Legendary musician and entertainer, Paulson Kalu, known more as Afrikhana in his days in the music world, has cautioned the Igbo outdoing one another in establishing largest business empires and housing estates outside their homestead. He advised them to learn from what happened during and after the Nigeria/Biafra war (1967-1970), when they lost every investment as abandoned property and had their monies in banks seized.
Born Ibe Kalu Njoku, Afrikhana, now a Reverend Minister, told OGBONNAYA NDUKWE in Aba, that it was the lyrics of certain Igbo musicians and the winning streak of Enugu Rangers Football Club, at home and in the international arena, that returned the hearts of Igbo to life.
Sir, you seem to be an enigma in the entertainment world. How would you describe yourself?
I am a veteran, though not just that. I am a legend in the music industry. By the grace of God, I have paid my dues in the entertainment world, having started life as a secular musician. I am now an octogenarian, a grandfather, having children that have also begat their own children.
How did you begin? What inspired the choice of music as a career?
I was born in Port Harcourt into the polygamous family of Chief Paul Kalu Njoku, a prominent and then successful native doctor from Akanu Ohafia, in the present Abia State but resident then in the Rivers State capital. My mother, a petty trader and cultural music singer, gave me the inspiration in music, through her own parents. Cultural music was in my matrilineal family, though in my father’s family they also had a few engaged in such folklore activities.
In those days, those engaging in music as profession or occupation were looked down at. They were seen as jesters, never do well or insignificant to the society (Nde abaghiburu), meaning people of no value, in local Ohafia dialect. In my own case, I was despised by my parents and the rejection got extended to my village people who refused either to associate with me or have their children and relations do so. To an extent, youths from Akanu Ohafia, my hometown, refused to be seen with me. My late father was scared in seeing me associate with musicians and going into music as a career.
Well, I resisted that. Before, I finally took to music, I was entrusted into learning jobs, working as a security guard, after my primary school, in Ukpacha Community Primary (formerly Church of Scotland Mission/Presbyterian) School. In the primary school, I passed well in the Standard Six examination (First School Leaving Certificate (FSLC). I had a distinction and was among the few that had such attainment in the entire Ohafia clan. Despite the feat, my father refused to send me to a secondary school. He wanted me to learn a trade.
I was sent to learn electrical appliances maintenance and wiring, under a man called Akin, a Yoruba, in Port Harcourt. They said I was very young and small in stature and will not be able to carry a ladder usually used by electricians. I was later engaged as a security man by K. Chellarams, a departmental store owned by Indians in Port Harcourt. There, the Indians again said I was too young to be a guard, especially when I will be scheduled for night shift. They told me to try to go to school, since I was very intelligent and interested in education. However, my father refused to accept that and instead sent me to live with his relation, Rev Amos Ogwo of the Unity Church, from where I began training under a tailor. The belief in the minds of our people then was that to be useful to society, one must be a teacher, trader, native or orthodox medicine man, farmer, tradesman, hunter, palm wine tapper and the like. On my part, I was determined to succeed, since I had sought assistance to further my education but did not get any. In the primary school, I was ahead in knowledge and understanding what we were being taught than my schoolmates, most of who as it were, were older than I was. So, I was not happy that my father refused to send me to college.
There’s this story that you absconded with musicians without the knowledge of your boss and your parents. What happened?
Yes, I had friends from Asaga Ohafia living in the same street with us in Port Harcourt. Their father, Mr Martins, was a tailor and their twin boys and their younger brother, were educated and into music in Lagos. They had a band under the name, Martins Brothers, were playing in hotels, events and occasions. While in Aba, I met them and had to travel to Port Harcourt with them. Then, they were on tour of Eastern Nigeria. I was with them on the same street, with my father who lived nearby, not knowing that I was in Port Harcourt. On his part, my tailor master, in Aba, could not trace my whereabouts for months. That was how I finally, followed the Martins Brothers back to Lagos, when their Eastern tour ended. From there, I became a band boy for them, assisting in arranging the stage for their performance and thereafter, sleeping in the hotel that was their location then, though they themselves had homes to return to. However, one night, policemen raided the hotel in search of sex hawkers and arrested me with the girls they caught. I was lucky to see one of my schoolmates, though an older fellow from my village, who was now a policeman and was with those that had arrested us. I told him my mission in the hotel and got released after he had spoken with his bosses. I went back to the hotel as there was no other home I could find. I didn’t have money and had not started earning any, rather was assisted by some of the musicians with small amounts to eat.
After I got released, the Martins Brothers engaged on a tour of Northern Nigeria. I went with them, only to be abandoned in Minna, the current capital of Niger State, due to ill health. The band leaders felt I could die on the way since I was diagnosed with having blood shortage (anaemia). There was no phone or other easy means of reaching my people, so I managed to be in Minna, until the arrival of another band group, which took me in as a backup singer/vocalist. I was good at rendering soul music, blues (country music), Calypso, among others. I was good in mimicking popular foreign musicians. I was also performing as lead singer, when the band wanted a change of play from what they were known for. What helped me so much was my having been in the choir during my primary school days and learning to write and present the so: fa (do; re: me; fa, so; la: te; do! do; te: la, so: fa; me: re do!) tune of every song I came across. As I am discussing with you, I can turn every word we speak into lyrics through the so; fa tune. It’s a talent God has given me. That was how I studied the lyrics of the Western music, including Caribbean calypsos, soul and other foreign brands.
There was this song, may be your first recorded music, “Uwa le le, O wu Ife Iju Anya,” released about 1965, shortly before the civil war, the tone was like you sang in pain, sorrow. Why was that?
