A Picture of Sade Adu as an Infant
Four-time Grammy Award winner Sade Adu, with her mother and brother in Ibadan, is being carried by her father, Adebisi Adu.
Col. Francis Adekunle Fajuyi, an Unsung Hero and Profound Loyalist
In a coup that will go down in history as the bloodiest in the country, Fajuyi paid the ultimate price for refusing to back down in defense of his boss, Gen. Aguyi Ironsi, even though the coupists did not really have him as their target. Even when it came to the last moment, his allegiance to his boss was certain. His body was to be found later, along with the bullet-riddled body of Aguyi Ironsi. A wonderful man and real hero was Col. Adekunle Fajuyi. Col. Adekunle Fajuyi’s bravery and loyalty will go down in history as rare examples of such courage and loyalty. MC BEM Francis Adekunle Fajuyi (June 26, 1926 – July 29, 1966). Fajuyi of Ado Ekiti, who was a teacher and clerk before enlisting in the army in 1943, received the British Empire Medal in 1951 for his role in quelling a mutiny in his unit over food rations while serving as a sergeant in the Nigeria Signal Squadron of the Royal West African Frontier Force. Before the first coup in January 1966, Fajuyi was assigned to Abeokuta as garrison commander, making him the first indigenous commander of the 1st battalion in Enugu. On January 17, 1966, Major General Ironsi took over as the new C-in-C, and he named Fajuyi the Western Region’s first military governor. Along with General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, the Head of State and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, who had come to Ibadan on July 28, 1966, to speak at a conference of Western Nigeria’s natural rulers, he was assassinated on July 29, 1966, in Ibadan by the retaliation-seeking counter-coupists led by Major T. Y. Danjuma. Six months prior, the civilian regime of Prime Minister Sir Tafawa Balewa was brutally overthrown, resulting in the deaths of the prime minister and several high-ranking government officials, many of whom were from northern Nigeria.
Origin of Fela’s Music Career and Establishment of his Music Band
Young Fela Kuti at Trinity College of Music in London in the late 1950s, in the College Blazer. Trinity College, one of the oldest and most esteemed music schools in the world, was established in 1872. After his parents sent him to London to study medicine, Fela arrived in 1958 to study composition and trumpet performance at Trinity College of Music, which is now known as Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. His band Koola Lobitos, which invented the modern Afrobeat musical genre, was formed while he was a student. James Brown, Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra, Yoruba traditional music, and Ghanaian and Nigerian “highlife” culture were among the influences on his music. As a result, Koola Lobitos became a mainstay of the London music scene. Following Fela’s return to Nigeria in 1969, Koola Lobitos underwent several identities, including Nigeria ’70, Afrika ’70, Egypt ’70, and Egypt ’80. While on tour in the United States in 1969, he became aware of the Black Power movement, which had a significant impact on his music and caused his songs to address social and political issues.