Jad Abumrad

But I see that much more as a stunt and as an act of desperation, frankly.

Yeah, we spoke to three of the four that are still alive, as far as we can tell.

And what was really interesting is that they all insisted that they were there by choice, however we might judge them.

They did not want to be seen as political objects.

Each of them got there for their own reasons.

One of them, Laide, wanted to travel and see the world.

She'd always dreamed of being an air hostess, and there was no way for her to be that.

But along comes this guy who is traveling, and it does allow her to see the world.

Another, Lara, wanted to fight back politically, and this was the only guy doing that.

A third person, Chinieri, talked about how in...

In Nigeria, you have an amalgam of ethnic groups and an incredible amount of tension.

That's what led to the civil war.

And one of the rules of Fela's compound was that there can be no ethnicity.

You cannot refer to each other as Yoruba or Igbo.

You're simply people.

And that was why she went there.

So each of them had a reason.

And as they spoke about him, they acknowledged some of the excess.

But they also spoke about him with incredible fondness.

And that was complicated.