The Life of Davido (OBO)

These past few weeks, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has been in the spotlight: from the forgery scandal faced by Kemi Adeosun, erstwhile minister of Finance, to the ongoing revelations that Adebayo Shittu, minister of communication, never served at all.

These events have reignited the discourse on the importance of the mandatory one-year scheme.

When Afropop superstar, Davido, announced via photos shared on Instagram that he would be part of the latest batch of corps members, it did a world of good for the scheme’s relevance — but that only lasted for a few hours.

Davido, right after entertaining other corps members and camp officials with his songs on the first day, seemingly abandoned the orientation camp to continue his tour abroad, an action that enraged many commentators on social media, who attributed the development to his wealth and status.

 

Davido campaigning in Ede

Although it is not known for sure if the singer applied for, and was granted, an exemption from the 21-day camp to attend to his performance obligations abroad.

Davido would eventually cancel his world tour, citing ‘NYSC commitment’, but going by his activities of the past few days, ‘political commitment’ might also be another factor.

Of late, the entertainer has been neck deep in politics, aggressively campaigning for his uncle, senator Ademola Adeleke, who is running for the Osun state governorship on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) platform.

OBO, as he is fondly called, deployed the full power of his superstar status to campaign for Adeleke, politically weaponising his celebrity and music as a bulwark against other gubernatorial aspirants.

Spotted at campaign rallies-turned music concert, Davido and his label mates took over the state of Osun, drawing huge crowds of potential would-be voters.

Going by the NYSC bye-laws, Davido’s political activities point to an illegality. The bye-laws clearly state that corps members should not participate in partisan politics, with an extension of their service year listed as the punishment.

The law states that: “Any member who takes part in partisan politics is liable to extension of service for a period not less than three (3) months without pay.”

From donning PDP garbs to prompting the electorate to vote for his uncle, Davido actively took part in the pre-election campaign trail of the Osun governorship poll.

The singer not only performed at rallies, but he also posted messages describing Adeleke as the “incoming” governor of the state.

That Davido took part in partisan politics while undergoing his NYSC programme is as clear as daylight, but what becomes of his law-flouting activities remains to be seen.

You Wont Believe It Just Happened

Everything you need to live well

It was a dramatic turnout for many this week as celebrities lives were put out in the open as never before. Also, the start of the football season has seen clubs win, loose and players play to get awards from FIFA. Some of the events generated mixed feelings ranging from the public.
Here is what went down in the week:

Cannabis freedom in S.A

Cannabis. Photo 2OceansVibe

The highest court in South Africa has legalised the use of cannabis by adults in private places. In addition, the judges in a unanimous ruling have also approved the growing of marijuana for private use. This is coming after some people who to face charges for smoking it counter-sued them the government for an infringement on their rights. However, it will not be legal to use cannabis in public, sell or distribute it.

Pregnancy Drama

Drake. Photo Study Breaks Magazine

Drake has sued Layla Lace, a woman who is in “a fantasy relationship” with him for claiming that he got her pregnant. He alleges after a one-night stand, she got angry because he sent her home. He cut her off when she continued to send his messages of how she missed him. In April, she went on Instagram and stated she had gotten pregnant. He claims that he requested for the paternity test which she refused to do but insisted that he pay her millions of dollars in exchange for keeping silent.

The end of the beginning?

Nigeria Air. Photo PM News Nigeria

When the government announced that it had decided to revive the glory days of the Nigerian Airways by venturing into the aviation industry with its national carrier, Nigeria Air, Nigerians were excited because it showed government’s dedication towards becoming a force in the industry. However, on the 19th of September, the Minister for State Aviation Hadi Siriki announced that the government has suspended the air carrier indefinitely. After the announcement, Nigerians took to social media to express their displeasure.

And the FIFA winners are

FIFA Trophy. Photo FIFA

Actor Idris Elba who fans are voting to be the next James Bond has gotten the job to host FIFA Best Awards. The award show will be co-hosted by French Television presenter Anne-Laure Bonnet. The men’s award contenders are: Cristiano Ronaldo, Mohamed Salah and Luka Modric. The women contenders are the Lyon pair Ada Hegerberg and Dzsenifer Marozsan and Brazilian legend Marta. Two years ago, Cristiano Ronaldo and Carli Lloyd became the first recipient of the Best Male Player and Female Awards respectively.

