‘How I was inspired to paint missing...Fela Calls’
Like Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s major hit song, Unknown Soldier, (Skylark 1979), the whereabout of a painting, Passion for All; Fela’s Call (2020) by UK-based Nigerian artist, Mitchelle James Innocent in
Like Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s major hit song, Unknown Soldier, (Skylark 1979), the whereabout of a painting, Passion for All; Fela’s Call (2020) by UK-based Nigerian artist, Mitchelle James Innocent in honour of the legendary Afrobeat icon produced during the EndSARS protest in October 2020, is unknown. Despite the loss, Mitchelle is not ready to reproduce the piece, Assistant Editor (Arts, Ozolua Uhakheme reports.
In October 2020, the #EndSARS protest to disband a special unit, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) in the Nigeria Police Force rocked most streets of Nigerian cities. The #EndSARS, which began to trend on social media until the first physical protest on 8 October 2020 in Lagos, increased in intensity and spread across the country culminating in the October 20, 2020 Lekki Toll Plaza ‘Massacre’.
And there were massive looting, arson, and wanton destruction of public and private properties. Several police stations were burnt down, and many security agents were killed. While these were going on across the streets, a young Nigerian visual artist Mitchelle James Innocent was in his studio in Lagos dialoguing with his canvas to immortalise the true protagonist of protest, Abami Eda, the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti.
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The outcome of that encounter was a 36 x 36 inch painting of the spirit of Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the original musical insurgent being resurrected in Passion for All; Fela’s Call (2020). It is an equestrian oil painting that reimagines Fela not merely as musician, but as what the artist calls an “Emperor of Music.”
Unfortunately, that painting is declared missing by the artist who recalled that the painting draws direct inspiration from Jacques-Louis David’s 1805 masterpiece depicting Napoleon Crossing the Alps. But in his painting, Napoleon is elevated as heroic, commanding, immortalised in motion. Mitchelle adopts this imperial visual language but replaces conquest with consciousness. On the rearing white horse sits Fela, not armed with a sword, but with his orange saxophone. His weapon is sound. His command is rhythm. His battlefield is injustice. Carved into the rocky terrain beneath the horse are layered inscriptions: Fela Kuti Bonaparte Kwarantine Palliathieves. The juxtaposition is deliberate. Where Napoleon’s name once symbolised empire, Fela’s name now symbolises defiance. Where traditional power wielded steel, Fela wielded lyrics. The words Kwarantine and Palliathieves function as satirical interventions — imagining what Fela might have composed had he been alive during the COVID-19 pandemic and its political controversies. This tribute was not purely intellectual. Mitchele James Innocent shares the same birth month as Fela, born just four days after the Afrobeat pioneer. For the artist, this proximity is symbolic.
According to Mitchelle, “sharing a birth month with Fela made this tribute deeply personal. It feels like our timelines echo each other. His fire influenced my understanding of art as weapon.” The painting was created as a posthumous birthday honour — an offering across generations.
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Recalling how the painting got missing, Mitchelle said the absence of the artwork was noticed among his collection in August 2025, after documentation of the lots for an exhibition.
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After some weeks of search for the disappearance of Passion for All; Fela’s Call the case was formally reported at the nearest police station in Satellite Town, Lagos State. He described the loss as both personal and symbolic. “This was not just a painting. It was created in the spirit of protest, in honour of the Emperor of Music who shaped my understanding of courage.
Losing it feels like losing a chapter of my own creative identity.” He is therefore appealing to collectors, curators, galleries, and the public to report any sighting or attempted sale. Because sometimes, recovering art is not about reclaiming canvas. It is about restoring a voice.
Though he has reported the case at the police station, the artist observed that the disappearance of the painting ‘raises questions that extend beyond ownership. When art born from protest goes missing, what else disappears with it? Memory, documentation and continuity?’
The EndSARS protest of 2020 to the artist is a continuation of Fela’s unfinished chorus. In Passion for All; Fela’s Call, the horse strains upward in tension, symbolic of a nation in motion and climbing through resistance. The background is layered with Nigeria’s yellow trumpet flower. The horse bears green-white-green accents and Pan-African colours. Identity is not subtle here — it is declared.
According to the artist, before its disappearance, the painting was publicly exhibited, including at the New Afrika Shrine during Felabration 2024 and at Art Hotel Lagos. At its most recent exhibition in 2024, the piece was valued at N500,000. More than monetary value, however, the work carried generational resonance bridging classical European art history, Afrobeat resistance, pandemic satire, and youth protest culture. In January 2025, the artist relocated from Lagos, leaving part of his collection in his former studio in Satellite Town. Access to the studio was granted on different occasions for exhibition coordination and international shipment of works. By August 2025, the remaining pieces had been documented and sent. One was missing. In October 2025, the absence of Passion for All; Fela’s Call was confirmed. After attempts to resolve the matter, the incident was formally reported at the nearest police station in Satellite Town, Lagos State.
He issued a warning to unsuspecting collector or buyer of the piece saying the artwork remains his intellectual property and that any attempt to reproduce, replicate, mint, digitise, or commercially exploit the work without written permission constitutes a violation of copyright law and will be pursued legally.
