I’ve rarely been happy in my life. But marrying my twenty-seven women made me feel happy. The few times I’ve felt happiness, it’s always been followed by something terrible. This time was no exception. Two months after my marriage, my mother’s condition worsened. You see, she’d never recovered from the wounds and the shock she suffered during the attack on Kalakuta. Since that time she was always sick. I couldn’t stand seeing her sick. I just had to feel that my mother was happy every minute of the day. Whenever I’d hear that my mother was sick or unhappy, it would fuck me up completely. Completely, man. All my brothers know it, so they don’t even tell me what’s happening when it comes to my mother. “Fela musn’t know,” they’d say. ’Cause I get mad at everybody, man. I get really mad. Oh, yes. One day she was sick and my brother was jiving me: “Yes, she can come for treatment tomorrow.” I said, “No! TODAY!” I couldn’t stand that. But her death did not really make me completely sad, ’cause I had been sad with her since she couldn’t operate. You understand?
When my mother died, the sadness at that point was nothing. I had been sad with her since her silence. The sadness started when I started my film. When I went to film my house in Abeokuta, that’s when my sadness started. That was in ’76. You see, I was coming back to my home. My mother was in that home. She was sitting in the same house where I’d always known her. The house of all my childhood memories. It was there I’d seen her operating, running about the country with other women, agitating in the streets, talking, travelling everywhere. . . . And I see me now believing in the same things she believed in then, even on higher things, me working on the things she believed in. And I see how she was there in the same old house. . . . I could feel she doesn’t like the conditions she’s in. ’Cause I can read it in her! And I see that she’s sad. And I see that the home is not the same home any more. That’s when I became so very sad, man. I’d never felt that sadness before. That was the first time. Since then it has been in the back of my head. So I’ll have to spend all my life with that. That sadness killed everything I had.
This peaceful woman. She looked so. . . . So I go take her. I had to bring her to Lagos to stay with me, man. I did everything, man. Brought her over to Lagos where I thought she’d be happy and safe. And for a while she was really happy and safe here. She loved the company of all the women in the house, the noisiness, the children, the street life. . . . Oh, it made her really lively. Brought smiles to her face. Getting involved in the house was bringing back a new life to her that she had missed before. It was beautiful. Then the soldiers came. . . .
I got very sad again when I was writing her from Ghana in ’77. She had to be walking long distances. Once she fell down, man. I couldn’t stand it. So I was sad before she died, man. She didn’t speak to anybody on her deathbed, when she was sick for two weeks. She didn’t utter one word for two weeks. Not one word-o! Not even “Good” or “Ahhhhh”. She didn’t say a word. She’d just open her eyes to greet everybody. Smiling, nodding her head to say “yes” or “no”. That’s all. She knew she could operate more if she died. Talking would just bring more confusion in our minds.
Once I went to ask her: “Say, Mummy, you’re not talking to anybody. Are you annoyed with us?” I had to ask that question. It was getting too much. She was just smiling, not talking. I knew she hadn’t lost her voice, man. Ahah, I got so worried. I had to ask her that. It took courage to ask that question, man. Everybody wanted to ask it, but everybody was afraid to ask that question, in case she said, “Yes.” But me, I HAD TO ask. She just nodded her head to say, “No, I’m not annoyed with you.” Now I understand that those two weeks of silence were for her a sacrifice. If she’d spoken, there would have been great confusion in the family. Later on, I would understand why.
Came Thursday 13 April 1978. My mother died! When she died I experienced something fantastic. That day I had gone to see her in hospital. I was on my way from hospital. I was going to sleep in house of my first wife. I got there round midnight. Then around 5.30–5.45 a.m. there was a big blast, like the commotion on the day they’d come to burn my house. That’s what woke me up. I woke up and I saw a bright, yellowish light near the wall in front of me. My first wife was getting up to get water and she fell down. When I asked her why she fell down, she didn’t know why. But I didn’t think about it any more. I didn’t think of my mother either. I went home about 8.30 a.m. I was in my room with another of my wives, Alake, when they came and told me my mother was dead. Later that same day, in the afternoon, when we got to the family meeting with my brothers, I asked them what time my mother had died. I was thinking of the noise I’d heard. They said around 5.30 a.m. or quarter to six. I knew then my mother had told me when she died.
