Excerpt From Fubara David West "Nigeria Fire At Afro Beat King Fela's"

In the first place, Fela lived in one of the most notorious 

areas of Lagos. Prostitution and armed robbery were 

regular features. There was never a dull moment in the

area. 

Some of the shady characters in the area, took full 

advantage of Fela’s growing popularity, to turn the 

area in close proximity to Fela’s residence, Kalakuta, 

into a black market for all sorts of things. 

Among other things, one could buy drugs in the area. 

Furthermore, Fela turned his house into a commune,

where his beautiful, scantily dressed girls could always 

be seen in the front yard. 

The girls celebrated the care-free lifestyle of the roaring

1960’s in the United States, marked by the sexual

revolution and women’s liberation, in general. They 

numbered more than 60 at a point. 

Even though many Nigerians viewed those young 

people, many of whom were from respectable families 

as an immoral lot, I admired them. I thought that they 

were remarkable, because they were willing to stand out 

in the crowd. 

I also felt a sense of kinship with them. I could

understand the possibilities and the challenges of life

for a young person, especially in Nigeria during the

period. 

Employment for young people was not a priority.

There were very scholarships for higher education,

job training for young people was rare. The situation

forced young people to lower their expectations. 

Even though many of my high schoolmates were from

well-to-do families, and were looking forward to law

School and bachelors degrees, others looked at the 

Nigerian Ports Authority as the place to be. 

It was rumored that one of the attractions of the Ports

Authority was that it gave people great opportunities,

for getting bribes. Young people had a tough time

indeed. 

My Ivy-League Educated Father 

My father, Prof. Tam. S. David-West, for instance,

would tell me, even before I received my high school 

graduation certificate: “your life is in your own hands,

now.” 

It was as if being responsible for his son’s education was 

a burden, he could not wait to off-load. Most people 

would never believe that my dad could behave in such 

a manner. However, he would. 

In fact, he tried to sabotage my final year in high school,

by delaying payments for my fees. For the first time ever,

I became a boy, who would skip classes. 

I would hide out in the city library, unwilling to discuss

the situation with the principal, who adored Dad.

They were friends, and like most of the people who knew

Dad, he was smitten by his brilliance, and his amiability. 

The kind of regard he had for Dad was once highlighted,

by his suggestion in our Assembly Hall, that Dad might

follow T.O.S. Benson’s example, by sponsoring an 

indigent kid. 

I smiled. Dad might, if he was assured that there would

be mass accolades, following such a noble gesture. No:

I did not share the thought with Mr. Familoyi, the

principal 

Why would Dad do refuse to pay for my fees? I talked

back at him: something even an uneducated man, with 

any knowledge about childhood development, should

have merely smiled at. 

It is just a demonstration of the fact that your son is

developing a good sense of self, independence, and

maturity, Ivy League professor! Chief Akpana might

have told him, if he had approached him with

questions. 

The other telling thing was that Chief Akpana was at

time a manager at the Ports Authority in Apapa. Dad

did not approach him, to get me employed at the Ports

Authority, as I was leaving high school, even as he

told me that my life was in my own hands. 

Dad had to put up appearances. He did not want his

friend, and my aunt, his friend’s wife, to lose all respect 

for him as a father. He had to deceive them. He had to

give them the impression, that he was pushing Fubara

to go to college. 

Prof. Tam. S. David-West would actually leave his 

teenage son in Lagos, to cater for himself, and

supposedly to work for the rest of his life, with a high

school education, unless he was “lucky enough,” to 

get a scholarship. 

I will come back to that term, “lucky enough,”

momentarily. No Ivy League graduate in the United 

States would behave in such a manner, towards his

child. 

An Ivy League professional in the United States would

do everything, in his power, to ensure that his children 

were the best educated in the community. What is a

parent, if he/she does not fight for that? 

Of course, I never considered for one second, that a 

high school education was enough. How could I? 

My dad had given me a picture of his, taken, after his

graduation, with a PhD in Virology from McGill. 

It was put in a folder, with all of his degrees listed on it. 

The picture was always a treasure, even after one of my 

uncles: the future Nigerian Ambassador to the United

Nations, Jim Blankson made a telling remark to me. 

When I showed it to him, with all of the pride of a son,

Jim Blankson said to me: “Tell him, nobody gets all of

that without help.” 

Did he ever plan for my education beyond high School? 

No; there was no indication, that he wanted me to go 

beyond high school. Did he think, that his first son 

could not possibly be “university material?” 

“University material,” was a phrase he loved to use, 

constantly, when he would argue that Nigeria should 

not expect all of its high school graduates, to go on to

university education. It was a strange thing. 

Of course, everyone will not opt for a university

education. However, society should always encourage

young people, to aim for the highest level of education

possible. The great professor should have stood up, as 

an advocate for such a value. 

