A destiny child
It is on tape that the fuji man, K1 scolded President Olusegun Obasanjo during his second term tenure, which witnessed paying of Nigeria’s foreign debt and increasing Nigeria’s external reserves to $42 billion.
K1–at a live performance—was fuming, sweating, passing judgement and frontally asking Obasanjo to pack his things and leave the Presidential Villa. K1–comparatively a David in that context–was catching unlimited cruise, not realising he was offloading tons of burden on his head. He certainly didn’t see 2023 when his principal, Senator Bola Tinubu would have fought his way and occupied Obasanjo seat and would–like Obasanjo–have to wrestle with hydra-headed monster of that office.
Is it even a wisdom for a musician, a supposedly non-alligned, to be tied to the flag of a political party and wear the air about the streets as K1 does with pride and a semblance of arrogance he displayed during the Governor Akinwumi Ambode–saga in 2018? The practice betrays the thinnest of wisdom, but K1 is lucky.
At a party where he could have been snubbed, spited and starved, he would sing; they would dance. As a face of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and defacto official musician to the party, he sang and prophetically did that the then governorship candidate Senator Ademola Adeleke’s flag would fly briskly in Osun State.
Lele ni o ma fe
Oo o
Lele ni o maa fe
Asia o
Omo Adeleke
Lele ni o maa fe
Didn’t his word come to pass on July 16, 2022 when Osun electorate smiled on Adeleke? In fact, at that party densely peopled by members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and held in Osun State then under the APC administration of Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola, K1 said affirmatively that whether they–Adeleke’s opponents–like it or not, God has destined him to shatter Oyetola’s second term dream.
Bon fee o
Bon ko
Bon fee o
Bon ko
Olorun ti seyi naa.
That Adeleke–months after the songs–sacked Oyetola could have earned him a query if not suspension from the broom party; he would have been caned for what in politics parlance is called “anti-party” behaviour. But trust him, he’s a sacred cow; untouchable and a Tinubu’s boy. Above all, he is a destiny child.
But in truth, the level he has grown his trade has transformed him into a beautiful bride who must be dated by two or more rivals. Okay, at another level, is Mustafa Sego–now the lord of Lagos State commercial drivers–not patronising him despite Sego’s understanding of K1’s alliance with the embattled MC Oluomo he displaced from that office of free money?
Notwithstanding this immunity, K1 knows that Nigerian public are not fools that would easily forget his rains of insult on Obasanjo, hence his pause at a recent show in Sagamu and a few lines he chanted on the state of the nation in reference to the ongoing EndBadGovernance protest.
But when he ought to have given it to Tinubu in the language of his Obasanjo treatment, K1 only slapped him on the wrist and turned to the agitating Nigerian youths to exercise patience with a promise that Tinubu would meet their expectations ultimately.
In any case, could K1 have called for the head of Tinubu and told him off of his regret for having identified with and campaigned for his elections? This sounds impossible. That is why he is now silent, and so shall he remains till when Tinubu possibly would find him a liability to his second term and throw him out of the window.
Isn’t only interest–not relationship–that is permanent in politics? That is Henry Kissinger, a former US Secretary of State, for you when– without minding whose ox is gored–declared “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests”.
Inadvertently, K1 is farting on his venerable duty to public as voice of the voiceless; he’s lost the fire in his voice against a government that has ignited this we-no-go-gree fire, which, I learnt is going to resume this morning, despite the President’s yesterday’s broadcast.
K1 has robbed public his hitherto critical songs that could have reminded Tinubu of difference between progressive and destructive kings and their respective places in history.
Should every musician toe the path of K1 as an establishment singer who sings only owambe lyrics and returns to his bedroom with bags of bails of Naira, that will embolden the authorities to continue to match on the heads of the masses and go away with the recklessness.
That is our current situation, a contrast to when K1, then Wasiu Ayinde Barrister, in 1984 released a vinyl wherein he mocked the Second Republic government of Alhaji Sehu Shagari. K1 dropped the elpee titled ‘Talazo Special’ shortly after the angry soldiers kicked out the politicians on December 31, 1983 and Major General Muhammadu Buhari crowned the new king.
In the album, I love till this morning, he raised the alarm with a particular emphasis that Nigerian masses were suffering. Forty years after, the masses have not changed. K1 has changed. Interest has shifted. What a dynamic life!
