Yeni Anikulapo-Kuti has said that her late mother, Remilekun Anikulapo-Kuti, stayed celibate for two decades after separating from Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti. She recently made the disclosure while speaking on TVC’s Your View, and Nigerians have been reacting.
Speaking during the programme, Yeni revealed that even when a doctor warned her mother that her sexual organ might become less potent due to a lack of use, she insisted that Fela was the only man for her.
Yeni stated that while she never really understood the reason for her mother’s stance, she never knew another man after her separation from Fela.
“Sex is very important in marriage, but celibacy is a matter of choice. My mummy moved out of my father’s house in 1981, and she died in 2002. From 1981 till she died, she never met another man. She was celibate during that period. I knew, but I could never understand,” she said.
Remilekun, born in London in 1941, married Fela on January 7, 1961, and their union produced $ children – Yeni, Femi and Sola, who died in 1997.
The marriage ended in the early 1980s, and Remi eventually died of cancer in 2002.
In January, Yeni and Femi released their mother’s memoir, Mrs Kuti, detailing her childhood in an English orphanage, her meeting with Fela, and the cultural challenges of settling in Nigeria.
Fela also died in August 1997 from AIDS-related complications.
