Again, I’m going to go out on a limb here to talk on a subject that may not be very popular or nice to Nigerian celebs, especially the guilty ones. I have said it severally that just because someone is a celebrity doesn’t mean they are smart. They may have a talent or skill but many of them are not smart especially when it involves their finances. The old saying, “your lies will come back to haunt you” has never been more true than the recent cases of D’banj, Iyanya and Wizkid who are being kicked out of their homes after lying they owned the properties.The residents of blogosphere boulevard were stunned when the news broke that D’banj got an eviction notice from his landlord and was also said to be highly indebted. Yes, it is hard to believe that someone of D’banj’s status could actually be thrown out of his house. But for those who know that the Nigerian entertainment industry is built on lies and more lies, it didn’t come as a surprise or a case of a cranky landlord. Entertainers are well rehearsed liars. They are not what they make you believe they are. Even the upcoming artist with just one song on radio issues a press release that they’ve bought a mansion in Lekki Phase One and a Range Sport SUV?
There was a time when it was strongly
whispered that Don Jazzy and his crew owned Club Jonzing until the truth
came out. You must have also heard that D’banj owns Koko Lounge. My
brothers and sisters in habit of believing everything you hear, I wish
you all knew how your favourite celebs laugh in their closet seeing you
swallow the lies like fufu and draw soup. Let me give an example of how
some artistes can be terrible liars, we were on a tour of five Nigerian
cities with Basketmouth and his then Humour Unlimited monthly show
sponsored by BAT. When we got to Enugu, a certain artiste was snoring
like a broken trailer exhaust pipe in the bus on our way from the event
centre to the hotel. I tapped him hoping to stir him up to reduce his
noise but I was shocked when he woke up immediately swearing that he
wasn’t snoring, that he was only trying to get our reaction. Our
reaction? After snoring for about 20 minutes with a trail of saliva from
one corner of his mouth to his shirt collar! O’boy some people can lie
in Africa.
Did you hear it on breaking news when
Iyanya bought a house in his dreams? His management must have thought it
was a fantastic promo strategy then. If only they knew that not far
into the future, Iyanya would be dragged by his balls across the floor
of the internet, and that his aggrieved brother would take to twitter to
inform everyone that Iyanya had been evicted (not from Project shame)
from his dream mansion. Yes, it is double wahala for deadi-bodi and the
owner of deadi-bodi but won’t it be tripple wahala for Oritsefemi and
his management when fans eventually discovered that the N200m mansion he
purportedly bought some months back was actually bought in his dreams
and not in the real world? How much does he charge per gig and how long
has he been playing these gigs to be able to afford a mansion of that
amount? Isn’t it wonderful how naija entertainers think their fans and
everyone else is shallow and gullible?
Common sense should tell every
artiste that these lies won’t achieve anything but hurt their careers in
the long run when the truth is eventually revealed. Like it was
revealed this week that Wizkid’s car hasn’t been paid for. True, some
naija musicians make a lot of money, but not the kind of money they want
you to believe. Does Oritsefemi look the part of a N200m house owner
even with all his body cream? The telco brand ambassadors who are being
coerced into lying about their endorsement fees can’t make such a
preposterous claim not to talk of someone with no endorsement deal.
I
shivered when I saw in some blogs over the week that Genevieve just
bought a house in Ghana for a whopping $4m. This will go down as the
grandmother of all lies told so far. Genny baybay, you should have asked
yourself if there’s any house worth $4m in the whole of Ghana, except
you bought the Ghana National Theatre which by the way may not be worth
$4m. These lies are getting dumber by the day. The worst thing that can
happen to any man is believing his own lies.
If we had a system where
entertainers are taxed for their acquisitions, the ridiculous and
unnecessary lies will stop. They will speak the truth and nothing but
the truth or so help them God.