A guiding light to the best of the West

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Whether your idea of fun is tracking chimps through lush forests, exploring vibrant modern cities or delving into ancient history and architecture through story or by clambering over concrete (mud in this case) examples from the past, West Africa has something exciting for you. Few people have travelled in the region more extensively than Richard Trillo, so who better than to show you some of West Africa’s best kept secrets. Although not the cheapest part of Africa to travel in, West Africa offers an unparalleled variety of activities, sights and experiences stretched across 17 countries, from the desert beaches of Mauritania to the remote rainforests of Cameroon. In most parts of the region the infrastructure is basic and tourist cash welcome, ensuring that most visitors are low-impact contributors to the local economy. Everyone wins. Ask a clued-up travel agent about the region and they’ll likely give you the old cliché about East Africa for wildlife and West Africa for people. It’s true that West Africa doesn’t have the teeming savannah national parks of Kenya or Tanzania. But aside from its phenomenal variety of tribes and languages  – and the myriad forms of cultural expression they’ve given rise to – it does have special natural features of its own, including desert, rainforest and one of the greatest of all African rivers, the Niger. Add to these its musical culture, its often-thriving cities and the absence of tourist crowds, and you have a region that invites exploration on its own terms, and richly repays it with a real sense of achievement and experience.  Meet the people Some of the best opportunities to engage with people in West Africa are in the most unlikely of settings. When you visit the Dogon in Mali, for example – famous for the vertiginous escarpment that is their home, and their masked dances and spooky insights into astronomy – it helps if you’re good with heights. The people live on some of the steepest terrain in the region and even sleeping arrangements require you to climb up a notched tree trunk ladder onto a flat mud roof (sleepwalkers beware). Visits to Dogon country are usually made on foot and always with a guide, arranged at one of the district’s gateway towns. You may be lucky and meet an artist or a hogon – a spiritual leader – but your encounters with ordinary people will always be warm and rewarding. Ghana: royalty In the royal palace in Ghana’s second city of Kumasi, roughly every six weeks and usually on a Sunday morning, the Asante king, or Asantehene, receives visitors and chiefs to pay homage and make requests. The event, called adae, is spectacular, with tumultuous drumming, singing and dancing. Everyone wears their finest robes of kente – the multicoloured local weave – and chiefs are shaded by umbrellas carried by burly retainers. Tourists are welcome – just join the throng and blend in; nobody minds. You can check when the next adae takes place with the tourist office in the National Cultural Centre – it’s based on the Akan calendar of nine 42-day months (with one month omitted every three years to synchronise with the Gregorian calendar). Cameroon: fun with the fons In Cameroon’s largely Anglophone western highlands – a spectacular region of forests, hilly pastures, fast-flowing streams and lakes – communities are traditionally governed by hereditary kings, or fons. These men retain huge status and have helped to maintain stability as the country grapples with its political and economic crises. An imposing wood and thatched palace, inhabited by the fon and his extended family and staff, is the focus of most highland towns. The fon’s palace near Fundong is a fascinating, almost medieval-looking structure. The fon here is elderly and speaks through an interpreter. Bring a bottle of local whisky as a present, be sure to clap frequently and bow low, and be ready to drink out of your hand. The Fon of Bali is a German-educated philosopher who is always keen to meet visitors, and if you’re lucky he might even pull out some of his palm wine, reputedly the best in the area. The Fon of Bafut, Abumbi II, is a Paramount fon, the titular overlord of a large number of lesser fons in the region, and son of the fon featured in Gerald Durrell’s book The Bafut Beagles. He’s still relatively young and has only 55 wives, compared to his father’s 152. You’ll get a royal welcome and lots of entertainment if you visit during the April grass-cutting ceremony when the entire community collects bundles for re-thatching the palace. It always climaxes with tremendous feasting and the consumption of huge quantities of palm wine. Togo: Tamberma trips In northern Togo, the region to the east of Kandé is populated by the traditional and somewhat isolated Tamberma people who created a fortress-like building style to protect themselves from slave-raiding neighbours. Having lived in isolation for more than three centuries, the Tamberma’s customs have remained