But let me get back to that actual morning. I was in bed with Alake when Lara and one boy called Bayo came and knocked at my window. They said, “Fela, your mother is dead.” What did I do? I can’t remember. Oh, yes. I buried my head in my hands. I stood up, I dressed and went to hospital. You see, my mother made her death easy for all her children. She had actually died before her death. We were already crying in our minds since she had stopped speaking. So when she died it was like how she was two weeks before. I said to myself: “This woman finally died. My mother’s died. . . .”
At hospital. There was her corpse. My mother had died at General Hospital. People were standing. Some government officials were there. I raised my fist to some people and they all shouted, “Hey-o.” I didn’t cry then. They wanted to put the corpse inside the ambulance to take her to Luth Hospital. I wasn’t crying then. It was when I got into my bus to drive that tears started to fall from my eyes, man. I don’t know what made me cry. Maybe, it was jus’ that I would never see my mother again as a human being. I would never see my mother again, full stop! ’Cause at that time I didn’t even think of any possible future contact. It was the idea of never seeing her again that really made me cry. I wanted to see her. It finally dawned on me: fuck, I will never see this woman again. She’d gone, man! Gone! And when I think that I’ll never see her again! Ever! Ever! Ever AGAAAIIIIIIIIIIN!!!
Original album cover of Coffin for Head of State
Design: Babatunde O. Banjoko
Photo: Femi Osunla
Abeokuta. The burial. It was so sunny on that day. It was fuckin hot. Everybody was suffering from the hot sun. We’d been walking three, four miles. We were sweating and hot. We were about 50,000 people. Long lines. You could see people in the streets, far, far. All under the hot sun. I was in front with my brothers. The coffin was in the back of us. My sister was walking behind the coffin. When we got to the house, my sister and the coffin go to the front of our house. Then, exactly at that time there’s a heavy rainfall. Everybody wanted the rain. So when it started to rain, everybody was so happy for the rain, man. We wanted the rain. But it was raining so hard that when I went to carry the coffin, the rain broke it! Can you imagine that? Rain is normal, true. But what happened that day was not normal, man. I knew then that my mother was going to use rain to communicate with me in some way. Since then rain has become a sign in my life.
On 1 October 1979, Nigerian Independence Day, Shehu Shagari was due to assume power, ending thirteen years of fuckin military rule. So Obasanjo was gonna go just like that, and with honours. I just couldn’t let him get away like that, man. Obasanjo’s soldiers had killed my mother. This wonderful, good and peaceful woman! That man will have to answer to that one-o! At any rate, I let everybody know that on the very last day of his rule, I would take my mother’s coffin to his residence at Dodan Barracks, and place it in front of his gate. I told everybody. At Shrine. In the streets. To the press. To everybody! I knew I might get killed trying to do it. But I knew I would do it. That’s the least I could do for my mama, man! So I said, “Fuck it!”
We’re now September 30th. The night before we had worked till late at Shrine. Everyone was tired. I almost overslept, man. I woke up in a hurry and got my people together. And we enter bus. Vrrrrroooooooom! We were off for Lagos. Coffin was inside bus, man. But, oh-oh! Look for front-o! Roadblocks! The army had set up roadblocks at every point leading into Lagos island! Man, I said, “Fuck!” and I stepped on the gas. Full speed, past the armed soldiers. They recognized my vehicle and started making frantic signs for me to stop. Then they came towards the bus and opened fire. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bullets hit bus, but none of us, the queens and my boys, were injured. So they started giving us chase. But we got away and headed straight to Dodan Barracks. Man, I don’t know how they didn’t kill us that day. Anyway, we arrived at Dodan Barracks.
“Get back or we’ll shoot!” It was a young officer. We’d taken out the coffin and were still same way from the gate. I told my boys to stay back. Only me and my wives were to carry coffin up to the gate.
“Back, I said!” the officer shouted.
We continued walking up to the gate. Slowly. Oh, my wives, those women are courageous-o! The sentries lifted their machine guns and rifles.
“We’ll shoot! Get back!”
We stopped. I told them:
“My brothers, will you also shoot my women?”
And we continued. . . . They lowered their weapons. We arrived at gate. We lowered coffin to ground. We turned round. And we left. At that same moment it began to rain. Heavily! Oh, that rain-o!
Fela’s Spirit
Photo: Donald Cox
