I want to welcome Oriyomi Hamzat Live back to base. The detention of this Ibadan-based media mogul has hit me with trepidation about loyalty and who Nigeria decides to love. I do not say that the young man is an epitome of all goodness, but it is for him and his likes that I wake up in the morning and open Facebook. When I am bored with the shenanigans of life, I go to Agidigbo 88.7 FM, Ibadan or Lagelu FM 96.7 to pass time and touch base with the land that is closest to my heart – Naija.
I watched with mixed feelings how Oriyomi dropped his media mogul hat to go far and wide campaigning for Governor Seyi Makinde. If I had a kobo advice, I would have told him to stay on his programming lane, but heh, it was his call. After all, did I not campaign for Obasanjo and Buhari and did they not disappoint me big time?
I have also watched with tears, his humanitarian efforts at helping others and reduce the pains and pangs of state-induced poverty. Some don’t like his style, saying its saucy – my reaction is – èèyàn ni ìya Muda, mọmọ ẹlòmíì ò leè mọbẹ .
We will have to wait to see how promoting a poverty-alleviating programme on his station and following Queen Naomi to the venue tantamount to complicity in the deaths in Ibadan. There are those who have said he convinced the estranged queen to shift venue and that this led to disaster. They even said he got a cut of the rental of that school. They have provided no scintilla of proof, I hope that the trial reveals the truth about this. I am not a business person, I will die poor because I always look at the moral side of business and it discourages me.
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What I am yet to understand about the stampede is how Oriyomi is complicit? I mean, what happens to parents who threw their children over the fence because of N5k? Is Oriyomi, Naomi and the Principal responsible for the irresponsibility of these useless parents who would push their own kids to Gehenna for a morsel of food? This is my warped argument.
I know Oriyomi will keep doing the good that’s within his power to do, in spite of this bitter experience.
Also, is Oriyomi so small in this world, with the level of investments he has in Ibadan that when brought before a Magistrate, he could not be released on self-recognition? If I was a judge, I would release Oriyomi on the very same terms by which he was released yesterday without humiliating him with a remand.
Oriyomi Hamzat and the Ibadan Stampede
I am not a lawyer, but I think our country needs to reform its judiciary. The prisons (erroneously called correction centres) is filled to the brim with people who, ordinarily should be coming to courts from the comfort of their homes while the juggernauts of sleaze and timbers of corruption move around with police escorts (literally awesome phrase because only criminals are escorted).
We have a lovely country that is spoilt by misplaced priority, unlimited eta’nu and petty jealousy.
I welcome Oriyomi Hamzat back to his base and to his work at Agidigbo 88.7 FM, Ibadan. I believe that Nigeria is too backward for his style of advocacy. I believe that people don’t really know who their friends are, and that they often prefer to stick with their enemies and stand on the narratives of their foes while crucifying their friends. No be today nyansh dey back.
I know Oriyomi will keep doing the good that’s within his power to do, in spite of this bitter experience. Someday, some people would ask the question that Frank Olize used to ask back when NTA was a media of reckoning – do you know where your children are? And if as a parent of a toddler, you could push your child into a frenetic crowd for N5k, you deserve to rot in jail.
CAVEAT: I have never met Oriyomi in life nor have I benefitted from any of his humanitarian gestures.