While playing and making waves outside, a woman that quarrelled with my mother at home in Akanu Ohafia, was said to have mocked her that an only son she gave birth to, being me, had disappeared and was away singing and dancing alongside harlots in foreign lands. She said: “Where is your son, your only possession is away singing and dancing alongside harlots.” My mother was pained and in sorrow as the said woman further made fun of her, saying she was also foolishly engaging in leading village folk/cultural music group, a behaviour her son had copied. I was angered at the statement credited to a person that lived with my mother in the same compound.
I remembered that while in my father’s house in Port Harcourt, my mother had children even before me that died. I vividly remembered one of them that I had seen and lived with in our house, Mbila, who later died, a situation that led to my mother taking me away to live in her parents’ home. That gave rise to the song and subsequent others that came out with time depicting the sufferings of mankind, especially those that are oppressed and the advice for them to remain focused, trusting in God for survival and sustenance.
It was such acts by people that detested my going fully into making a career in the music and entertainment industry, those that wanted me to fail so that they will mock my mother more, that led me, then, into making a vow to God not to allow me to get lost in the career. I resolved to abstain from engaging in anything that will bring shame to my family. I resolved not to take any intoxicating drink, smoking or snuffing tobacco.
I do not eat kola nut, substances or other stimulants to help me perform during outings. The only thing I chew is bitter kola, and the habit has persisted since then. After the initial rejection, my father before his death, began wooing me back when he saw that I was determined to play music. He gave me his backing with a blessing to succeed in that which I had set out to do. This was when I was with a musical band of a man called Piccolo. I vowed to succeed so that those that spoke evil of my mother and I will retrace themselves when I might have succeeded. I refused to engage in those things that will lead me astray.
Some have claimed that Piccolo and Osita Osadebe made you. Who actually was Piccolo?
Piccolo was from Bangui, Central Africa Republic (CAR). He had come into Nigeria with some Cameroonians, to set up a band when he learnt that our people loved what was known as “Congo” music, which was his style. He got me into the band to provide local songs and the foreign ones they could not sing. I was also singing popular music known as pop, calypso and others. After Piccolo, I went over to play with Chief Osadebe. That was at the time I was getting established in the industry.
There were songs you rendered at the end of the civil war that depicted what had befallen the people after losing the war. Such songs became popular because they were seen as consoling the people, urging them to stay strong and start afresh. How true were those insinuations?
Yes. The songs we rendered soon after the end of the war were meant to reawaken our people not to despair about the huge human and material losses recorded, rather to realise that God was still on the throne to lift up the downtrodden. We used them to urge our people back to life in the belief that trusting God, like the Israelis, would bring new hope of fulfilled livelihood. I have been thinking of restarting the campaign with songs that I have composed that were not recorded in the past. I still have messages for our people and I am being bombarded daily on reasons why I refused to return to stage. Those songs we rendered in the past were inspirational. They were meant to chart a course, a path for our people to find the way. In the past, our elders used folklore, poems and music to pass on information and knowledge to their children and young ones. That’s what we want to bring back.
How did you transit from a musician to a pastor and minister of the gospel?
Having craved in the early days of my life to acquire further academic education and got frustrated out due to lack of sponsorship, an opportunity came to me later, leading to my getting informal study classes that led to passing through college (Pilgrims Theological Seminary), obtaining a degree in Theology. I became ordained as a minister and got assigned a church to pastor. In the course of time, I was awarded a doctorate degree (Honoris Causa) in Theology by the Evangel Theological College and have remained a shepherd in God’s vineyard, since then, winning souls to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was a calling I received long ago and I give God the glory that despite struggles by the enemy to derail it, I got chosen to preach the gospel of truth to mankind, in my lifetime.
Having lived in the world of secular music and also in the age of gospel music, would you say today’s musicians are advancing what you, the older ones, started?
Let me begin with the second question. I have not abandoned secular music totally. I still engage in performances here and there. I know that I haven’t gotten a fallow ground with my new calling, however, opportunities are still coming for me to reach out in the former areas and I don’t push them away. I use such occasions to remember the days of old, where I’m coming from and the love God has bestowed on me. All my songs are intact with me and we are trying to relaunch them when the time comes.
Coming to the other question on present day musicians, theirs is like the fashion industry. It evolves, passes on, and returns again through generations that come on board. However, the problem is that present day musicians erode what is at home, our culture, behaviour, to bring in foreign things they do not know about. They are not learning and are not inspired. Let me tell you why I said that. In the past, musicians did not copy old songs of their colleagues but you see it happening now. The so-called modern players steal old lyrics of popular music without acknowledgement from original owners to fuse into what they play. Listen. At the end of the civil war, two things that brought the heart of the Igboman back to normal living were local highlife music sung to rue our losses, console families that lost loved ones, properties and were given 20 pounds for their huge deposits in banks, and the winning streak of the newly formed Rangers International Football Club of Enugu, which did us proud by conquering other Nigerian clubs, as well as the African continent. These gave a new hope to Ndigbo.
Today, our people have refused to learn. Our musicians are singing away songs that have no bearing with our current state in the nation we call our own. On their part, our businessmen are outside competing who will build the largest hotels in Africa, in Lagos, Kano, Jos or Abuja, without thinking back on what happened to their forebears just decades ago, where their properties turned “abandoned property.”
They are building housing estates in other people’s homes, with nothing to lay hands on in their home town. No one is thinking about coming to their own land to establish, to invest. We should learn from history. Our musicians should lead the way in educating our kinsmen what to do. Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan and the rest of them is not our home. Igboland is and should be our development base. We should learn from history and our music ought to reflect on who we are, our identity.