This interview was unpublished since it was conducted in 1999 at his Lekki home. Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, eldest of the Kuti family was perhaps the most reserved and academically distinguished. Having served as the Minister of Health during General Ibrahim Babangida's tenure, the interview focused on Alternative Medicine which was gradually becoming popular in Nigeria but very unregulated. While rounding off the interview, we delved into the life of Fela and the Kuti Family. The segment of the interview on Alternative Medicine has since

Prof, we cannot conclude this interview on Alternative Medicine without talking about your brother who so much loved traditional things, and your ancestry. Coming from a Christian home, how would you say Fela got mixed up with all these and his iconoclastic disposition?
Well, I think you would have directed the question to Fela if he was alive. But then he is dead now. Well, I would not know when all these started because I was away from them all for a log time, by which time he has started all this African things. It started through his music, I think after he read a book or met one woman who introduced him to a book. How it all developed, I would not know. But the most important thing about it all was that he enjoyed what he was doing.

Was it not funny to you?
Yes, some of his beliefs were funny to me but who am I to scold him? For instance he has a strong belief in this African Juju. There was a time he had a brush with the police. He was given a charm by a babalawo to mix in water and when the police come, he should pour it on them and they will all become dwarfs. When the police came, he poured the water on them and they did not become dwarf. They beat him he nearly died.

There was another case of a babalawo who gave him a charm that anytime that charm is on his neck, if the police shoot at him, the bullet will have no effect on him. When I went to visit him, he showed me the charm, put it on his neck and brought a gun that Beko should shoot him. I quickly intermeddled and said I don't want a police case. I took the charm and hung it on the neck of a ram and said they should fire. When they did, the ram died. I told him that, Fela, you would have been a dead man.

He had so much beliefs in such things but I would not know where and how it all started. We had a very strong Christian upbringing. Our grand-dad, Josiah Jesse Ransome-Kuti was a reverend and one of the early Christians in Abeokuta . His son, our own father was also a reverend and educationist. He was a strict disciplinarian. He did not brook lackadaisical attitude to church going, morning devotion and prayers. If students offended, while other got six strokes of the cane, we his children got 12.

There was a time he had a brush with the police. He was given a charm by a babalawo to mix with water and when the police come, he should pour it on them and they will all become dwarfs. When the police came, he poured the water on them and they did not become dwarf. They beat him he nearly died.

What memories do you have of your granddad, JJ?
Well he died in 1930. So I met him and know him. He was the Church organist and he composed so many songs which I cannot remember. I was surprised to find some of the songs in a British museum. One of the curators who heard my name was Ransome-Kuti became curious and asked me if he knew one JJ Ransome-Kuti. I responded that he was my grand father.

He then went away and brought an old tape which he played. I was shocked to hear the voice of my grand father, singing so many Church hymns he composed, accompanied with organ. I sought the permission of the man to record the tape to which he declined but I'm sure that tape is still in the British Museum. How those songs got there is still a mystery to me.

I also heard so many stories about him, how he was a missionary, witnessing Jesus all over the villages round Abeokuta. There was this village he went to preach and was attacked by the natives. He was beaten to a state of coma, and he was left for dead. The Reverend who witnessed the beating took me there, pointing at the spot where he fell said “the blood of your grand-dad flowed on this very spot because of Christ. This very spot will attested to it that your father did witness Jesus. He was beaten by local traditional religious worshipper to a state of coma and was left only when they thought he was dead. Your grand-dad was a fierce instrument in the hand of Jesus. That Abeokuta is today seen as the cradle of Christianity in Nigeria has the strong contribution of your grand-dad, JJ”.

What worries some Christians today is that any one of you is not noted strongly in the Church where your two fathers distinguished themselves
It is not compulsory that we all follow the same life pattern. If Fela and Beko do not go to Church, I do. I am an Anglican and I still conduct my relationship with God in my own way. Go to the Church in Marina and ask them.

Do you pray, preach Christ, sing? Have you confessed Christ as your Lord and saviour? It is one thing to claim to be a Christian through birth, it is another thing to confess with your mouth that ....
(Cuts in) I think I am not ready to make my beliefs a matter of public consumption. That I am an Anglican is all I can say and my religious life is personal.