Social media father

Wizkid, Shola, Boluwatife

Wizkid has come under fire for being an irresponsible father. According to the series of posts on Instagram by his first baby mama and mother of Boluwatife, Oluwanishola Ogudugu, he has been absent from Bolu’s life for seven years and is only a “social media daddy”. The posts included screenshots of some of their messages from 2016 and a lengthy write-up explaining the events surrounding the messages. Check out some of the public’s reactions here

My passion is to develop Africa digitally says Kalada Meshack-Hart

Kalada Belema Meshack-Hart is a passionate development enthusiast and digital media strategist. The Niger Delta digital wizkid from Rivers State Nigeria studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Port-Harcourt.

His passion to see development and empower young people led him to begin the EMPOWER 3600 project where he is currently empowering 3600 young Nigerians with digital media skill to make them self reliant. As a digital media expert he runs one of Nigeria’s most popular online blogs TATAFONAIJA which currently has over 1,500,000 daily impressions on Instagram @tatafonaija.

In a conversation with Vanguard, the young and enthusiastic Meshack-Hart reveals his passion for developing Africa digitally through his programmes and also his desire to see women in Africa rise to occasion in leadership and responsibilities.

“I have served as the youngest Chief Press Secretary to the Former First Lady of Nigeria and have also engaged as the new media assistant to a sitting member of Parliament,” says Belema Meshack-Hart.

The young entrepreneur also disclosed that his desire to see Africa unite and develop to a height led him to put this team together to work on the ‘Wives of Presidents and Vice Presidents in Africa’ (COWAP) project thus, harnessing the enormous wealth of intelligence and goodwill in these wives of Presidents and Vice Presidents in Africa both sitting and past to achieve peace and development in Africa.

“My focusing on peace, ending hunger and poverty as well as improving girl child education in Africa are on the front burner of my agenda of Africa development. I am the team lead of COWAP. Through my NGO ‘Engage Empower Educate Initiative’ (EEEI) which started last year with the aim of empowering the girl child and youth, we have focused on 4 thematic points of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). And to this end, the EEEI as a vibrant body has been able to put together 3 projects.

“Firstly, the African women summit: this summit held in Nigeria on the 21st and 22nd of April 2018, looked at how innovative technology could be used to solve Africa’s development challenges. The summit attracted special keynote speakers such as  Her Excellency, Joyce Banda, former president of Malawi; Her Excellency, Jewel Taylor, the current Vice President of Liberia and Professor Plo Lumumba, the director, Kenya law school. The chief host was Her Excellency, Aisha Buhari, wife of the president of Nigeria alongside other dignitaries and it had in attendance 1400 women and girls from across 18 African countries,” Meshak-Hart noted.

Secondly, Meshack added that the convergence initiative was a wake-up call to women. He noted that female political participation in Nigeria is less than 8%, and the convergence is aimed at doubling this figure come 2019. “After the elections in Nigeria, to this end on July 27th and 28th at the women centre in Abuja, Nigeria we put together the largest gathering of female aspirants and mobilisers to train and mentor women to achieve their dreams.

We had the keynote speaker in the honour of  Honourable Dr. Fatoumata Ceesay, former speaker of Gambian Assembly and first female deputy speaker of the ECOWAS parliament. With over 8 speakers and 15 panelist, the ladies were greatly empowered for their political pursuit. We also launched the ‘Women Can Lead Campaign’ which now has 24 state champions spread across the 36 states of Nigeria,” he added.

And thirdly, he made good his boast of empowering girlchild with establishment of  Pads4all initiative. “At EEEI, we believe no girl child should miss school or be embarrassed because of something as regular as her menses, so we began the campaign to distribute 88,800 free pads to 7400 rural girls across Nigeria. We began implementation by distributing hundreds of sanitary items to girls misplaced by the boko haram menace at the kunchigoro camp as we celebrated international youth day on the 12th of August, 2018. With all these and more projects in our hands, Africa is set for a new dawn,” concludes Kalada Belema Meshack-Hart.