How could I not be university material, if I also have 

the same genetic materials that make up the great 

professor? It is not the kind of question Dad ever asks

himself. 

I actually think that he wanted the Blanksons to take 

over the responsibility for my education, but was not 

man enough to tell them just that. The window-

dressing was all that mattered to the man. 

Sometimes, I also think that he was praying to see me 

get a poor passing grade, in my West African School

Certificate Examination. That might have been used 

as an excuse, for not encouraging me, to get into a

university. 

Otherwise, he might have wanted me to fail. My

failure might have been used as a justification, for

quickly getting out of his fatherly responsibilities.

The Ivy-league man has dumb son! The professor

can’t do anything about it. 

My failure might also have magnified in his mind, 

how great he was. He had after all, overcome his 

own childhood difficulties with his father, to become 

an Ivy League educated professor. 

It is the kind of a terrible psychological problem, which 

affects most of the things that Dad does. That includes 

his tendency to pick fights with both his extended 

family members, and public officials. 

My grade report in Class Three made the comment,

“not good enough for first class.” At every opportunity,

he would bring that up, but what should that have told

an Ivy-League trained professor? 

If I was the one, that comment about my son would 

have told me, that the school expects my son to have

a first class, but he needs some help. The school 

considers him to be one of its top students! 

Let me do something. I should get him a tutor for 

the exam and for his university entrance examinations. 

However, to Dad, the convenient message was that his

son might just not be smart enough. He is not meant

for university education. 

It would be the kind of a convenient take for a parent, 

who was merely looking for some excuse, to abandon his

child. The man keeps his prestige among his colleagues. 

The child is sacrificed, on the alter of the parent’s ego. 

Meanwhile, the son knows that it is all a lie. You do not

become a Prefect at the MBHS, if you are not one of the

top students. I was a Prefect. I recently reestablished

contacts with one of my classmates, who would tell me,

“you were one of the smart kids!” 

I did have more difficulties with mathematics and the

sciences, than I did with the arts. I would get excellent

grades in the arts, without much effort. I would make

good grades in math with tremendous effort. Physics,

biology, chemistry came in the middle range. 

Looking back now, I fully understand why. My brain

is wired in ways that appreciate and absorb the broader

interconnections, between the sounds in the bush in

Bakana, and the formulae of mathematics. They must 

be related, my mind constantly insists. 

The wiring does not make for rote learning and the

mere cramming of information. Even in primary 

school, my mind would always ask questions, such as

this: one plus one equals two, so what? 

What does the formula have to do with Kaine’s prayer,

early this morning, for instance? I would make up all

sorts of stories in my head, about how they were related.

Should an Ivy League-educated man recognize such

things? 

When the parent is willing to sacrifice the child in the

manner we are dealing with, even an Ivy League

education will not help, as the parent becomes an

animal, in an early evolutionary stage. 

At that stage, it is yet to develop a genetic code telling 

it, not to eat its young for dinner. In later stages of

evolution, of course, the animal will sacrifice its life for

the life of the child, which is the key to the survival of

its gene pool through time. 

No!!! People are not beasts. They are humans. Prof.

Tam S. David-West is definitely not a beast. He is 

one of the most refined people you could meet. He 

would fit in with the upper class, in any American or

Asian, or European society. 

His dinner table had to be properly set. His children

must know what knives and forks to use with what,

on the table. He loved philosophy and the stars of his

generation: Frank Sinatra, and Louis Armstrong. 

I loved to get myself lost in the books of Bertrand

Russel that Dad loved to read. He would be curious. 

He once asked me, as was absorbed in one of the

voluminous books by Russel: “Do you understand

that?” I did. 

Ironically, his position in the Academy also gave

me an early gift. At a time when Wole Soyinka’s

The Man Died was something of a contraband in

Nigeria, Dad had a copy. I read it like a voracious

young man. 

I often wonder where the great scientist thinks that 

intelligence comes from. Does it not come from a

combination of the genetic materials that make up a 

person, and the socio-cultural milieu within which the

individual grows up and functions? 

Is there any case of mental retardation in Dad’s family 

or in my mother’s? No. Both families were made up 

of very smart people, who were increasingly involved 

in community leadership. 

My maternal cousin, Joe Iyalla, for instance, was the

Nigerian Ambassador to the United Nations, as I was 

growing up. I used to be really excited, anytime he 

was in Bakana, accompanied by security officers. 

I once came in ninth, in my class of 30 or so students, 

in my end-of-term exam. Dad would make one of his

promises that one could never really depend on. 

“I will get you a special present, if you come in fifth 

next term,” he said to me. I was fifth in class in the

next term, but Dad pretended as if he forgot about his

promise. He never brought it up again. 

