Nigerian Musician, Seun Kuti who is also the youngest son of the late famous afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti, has revived a political movement of his father, the Movement of the People, as part of his drive to call for better governance in the country, as well as an end to police brutality.
Kuti while addressing the press on Tuesday at the Kalakuta Museum in the Ikeja area of Lagos, said the days in which members of his family were being harassed by security operatives appear to have returned.
He vowed to mobilise citizens to rise and defend their rights under the aegis of the revived movement.
“The idea is that we liberate the Nigerian people, they might be on this table, but I want to guarantee you that this movement will be the movement to cultivate those minds, those ideas. The pan Africanist and socialist foundation,” Kuti said.
“The movement cannot survive without the Nigerian professionals and the middle class. We have to do the work now to begin to engage those of us in society that have been completely left behind and that have been overlooked”.
The briefing comes hours after Kuti said that the government had threatened to close down the Afrika Shrine located in the Ikeja area of Lagos State.
According to him, plans had been underway to hold the event tagged Mass Meeting #EndSARS Movement, Lessons and Tasks, today.
But the government reached out to his eldest sister Yeni Kuti and threatened to close the shrine if the event took place, with a letter backing up the threat.
Kuti said although he respects his family’s decision not to hold the event any longer, he will still go ahead with “all the other organisations to launch The Movement Of The People tomorrow and start our political resistance to the tyranny of this oppressive regime”.
He criticised the government for what he described as their plans to ban citizens’ right of association, stressing that “this is just a meeting”.
“Why are they afraid of the people organising? What is democratic about this act? The last time we tried to launch the government quickly called curfew and this time they have used threat but you can’t stop the will of the people,” he added.
While later fielding questions from journalists, he insisted that the MOP still remains a movement and will not evolve into a political party except the need eventually arises.
– The Nation
