Seun Kuti Wants Marijuana To Be Legalized - Is He Right?

After commending his brother Femi Kuti’s exciting performance alongside him on Stage at the concluded 2012 Felabration concert at the Afrika Shrine, Seun Kuti broached an argument supporting smoking marijuana against smoking cigarettes. Seun is son of foremost afro-beat rhythm crooner, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, acclaimed possessor of death in his pouch who died 15 years ago following his debilitation to AIDS.

In his home sitting on a cluttered, narrow street of Lagos in Ikeja, which recently was transformed into a museum and popularly called Afrika Shrine, family annually put up a week of concerts to celebrate the legacy of the afro-beat maestro otherwise dubbed Abami Eda.

Seun Kuti usurped the avenue after his stage performance reliving his father’s style at the 2012 edition of the Felabration concert in Afrika Shrine to speak on his support for weed smoking. Marijuana undoubtedly is his choice against cigarette, taken after his father’s choice of purposeful adoption of anything African against whatever appears to be of African colonization by the west.

He condemned the non-legalizing of Marijuana like cigarette, suggesting that the position of the law on the two products was illogical.

In his submission, the favored cigarette has lethal consequences, while the legally opposed marijuana was medicinal and good for human consumption. But, Seun said, the killing cigarette was favored because it was to the white man’s profit, stressing that marijuana would make black countries richer than the white if legalized. His argument is an absolute face off with cigarette consumption while beckoning marijuana to the spotlight.

Proclaiming this position through lyrics of songs, the young Fela marionette damned black politicians for taking the white’s advice against its own natural produce of ‘weed’, which he said was good after all, and accepting the white’s product which truncates lives.

“This song is about the good leaf; ewe rere. Me I nor dey say make Government legalize Igbo o. If Government like, them legalize am. If Government like, them nor legalize am. I’m smoking it mehn!” Seun introduced.



Continued Seun, “Our politicians nor get sense. Because the white man talk say Igbo nor good, them follow dem talk say Igbho nor good. But now, in the United States of America, dem dey smoke Igbho legally”.

Seun suggested that the west advised the black politicians against legalizing marijuana because they knew it would make the black countries rich.

“Igbo doesn’t kill, but cigarette dey kill. Because cigar na white man’s business, as far as you write ‘Smokers are liable to die young’, it becomes legal.

“Why not also put Igbo in a box and write Igbo smokers are liable to go crazy young?”, he quipped.

Seun encouraged further in songs; “plant am make e grow… e good, e good, e goodu well well… plant am make e grow”.



After his groovy performance on the stage, Seun an interview with citizen journalist Segun O’Law, reiterated this position stating the benefits of smoking marijuana to include ‘medicinal’. Although Seun warned that over sniffing of weed could intoxicate or drive a subject crazy, he stood in his submission that modest weed smoking was better than cigarette bearing the latter's deadly outcome.

“Marijuana is medical, and I feel Cigarette is selling legally because it is white man’s business. It is killing millions of people everyday.. Igbo is not killing anybody.

“Marijuana is not only for smoking. It’s used for a lot of things; you can make clothes, you can drink tea, it is good, it is medicinal, it helps your appetite, they give it to cancer patients.. a lot of benefits”, he explained.



Many celebrities in the Nigerian and foreign entertainment industries performed at the concluded 2012 edition of Felabration.

The atmosphere at Afrika Shrine, Felabration concert 2012 was beyond expectation, shrouded in thick fumes of discharges from countless wraps ‘igbo’.