Apparently, it was just a set up. If I did not make it 

to the fifth position, that would have been another big 

mark against his son. May be, he was just not smart

enough. 

Dad would feel justified, to not encourage his son to

aim beyond high school education. I did all I could,

for the boy. He just could not be university material!

I am sure, that would have been a useful message to 

his friends. 

At no time, did he talk to me about what I wanted to 

do, after my graduation from high school. Just a year

or so after my graduation, I even wrote a full-page

article for the Daily Times, on culture and politics. 

That was just as if a high school kid writes an article

for the New York Times. I can imagine the young

man’s high school in say Austin, Texas, or Boston,

Massachusetts organizing a program to recognize the

kid. 

Dad never made any move to get me into the

University of Ibadan (UI): one of the country’s best

universities. He was (and is still) a professor at the

university. 

The University also had the International School 

attached to it. Some MBHS students went there for

their A-Levels, which students would take, as a ticket

for admission into the freshman class at the UI or

anywhere else. 

Note that Dad is also an alumnus of UI, with its rich

and intellectually stimulating campus. The campus

was also linked to the United Stated consulate, where

Dad would often give great public lectures. 

Dad did give me the greatest of compliments, upon 

reading the Daily Times article: “it’s a chip off the old

block,” he remarked. That was it. 

Could he not realize that his son was very interested

in writing? Of course, he could. Might he also have

contacted Yale, Michigan State, and McGill, to admit 

his son? That should have been expected of him. 

All of those great universities have legacy programs, for 

the children of their alumni. I once commented in one 

of my Internet notes, about the interesting fact that both 

President George W. Bush and Dad attended the same

Yale. 

There seems to be a complete intellectual mismatch 

there. That is one of the reasons, why hyperbolic mass 

media debates and individual legal actions, regarding

affirmative action programs for minorities, seem to me,

to be so bizarre. 

How many Tam. David-Wests were left out of Yale, for

the younger Bush to be admitted? 

We can be sure that there were many American-African 

students, who were brighter than the younger Bush, at

the time he was admitted into his freshman class. 

Those African-Americans, might not even have been

considered. Meanwhile, for the rest of their lives, they

would have to listen to a barrage of news reports about 

some white student, who alleges in a lawsuit that a less

qualified minority student took his/her place. 

An interesting experience of mine, with respect to these

kinds of programs comes from a graduate class, at the

University of Oklahoma, Norman. 

A particular female, would use every opportunity to

impress it upon everyone, that she was the smartest

person at her workplace. If she talked long enough,

one might find a real mind at work in her head. 

The problem with her work, she insisted was that

minorities were always being promoted ahead of her,

even though she was getting the best grades in the

civil service exams. I would usually be the only

black student in class. 

I was often tempted to confront her, but I would not. 

Why disrupt the ever engaging class of Dr. Hummel? 

On the last day of the seminar, he wanted to know if

any of us had a question. 

This lady puts up her hand. I was ready for another 

one of her stories about minorities and her job. No:

she had a more interesting problem. After going

through a full semester, she could not understand

what the class was all about! 

I digressed. I think Dad’s unwillingness to copy the

elder President Bush and other Yale alumni derives

from deep psychological problems. Dad, after all of

his success, continues to be bitter, about his supposed

mistreatment by his own father. 

The fact that for a period, his father forced him to 

adopt his maternal grand-father’s name continues to

trouble him. He was, in effect, taking out his revenge 

on his son, without appearing to be crass about it, to 

friends and family. 

One of his old friends, whom he has known since high 

school, Chief Walter Akpana is married to my aunt, my

late mother’s sister. The two of them could pass for 

brothers. They are both very gregarious and smart men. 

The significant difference between the two men is that

Chief Akpana has none of Dad’s psychological baggage.

He had the kind of a relationship with his children, that

any enlightened person would clearly adore. 

His wife, Faustina, obviously was a better judge of 

character and personality, at the time when the two

young women met both men in their youth. 

I often wonder if she warned her sister, to stay away

from the Kalabari boy with an Igbo first name, and

his maternal grandfather’s last name at the time. 

There is a particularly telling story about the future

professor, which I do not care to share here. I can

imagine my aunt, reacting rather sadly and telling 

my mother: I told you to stay away from him! 

The good news for the professor was that his son had 

too much of a native intelligence, from the great Clara

Leopold. You do not go inviting other people into your

affairs, especially when it might complicate your life,

instead of solving any problem. 

That good sense would not allow me to go telling the

Akpanas what I suspected. My dad was merely window-

dressing. He never wanted me to climb the ivory towers 

that he had climbed, so masterfully. 

A psychological baggage can floor the most intelligent

and accomplished of humans. Thus, a parent should be

expected to strive to create a better life than he or she 

had for the children. 