Clearing The Facts In The "Wizkid-Shaming" #LooseTalkPodcast

The beef is on between Osagie Alonge and Nigeria’s musical export, Wizkid.

Wizkid who has, in recent times, come under serious allegations of not been responsible for his children’s upkeep, came under attack in the Loose Talk Podcast anchored by Osagie Alonge aka Osagz.

Although Osagz has deleted the podcast and offered an apology owing to death threats, the podcast which has now been made available by members of the public targets Wizkid in a way that might damage his reputation.

Here is a breakdown of the podcast:

Dammy Krane

In January 2016, Dammy Krane took his fight with Wizkid to social media when he accused Wizkid of stealing his song Baba Nla.

“Wizkid is a bitch nigga, I was about to loose it and fuck him up but they even had to beg me,no time to form I am the streets!!#industreet# — #ENTERKRANER (@dammy_krane) January 12, 2016 This industry nigga has been trying it for a while.Stole a couple of my stuff but I didn’t talk….. — #ENTERKRANER (@dammy_krane) January 12, 2016”

“This industry nigga has been trying it for a while.Stole a couple of my stuff but I didn’t talk….. — #ENTERKRANER (@dammy_krane) January 12, 2016”.

Wizkid who did not respond to the accusation later adopted the name, Baba Nla. Osagz has said that there is actually more to the story. He accused Wizkid of drugging Krane to steal the song.

Song Stealing

When the song, Drake “One Dance” featuring Wizkid, was released, the song quickly rose to become a hit on the Billboard charts. While the public praised him for achieving this notable feat, they also found out that Nigerian beat producer SARZ’s name was conspicuously missing from the song credits. It was not until May, 2016 after a public serious backlash that SARZ’s name appeared. Before then, the name found included South African DJ Maphorisa, a member of Wizkid’s production team.

The award-winning song would go on to beat Adele’s “Hello”, Bruno Mar’s “Grenade” and John Legend’s “All Of Me” and win a Guinness World Record for becoming the  23rd best-selling digital single of all time.

Went grocery shopping today and came across the new 2018 “Guinness World Records” book. Guess whose name was on one of d pages? Yes! Wizkid! pic.twitter.com/xKSiUEo4q7

— 28Teen 🇨🇦 (@9ja_canadian) September 21, 2017

Age

Wizkid was sold to the public as a younger person so that he will appeal to the millennials. His supposed real age was, however, not mentioned. We could not confirm that information.

On Friends

Wizkid, he claimed, no longer keeps his day-one friends. Citing instances as Willybang, he said that the money he was exposed to led to the rife between him and EME founder, Banky W and his disrespect of Banky on Twitter. Wizkid came under attack by fans when he failed to attend the wedding between Banky W and Adesua Etomi. He later stated his regret on Instagram:

Swindler

Wizkid was accused of slapping one of his managers and even swindling all of them. He raised allegations that Wizzy ripped Disturbn London. Wizkid’s one-time manager Godwin Tom who has also worked with MI and Davido despite having a fallout with the starboy once rose to his defence,

“It is hard to pay attention to everybody the same way, I have seen Wizkid be the nicest person to people he has never met in his life, but I have also seen situations where it gets really exhausting”

“It was a disagreement, that is as much as I can say to be honest, I have no objective right to say anything negative about Wizkid. It was a disagreement, we didn’t agree on so many things, so we had to move on, but we have moved past it, we are good.”

Missing Concerts

On the issue of collecting full payment before attending shows he never attends which Osagz accused him of:

In 2016, Wizkid was to perform at the Lugogo cricket oval stadium at a sold-out event. Days to the event, a statement issued by the promoters stated that he will no longer be attending the event.  His reason was that he had been placed on bedrest on the doctors’ orders. He was taken to court and had to settle out of court.

He also addressed the issue that Wizkid did not pay his band their complete money for following him to the Coachella festival. Wizkid, however, revealed last-minute that the failure to attend is due to one of his band member’s inability to get his visa on time. Insert tweet:

We are sorry to announce that Wizkid is unable to make it into the country to join us this weekend but will be performing next weekend.