largely unadulterated by outside influences, and if you get the chance to visit one of the villages, it can be a fascinating experience. UNESCO has recognised the cultural wealth here, giving the area World Heritage status. However, don’t stop at touristy Bassamba, where ‘tradition’ is about as spontaneous as a circus performance, but rather go on to Nadoba, and check out the Association des Jeunes Volontaires pour le Développement Communautaire, who are building a cultural centre to promote sustainable tourism. They rent out bicycles for CFA1000 per day (£1.25) and can also organise a tour of the area for you, visiting the beautiful fortress homes, known as takientas. Jungle Adventures While swathes of Amazon-style rainforest have largely gone from West Africa’s landscape, areas of dense tropical tree cover still remain in the southern parts of many countries. Less humid forest and wild savannah can be found elsewhere across the region. There’s little in the way of organised access – these are mostly DIY adventures – but a few enterprising locals are beginning to see the potential. Sierra Leone: Tiwai and Outamba Kilimi Tiwai Island, in the middle of the Moa River, is the Africa of the imagination – a magical rainforest, full of buttress-rooted trees and heaving with monkeys, birds and insects. It survived the war well, and is back on course as a nature reserve, with a modest visitor centre. Guides will take you out looking for pygmy hippos and chimps, crocodiles and electric fish (pity they can’t power the camp) and you can also walk the dark paths at night, armed with a torch, looking for pottos, tree hyraxes and the biggest snail in the world (27cm long and weighing 900g). Meanwhile, up on the Guinean border, Outamba Kilimi National Park covers 1000 square kilometres of undulating savannah and jungle, which sit in the basins of the Great and Little Scarcies Rivers. There’s a rich diversity of wildlife here, including elephants, bongo antelope and chimpanzees, and it’s a wonderful area for birders, with more than 150 species present, including the rare iris glossy starling and thousands of overwintering water birds. After years of abandonment, the park has guides and decent huts once again. Go out hippo-spotting by canoe – a highlight. Guinea: Hassan Bah’s Doucki hikes In the cool, bewitching Fouta Djalon hills, the rough road west of Pita runs over unrelenting bare rock in places, then begins to descend gently, with occasional wooded intervals. The village of Timbi-Touni has an enormous mosque, while an hour’s walk further west brings you to Combouroh, the location of a remarkable country market every Tuesday during which hundreds of Fula women – decked out in a superb assortment of print patterns and hairstyles – converge to share news, sell their wares and do the weekly shopping. Nearby is the village of Doucki, which unassumingly offers some of the best hiking in West Africa. Perched on the edge of a spectacular gorge, Doucki has not just stunning scenery but a host of interesting ways to explore it. Local tour guide Hassan Ba has been leading visitors on his signature hikes for nearly a decade. Each excursion has an apt title like ‘Chutes and Ladders’ or ‘Indiana Jones World’, and they range from easy to exhausting. If you’re suitably adventurous, you can climb liana ladders, wend your way between fantastic rock formations and swim beneath any of the myriad small waterfalls in the area – this is basically canyoning à la Guinéenne. Wildlife If West Africa doesn’t quite offer the huge herds of antelopes and lions under every tree that seem to be the staple of some East African parks, it does have rich and rewarding animal-watching opportunities, sometimes in unlikely areas. It’s worth knowing, sadly, that the rhinos are gone; the last few, in Cameroon, were poached a couple of years ago. Mali: meeting the desert elephants Every year, usually in January, the lake and surrounding garden plots at the remote town of Gossi in northern Mali play somewhat unwilling host to Africa’s most northerly elephants, as several herds, totalling some 600 animals, assemble to feed here, having migrated from northern Burkina Faso. In February or March they begin to trek west through the Réserve de Douentza and then they head south again, usually crossing Mali’s main east-west highway (a narrow strip of tarmac), near Hombori. Many local Tuareg are making the uneasy transition to a sedentary lifestyle in this area, and their crops are threatened by the elouan – so tourists prepared to pay to see them by taking a guided camel expedition offer potential compensation. Mauritania: crocodiles of the Sahara Writers of ancient Greece and Rome mentioned crocodiles in the Sahara, but their accounts weren’t confirmed until the discovery of footprints in southern Algeria in 1864 (the last Algerian crocodile was shot only 60 years later). The Mauritanian crocodiles were thought to have died out in the 1930s; however, in the 1990s they were rediscovered. The Nile crocodiles at the pools