For Dad that was a difficult value to live by, especially 

with respect to his first son. Why bother? His smart

mind might have told him. You can always act the role 

and make it believable. You are an Ivy League man! 

I think it was the act that made him decide to come

into my life, as I was leaving primary school. He might

have wanted to tell people that he was better than his

allegedly terrible dad. 

Even as I write this, I am yet to be convinced that his 

father; a banking executive, actually abandoned all

assistance to his first son, during his years in some of 

the best universities in the world. 

I noticed how concerned and engaged he was with 

my grand-father’s health problems, as he aged. He

talked about his living situation. He would be worried

about the old man’s mental state. 

Everything about Dad tells me, that he would never

have been so attentive and compassionate, if his father

was really callous towards him, at any point in his life. 

Dad is too unforgiving, too vindictive, too much of 

an illiterate fisherman, with his fidelity to tribal 

norms, too pugnacious, to forgive his father, if he 

was really callous towards him, when he was, say at

Yale. 

Dad is the intellectual, who will stop all forms of

communication with his son, and send him a copy

of a note to his attorney, instructing him to ensure

that his son, does not get anything from his estate,

upon his death. 

No: I have never expected anything from his estate.

Indeed, I did not know that he had a huge estate out

there. However, the gesture speaks volumes, about 

the illiterate fisherman in him that I have referred to. 

It is the kind of a thing that an illiterate fisherman, full

of all of the tribal pride of paternal power will do. It is

the kind of behavior, we can expect from a fisherman

in a hut, who has never spent more than a few days

in formal education. 

Why was he doing all of that? His son gave his book, 

Philosophical Essays, a bad review that it fully deserved. 

I did read it with Wole Soyinka’s term, “hypocritical self-

righteousness,” in my head. 

I had read parts of the book before publication. Indeed, I 

gave him some of the questions that he answers in the 

work. The book is composed of a series of questions and

answers. Dad’s son poses the questions. Dad answers. 

However, as I read it over at the University of Wisconsin-

Superior, certain points began to whisper in my ears, those

famous words from Soyinka. The literary giant will never

fully know, how much of an influence he has on me. 

Dad was engaged in a self-serving philosophical exercise, 

which even justified his service under the totally ruinous 

military junta in Nigeria. He was waxing incisive, with a

note that the intellectual must question conventional

wisdom. 

However, he questioned no single conventional

wisdom that mattered. His note on luck and being

chosen for national service, hit me in the face like

a brick. 

Imagine a professor, who also walks in the corridors of 

political power, thinking that luck should determine,

whether his son gets more than a high school education.

The gardener says, my plant should die, if there is no

rain! 

I think he used some merit scholarship, somewhere in his

training. Does that imply that everyone else should?

Should every generation go through the growing pains of

parents and grand-parents? 

If yes, then cultural progress will become quite impossible.

Furthermore, the species could not survive, because its

genes will fail to create the kinds of immune responses to

environmental threats, that the species absolutely needs. 

Dad is a virologist. Obviously, he has to know about that

dynamic: that gene-environment interaction, which has

led to the evolutionary marvel we have in the human

species. This species can even destroy life as we know it. 

“It is dangerous, to see luck as the determining factor in 

the distribution of social value,” I wrote. “For, we can do

nothing about luck. It lacks political definition.” 

The remarkable thing was that when I read it over, I 

heard Tam. David-West’s voice in every word I had

written. It sounded every bit like Dad. 

It was the kind of a scathing review that Dad would 

give to a writer, who was so untidy a thinker. I could 

see him fully enjoying the intellectual back and forth 

with the writer. 

I could imagine him, standing on the shoulders of

the great Zik of Africa (the first post-independence 

president of Nigeria, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe), in 

attempting intellectually, to pulverize a careless

thinker. 

I could, indeed, see him reproducing one of those 

pleasant memories of mine: reading the newspaper

rejoinders of the great Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, to

critics of his article, which advocated a military/

civilian Diarchy for Nigeria. 

With regard to the act of sending me a copy of the 

note to his attorney, I would tell him in a letter from

Wisconsin: “you should never do that, because you do

not know the future.” 

Was I trying to “pulverize” Dad as a thinker with my

review? Of course, not. I admired and respected him

too much for that. I also fully realized, that he had the

intellectual reflexes of the great Dr. Azikiwe. 

He did know the future, however. As his son was 

graduating with a summa cum laude in Political 

Science, and a magna cum laude in Liberal Arts, he

decided that his son’s penalty for a worthy critique

of his book was death. 

He would go into parental hibernation once more, in

order not to be bothered with his son’s plans for

graduate school. Indeed, he never asked me whether

I wanted to proceed to graduate school. 

That was even before the book review was published

in the Times. My professors in the Political Science

Department and the Mass Communications Department ....