Kunle Idiagbon, son of Late Tunde Idiagbon, ex-Chief of staff at Supreme Headquarters under the military regime of General Muhammadu Buhari has revealed of his deceased father’s love for late Afrobeat King, Fela Anikulapo Kuti and legend Bob Marley’s songs.
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The Junior Idiagbon made this known in an interview with Punch where he said the former number-two man was enamoured of the deceased musicians who spoke truth to power with their songs.
He said, “He (late Idiagbon) was more into Nigerian music. I remember he used to listen to Fela. There was a popular Fela song. I was going out with him and I just kept singing the song. I tried to keep silent when I discovered that he was the one beside me; he told me to continue. He liked Fela and Bob Marley a lot.”
Kunle recounted an incident when he was slapped by his deceased father who had reputation of being a no-nonsense man because he failed to salute him.
According to him: “In 1982, I attended Military School, Zaria…and I remember one day we were being drilled and some soldiers called me to go to the commandant’s house that my father was there to see me. My father was quite friendly with the then commandant. They were family friends and I thought I would use the opportunity to escape the drilling.
“I quickly left the place and went to the commandant’s house. When I got there, he was sitting outside with my father and they were reading papers. My father wore his uniform and I was excited to see him.
“When he saw me, he stood up and I rushed to him. The normal thing I should have done was to salute him because I was in uniform and he was also in uniform. I was caught up in emotion and I just hugged him. He hugged me for a second too. But the next thing, he used his left hand to push me back a bit and as he did so, his right hand came on my face. He gave me a hard slap and I saw stars.
“I wondered what I did wrong when I regained consciousness. The next thing he did was to look at the commandant and said, “Charles, is this the way you train your boys? A boy will see a general in the Nigerian Army and he will not salute.”
“That was when the commandant called the people in charge of discipline and told them to lock me up. They removed my belt, cap and started punishing me right in his front and he didn’t worry. That was the day that I knew apart from being my father, he was also a general in the army.”