of Matmata are much smaller, and also thankfully less aggressive, than their river- and lake-dwelling brethren from further south. The Saharan crocodiles aestivate (the hot version of hibernation) in caves and burrows during the dry season, and emerge to breed as soon as they sense a little rainfall. They’re harmless enough (but don’t risk swimming) and easy to find, so long as you’re here between August and December when Matmata’s huge, horseshoe-shaped gorge floods with water. Guinea: tracking chimpanzees In the remote southeast of the country, towards the borders with Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia, you approach the dramatic ridge of Mount Nimba – Guinea’s highest point and a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve – via the village of Bossou. The remarkable tool-using chimpanzees here are held sacred as totems by the local Manon people and are the subject of research by Guinean and Japanese primatologists. You stay at the guesthouse in Séringbara and then set off at 3am for the stiff six-hour hike to the top of the ridge. Once you’ve located a group, with luck you can observe them for hours as they amble around a forest clearing. The speciality of the Nimba chimps is using stone anvils to crack open oil-palm nuts – a fascinating example of one of our nearest relative’s regional cultures. Cameroon: tracking gorillas The rich fauna of the Congo basin can be viewed from raised platforms, or miradors, constructed in forest clearings known as bais by the WWF in the Lobéké National Park. Staying overnight in a mirador offers a rare opportunity to watch birds with unparalleled visibility, while large mammals wander past seemingly unaware of your presence. Gorillas, however, rarely enter the bais where the miradors are sited and you need to track them deep in the rainforest. Trekking through it is an unforgettable experience: your ‘Pygmy’ Baka guide moves stealthily and rapidly through the dense vegetation, alert to every sound, and constantly pointing out easily missed highlights. It’s not unusual to hear gorillas nearby, and it’s important to do exactly as your guide tells you – as well as being vulnerable, gorillas can be dangerous if surprised. As there are no properly habituated families as yet, close encounters are rare. However, patience and persistence can pay off: seeing these giant primates, far from the organised excursions of Rwanda or Uganda, is an experience that will stay with you forever. Adrenaline urges Although the average bus journey in West Africa can raise the pulse, excitement-seekers can find activities in most countries that will quench their thirst for adventure. Guinea: canoeing down the Niger If you have the necessary equipment (GPS, tent and cooking gear), Faranah is a good place to buy a plank boat or a dugout canoe and paddle down the Niger to Kouroussa (note: a plank boat is lighter, faster and more manoeuvrable than a dugout). You don’t need to be an experienced canoeist for the trip, but you will need sufficient food (rice and canned food) to last the whole journey, as you can’t rely on the occasional fishing camps having anything for sale. The river, which widens from 30m to more than 100m in the course of this stretch, winds through forest, which looms out from the banks, and there are several sections of rapids along the way, though only two difficult sections – any local fisherman will give you advice. You’ll see abundant and interesting wildlife: beautiful birds, monkeys and baboons, antelope, warthogs, snakes, small crocodiles and several groups of hippos (which, because they are hunted, tend to stay well clear of boats). The 350km trip from Faranah to Kouroussa should take a couple of weeks. Liberia: surfing in Robertsport Recovering from its disastrous civil war, Liberia has at least two bright new claims to fame: Africa’s first woman president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf; and West Africa’s finest surfing, at the quiet backwater of Robertsport, near the Sierra Leone border. Here, determined surfers will find a clutch of superb breaks, offering some very long rides and good-sized waves, up to about 4m high. The great thing about Robertsport is the consistency of the surfing throughout the year, so the inevitably exhausting journey up from Monrovia isn’t going to be wasted. What’s more, while an embryonic surf culture has germinated in the town – and there’s a new tented camp if your budget can cope – you are not going to find your enjoyment circumscribed by crowds. At all. Mali: climbing and dune-skiing at Hombori There’s massive appeal in the awesome stone spires and walls around Hombori. With accessible sheer, hard sandstone faces rising 100-600m from the rocky plain, this is one of Africa’s premier technical rockclimbing areas, and draws experienced climbers from around the world. Apart from the two needles of the ‘Main de Fatima’ (the smaller is Kaga Pamari and the larger Kaga Tondo), the rest of the sacred massif is largely off-limits to outsiders. In any