Building the New Afrika Shrine in Nigeria

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It's 25 years since the opening of the New Afrika Shrine, an open-air entertainment centre in Nigeria.

A hub for Afrobeat music and culture, it's dedicated to the legacy of Fela Kuti who pioneered the genre.

Omoyeni Anikulapo-Kuti, also known as Yeni Kuti, is Fela’s eldest daughter. She speaks to Surya Elango about building the New Afrika Shrine.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal; and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.

(Photo: Fela Kuti performing. Credit: Frans Schellekens/Redferns)

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
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0:45.4	Hello and welcome to witness history from the BBC World Service.
0:47.1	I'm Suria Alango.
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