Nigeria. Fela reads, unlike most Nigerians today.  Bob Marley reads.  We may think these guys were influenced by the Indian hemp they smoked, but we who don’t, what have we done with our sobriety?  If we can’t read or master our environment, can’t we just take heed to what these African prophets had to say?  It is also noteworthy how detribalised Fela was.  In that same ITT song, he began by talking about Africans not ‘carrying shit’, and went ahead to interpret what a pit latrine was called in several languages – Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Gaa, Ashanti, Ethiopia (Amharic), Tunga and elsewhere). On no occasion did Fela ever denigrate other Nigerian tribe as most so-called intellectuals and ‘leaders of thought’ in Nigeria do today.  The ‘shit carrying’ satire was to let us know that we Africans are now treated as despicable lowlifes by the decision-makers (not the average good people), of Western nations.

I also remembered that MKO Abiola was Chairman of ITT in Nigeria.  And Fela did mention the names of Obasanjo and Abiola as beneficiaries of the shenanigans of ITT in Nigeria.  The Lyrics of the song explains that ITT was one huge multinational firm that goes around the world causing ‘CONFUSION, CORRUPTION, OPPRESSION, INFLATION’.  I marvel, because Fela didn’t need a PHD to know the truth and stick to it.  I marvel that we have people in this country with pretentions to ‘intellectualism’ but who deliberately ignore what matters most.  If we deliberately obfuscate and ignore the truth, then we should generally agree that we as a people are not in search of any emancipation or development; that our so-called quest for a better country is just tomfoolery.  We should just desist and continue to exist as the ‘dregs’ that we are.   

For the same ‘intellectuals’ today want us to conveniently forget ITT Nigeria, which unfortunately for them, has been indelibly documented by Fela, the hemp-smoker.  I begin to believe that Fela was ‘silenced’, but he gave a good account of himself while alive.   He, like Marley, was a great thinker, but both of them lived in the time of the Cold War, when the USA brooked no opposition whatsoever, even as it hid under the guise of ‘democracy and freedom’.  Perhaps luckily for the world, we have an Obama in government today, who is not quite sold on the mantra of ‘marketing’ democracy to the world, and is being criticised for his stance.  I see the Americans voting him off after his first term, so that the world can revert to proper hypocrisy.  God bless your soul, Barack, for being a true man of peace.  If Hilary or McCain were president, the world would probably be at war today.