case, if you aren’t suitably equipped, resist the temptation to free-climb any part of the Hombori rock faces – there are no emergency services here. But there’s exhilarating bouldering on the lower slopes of Hombori Tondo and its neighbour, the pyramid-shaped Clef de Hombori. In contrast to bouldering and climbing, the set of steep red dunes northeast of Hombori town is a wonderful area to visit at dawn or sunset. Local lodgings rent out skis and toboggans, which go down the sandy slopes pretty well. To subscribe or buy back issues, click here  History Today In a way, West Africa’s nations are all impostors, fixed in place by arbitrary decisions in colonial times. Behind them lies the West Africa of old nations, built over hundreds of years. Timbuktu, in Mali, with its libraries and mosques, is perhaps the best-known historical site, but you’ll find reminders and vestiges everywhere. Benin: blood and palaces in Abomey In the 300 years of the Dan-Homey empire – built on trading slaves with the Europeans – the kings gradually constructed a magnificent palace in the centre of Abomey. In fact, it was a vast complex of many palaces, since the sovereign never occupied the residence of his predecessor, but built a new one next to the old. By the time the French attacked Abomey in 1892, there was a honeycomb of twelve adjoining palaces. Abomey, now a UNESCO World Heritage site, is fascinating to wander through; any path off the main roads twists through alleys of mud-brick houses and colourfully painted fetish temples. Visit the tomb of King Glele, and the neighbouring tomb of the 41 unfortunate wives buried alive with him (out of his supposed 3000 spouses). In the museum, look out for the throne of King Ghezo, built on top of four human skulls, symbolizing his conquests over weaker peoples. With each turn you make, the history of this energetic and brutal society comes alive. Ghana: slave-trading on the Gold Coast The oldest European building in Africa, the large and imposing Castle of St George El Mina was built by the Portuguese in 1482 – ten years before Columbus landed in America. The Dutch later used it with dedication to exploit the valuable trade in human lives that dominated this area in the 18th century. You can take a very good, free tour, or simply walk around on your own, communing with a past that at times can feel overwhelmingly close, especially on a quiet day. The oppressive holding cells, or dungeons, are disturbingly unpleasant to visit and it’s easy to forget the 21st century buzzing around in the town beyond the walls. Further east, Cape Coast Castle juts out over the ocean. In a bit of a daze, you walk through the dungeons of the damp, suffocating prison – what the British traders upstairs called the ‘slave hole’ – where captives plucked from war or famine in the interior were held before being herded through the ‘door of no return’ and shipped across the Atlantic. Depending on your mood and circumstances, visiting can be a deeply moving experience. Mauritania: Chinguetti The most venerated town in Mauritania, Chinguetti, formerly had 11 mosques and 20,000 inhabitants – it was a centre of learning, an assembly point for the pilgrimage to Mecca and a city on the trans-Saharan caravan route. Although its glory days are long past, Chinguetti’s ruins and relics are still fascinating. Most of the buildings in the ksar, or old town, which dates back to the 13th century, are made of stone. One of the most memorable is the winsome and weathered mosque, though it is off-limits to nasrani (Nazarenes, or in other words Christians or Europeans). Happily, there are fine views of it – complete with the five ostrich eggs atop its squat minaret, and much of its interior courtyard – from the tops of the dunes that have engulfed neighbouring alleys. Relics of a much more ancient history can be bought in the market: extraordinarily fine flint arrowheads and barbs used for fishing when this desert district was all stream-crossed grasslands. Children collect them in the dunes, and you may come across a few if you take a camel ride into the desert. Architecture It’s one of West Africa’s less well-known but most satisfying features, and if you explore behind the jerry-built, tin-roofed houses that prevail across the region, you can find traditional architecture in abundance. And not just see it, but often stay in it, too. Senegal: reservoir houses of the Casamance The English translation of the Jola people’s traditional case à impluvium is ‘rain collecting house’, but it only tells half the story. The design is like a ring doughnut, with entrances into a shared, circular courtyard and internal doors into private rooms that are built as individual units. There’s a stunning quality to the sunlight reflected off the tan-coloured, clean-swept courtyard floor, illuminating the living space. The thatched, saddleback roof is built like a funnel, allowing rainwater to run into a central pool, from where it drains outside through a channel in the floor. In the past the impluvium