Nigerian drugs squad holds singer Fela and 70 others

LAGOS, April 10 (Reuter) Maverick Nigerian musician Fela AnikulapoKuti
and over 70 others were arrested in a raid on his combined home and club, the
national drugs agency said on Thursday.
National Drug Law Enforcement Agency spokesman Abiodun Adesola told
Reuters a large quantity of marijuana, but no harder drugs, had been seized
during the police raids on Wednesday night.
``As far as I know up to this point charges have not been made against
Fela or any of the others,'' Adesola said.
``We do not want so many people around here at the headquarters so we are
trying to process things as quickly as possible,'' he added.
Afrobeat superstar AnikulapoKuti, 58, commonly known by his first name,
is no stranger to controversy or to the jail cell. He has a reputation for
openly smoking marijuana and dressing only in his underpants.
AnikulapoKuti was last held by the drugs agency in February 1996, when
it vowed to reform him of his drug habit.
In the mid1980s he was locked up for 18 months for allegedly smuggling
foreign exchange, but his fiveyear term was cut short when it emerged that
the judge who convicted him had been under pressure from thethen military
government.
AnikulapoKuti was in the past critical of military rulers, but recently
he has kept to his home and club in Ikeja, a working class suburb of Lagos.