kwame nkrumah

THE STORY OF HOW FELA KUTI WAS DEPORTED FROM GHANA in 1978. ????????????????

Nigerian & African musical legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti went into exile to Ghana after he, together with his family, were brutalized and his house was burnt down by Nigeria’s military government in 1977.

The military attack on Fela Kuti and his family was due to Fela using his music as a weapon to expose and denounce the extremely corrupt Nigerian military government.

Nigeria’s head of state at the time of the attack on Fela and his family was Olesegun Obasanjo.

So, having been made homeless, Fela traveled to Ghana and soon begun playing at the Apollo Theater in Accra.

Fela’s song, ‘Zombie had just been released and was already big in Ghana.

The song mocked soldiers for obeying orders without thinking and acting mindlessly.

Ghana then had a military government led by General Acheampong and students were singing ‘Zombie’ to mock the soldiers who were ruling at the time.

Fela considered Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah to be his greatest hero & being in Ghana, he started preaching Nkrumahism — Nkrumah’s ideas

All of this combined to get him into trouble with the military government because at the time, Ghanaian students were seriously agitating against the Acheampong gov’t which they saw to be corrupt.

Fela began meeting the student leaders and delivered lectures to them.

After one such meeting where Fela delivered a 3-hour lecture to the student leaders of 4 of Ghana’s universities, the leaders issued a public declaration which alerted the military government to what Fela was up to.

Fearing how popular and influential Fela had become in Ghana — especially with the students and also because of his song anti-military song, ‘Zombie’ , the Acheampong gov’t deported Fela Kuti from Ghana in 1978.