guaranteed water supplies in times of war or drought, but few such houses are being built these days. Yet they make wonderful homes – they’re a pleasure just to be in, especially during the hot hours of the day – and more Jola families would build them if they could afford to. Several large impluvium houses in the Basse Casamance district are now run as guesthouses. Mali: Djenné’s great mosque Sprawling across an island in the heart of the Niger’s inland delta, surrounded by a maze of rivers and canals, lies Djenné. Arriving by road along the causeway leading into town, you’ll see the famous Grande Mosquée from some distance. This architectural masterpiece dates only from 1905, but was built in the style of the original mosque, constructed in the reign of Koï Kounboro in the 13th century. The rounded lines of the facade are dominated by three towers, each 11m high and topped with an ostrich egg. Protruding from the edifice like a porcupine, the beams serve more than an aesthetic function; each year the rains wash away the mosque’s smooth banco outer layer of mud-and-straw plaster and the townspeople work to restore it in the dry season, using the beams as scaffolding to climb the walls. Inside is a forest of pillars connected by sturdy arches. The mosque is said to hold up to 5000 worshippers – not bad when you consider that Djenné’s total population is barely double that number. Nigeria: the Hausa city state of Zaria The old town of Zaria has withstood the tests of time rather better than most of the other emirates of northern Nigeria. The ancient city wall, built nearly 1000 years ago, has largely crumbled away, but some of the old gates have been restored and are very impressive. The emir’s palace is a beautiful example of traditional architecture and, like almost all the homes in old Zaria, built in the traditional style. Many buildings display the elaborately decorated facades for which the town is famous – bold and swirling geometric bas-relief patterns, often painted in brilliant black, white, yellow and red. Mountains and hill walking West Africa has some surprisingly high mountains, including the massive cone of Mount Cameroon looming up from the Gulf of Guinea. If organised climbs are still rare, that makes the experience all the more memorable as your group is likely to be alone on the summit. Sierra Leone: self-catering on Bintumani One of the delights of the first couple of days of trekking in the Loma mountains is allowing time to explore the district’s hills, valleys and waterfalls, places where you have a good chance of seeing wildlife. All the villages along the Bintumani trail are peopled by the Koranko, an always charmingly hospitable tribe who are famous for their magic-endowed red mudcloth. If you want to stay in a village, ask to speak to the headman, who’ll arrange accommodation. It’s important to bring basic provisions to offer for meals – rice, palm oil, onions, salt and pepper – as supplies can be hard to find. Also take a supply of the freshest kola nuts you can find, as they are the traditional gift in return for hospitality. The peak of the Loma range is Bintumani, and at 1945m it is Sierra Leone’s highest mountain (the area is also the source of the Niger River). After four day’s hiking, the scenery starts to become spectacular. Sign the headman’s register at Banda-Karafaia and, at Yalembe, hire a guide for the final ascent to the rock- and grass-covered summit. Nigeria: the mountain of death Southeast Nigeria tends to be associated with oil and rebellion rather than highlands, but this is where you’ll find the Atlantika range, the Shebshi mountains and the verdant Mambilla Plateau, surmounted by Nigeria’s highest summit, Chappel Waddi (2419m). Its dramatic moniker, Gangirwal, means ‘Mountain of Death’. Why it’s so named, local people can’t say – they never climb it, so its reputation comes mostly from ignorance. But it is a really arduous, long haul to the top, including sections of steep scrambling, assisted by tree roots and grim determination. You’ll need to bring a porter for each hiker, and even then the six-day round trip will see you exhausted. However, as well as being remote (it’s a 12-hour drive from Abuja just to get you to first base), you will have a blast. You’ll see waterfalls, spectacular, swirling rock formations, huge butterflies, chimps’ nests (and sometimes chimps, of which there are some 2000 on the mountain) and dozens of other species of wildlife: numerous monkeys, wild pigs and buffalo, maybe the odd hippo and, if you’re observant, hundreds of species of birds. At the top you enter Cameroon, where the highland villagers will make you welcome. Cameroon: Mount Cameroon Mount Cameroon, the dramatic mass rising 4095m directly from the sea, is the highest mountain in West Africa. It’s a gruelling ascent as, despite being close to the equator, the windy, moorland-covered upper slopes get freezing rain and occasional snow. Determination, rather than fitness or technique, will get you to the top – that and the assistance of knowledgeable local guides and porters from the Mount Cameroon Intercommunal Ecotourism Board (www. mount-cameroon.org). The board’s aim is to conserve the mountain’s unique biodiversity by using eco-tourism. The best routes up are the old hunters’ trails, where there are basic campsites. You climb through farmland and village plantations, and then into primary rainforest, where birders should look out for the endemic Mount Cameroon francolin. Montane forest follows before you emerge into open savannah and eventually the rocky peak. On clear days there are wonderful views of Small Mount Cameroon (Etinde), the ocean and the island of Malabo – the sister volcano to Mount Cameroon and part of Equatorial Guinea. On the leg-dissolving descent, try to go via the ‘Elephant Opening’, a clearing ploughed by forest elephants where they sometimes congregate to drink and bathe. Urban thrills You don’t visit West Africa for fine cities, the typical urban prospect being featureless slums and a decaying colonial centre ville. Granted, few have many graces, and survival is the order of the day for most urbanites, but there are green shoots of renewal in most capitals, and a level of sophistication and energy that can take you by surprise, especially if you’ve been in the bush for weeks. Mali: musical nights in Bamako The dusty, pinkish smog that tends to cling to the Malian capital at the end of each evening rush hour (the time of day most overland travellers seem to arrive), obscures Bamako’s identity as an increasingly modern city, and a top target for music-lovers (mélomanes). This, after all, was the city that gave birth to that quintessential West African combo, the Rail Band – Salif Keïta’s musical alma mater. Although the grubby old Buffet Hôtel de la Gare is rarely a venue for anything these days (even the train from Dakar is notable for its long absences), there’s always live music in town, and often a host of options, especially at weekends. To find out what’s on where, ask your hotel reception and every taxi driver you meet (if you get a good one, book him for the evening). The Hippodrome district is usually buzzing – try Bla Bla Bar, Ibiza, Savana or kora maestro Toumani Diabaté’s wonderful club, Le Hogon. You can usually count on a good choice of Bambara, R&B and Senegalese music. Next morning, start the day at the Pâtisserie le Royaume des Gourmands before exploring the compact downtown area, the banks of the Niger (perhaps splurge on lunch at the Mandé hotel) and the beautifully presented National Museum. Burkina Faso: loving the new Ouagadougou A shambling provincial centre turned national capital and hub of African cinema, Ouagadougou – or at least downtown Ouaga – is having a facelift. Project Zaca has been a planner’s blueprint for more than two decades and the works themselves are going as fast as new investors finger promising plots. Meanwhile, even if the new Ouaga is still some years from launch, the city’s abundant shade trees, cafés, cinemas and clubs make it a really pleasant city to stay. The best time to be in Ouaga is for the biennial African film festival, or FESPACO (next edition, February 2009), when the city fills with African and international film directors, actors and journalists. Rooms can be hard to find, but the hype is good for Ouaga, which thrives on this biennial cultural fertilizer. Eat at L’Eau Vive, where the singing-nun-waitresses pause every evening at 9.30pm to belt out an Ave Maria. There are plenty of decent cinemas, some of which also host theatre and music, and lots of cheapish, friendly bars and clubs. One place where you can guarantee live music any night is the Zaka Cultural Centre on Avenue Yennenga. In the day, don’t miss the solemn tradition of Nabayius Gou, the re-enactment of a 200-year-old commitment by the city’s ruler to his people. Nigeria: overcoming Lagos Lagos. The name strikes fear among jaded veterans of ‘Third World’ postings, who roll their eyes when you tell them you’re visiting Nigeria’s largest city and raise their G&Ts to your chances of survival. But Lagos has changed. The airport has cleaned up its act and the city is making genuine efforts to deal with its reputation. The fact is, as a visitor you’re no more likely to be conned (fairly unlikely), robbed (very unlikely) or murdered (any recorded cases on a small postcard please) than in any other big city. What Lagos has going for it is its status as the biggest trading centre in Africa, built on centuries of concentrated commercial achievement. All that money gets spent, invested, wasted and enjoyed. As well as its heaving traditional markets, Lagos now boasts Singapore-style malls bursting with the latest must-have technology. It has always had a thriving nightlife and music scene and you can’t leave without doing a session at Sunny Ade’s Ariya, Lágbájá’s Motherlan’ or the New Afrika Shrine – the latest incarnation of the late Fela Kuti’s legendary club and one-time self-styled ‘Republic’.

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