— Coachella (@coachella) April 14, 2018

Wizkid, Mr Eazi And Other Record Label Signees

It turns out Mr Eazi was as surprised as the public when Wizkid announced at the 2016 Vodafone Ghana Music Awards that he had signed R2bees, Efya and Mr Eazi to his record label, Starboy Worldwide label. This, he told Giovani on Starr FM:

“The night after the award I heard those comments and I was just like this is just silly. We all came together and said let’s come up with a platform, Starboy Worldwide and our aim is to take the music to the world. Starboy Worldwide is a collective organization specifically to push African music worldwide”.

Guess who Osagz said influenced his decision to announce this: drugs. He also accused him of telling the world that he has contracts for his son, Boluwatife. Osagz opines “The good thing that happened to his son is that bad energy (wizkid) stayed far away from him”.

Wizkid, his baby mama’s screenshots exposed, does not know Tife’s full names and his birthdate and has not had reasonable contact with Tife. Osagz also accused Wizkid of using and dumping L.A.X, Maleek Berry and not paying Legendary Beatz “their money”.

Wizkid and Tiwa Savage

Rumours filtered the air on Wizkid’s romantic relationship with Tiwa Savage after he told her to “Stay Sexy for daddy”. Davido also affirmed the relationship after tweeted “Tiwa our sister ooo (laughter emoji) STAR BOY.” to Wizkid’s “I am looking for a sister”.

Tiwa our sista ooo 😂😂😂 STAR BOY !! ⭐ https://t.co/lvWll6nGOd

— Davido (@iam_Davido) May 11, 2018

Meanwhile, she told SoundCity Radio,

“Wizkid and I are friends, I heard all sorts of stories about Wizkid and I, but I chose to ignore them. At a point, people said I was dating Humblesmith; later they mentioned another artiste. How long will I continue to debunk these rumours. I have been in the music industry for quite a while and I have grown a thick skin, so certain rumours or insinuations don’t get to me again.”

Osagz begs to differ. Tiwa Savage is not the only married one he is sleeping with. He also sleeps with other married women for money. Some male celebrities are doing same.

Wizkid’s relationships

Read up on his first baby mama’s accusations here and his response here. Osagz opines that Tania Omotayo is the luckiest because she has got rid of the “off and on media circus relationship” and this includes “the girl in holla at your boy girl” (Sophie Rammal) and Justin Skye. These three were reportedly dumped by the musician.

Wizkid, Davido and Wealth

As far as Osagz has been made to believe, Wizkid is envious of Davido’s social status and has made a conscious effort to be like him. It is the same desire that led him to blow up the $1 million he got to pay for song deals he had with TY Dollar sign, Chris Brown & other foreign artistes, and instead blew it on a rented Lambo, shoes and a rented Mansion. Wizkid and Davido settled their 6-year-rift in 2017.

Drugs

Kindly refer back to Dammy Krane’s tweet. Osagz alleged that Wizkid sniffs cocaine and cannot afford the lifestyle that he has chosen which is why he cannot give  Shola the money she requests for. He also said that he offered a girl cocaine that made her go half-naked in a hotel. We couldn’t confirm this story.

Wizkid was, however, accused in 2012 of being high on drugs when he performed this freestyle:

Selfishness

He has found it difficult to help people who are in his management. Osagz said that this is the reason Bizzle Osikoya left. We could not confirm this story.

TuFace and IcePrince

Tuface was accused of setting the foundation for the sexual pervasion that is ravaging the industry. With 7 children from different mothers and his documented exploits, Tuface seemed like the best choice for Osagz. Included in this fall is “Aboki” crooner, Ice Prince. Iceprince who has been linked with several women took the responsibility for ending his much-publicized relationship with Ghanian Maima Nkewa. He, however, reportedly didn’t feel sober for the way the relationship ended.

Nollywood Actress, Ireti Doyle Reacts To Davido's Active Involvement In The Osun Election

Iretiola Doyle, a prominent Nollywood actress, has spoken on Davido’s active involvement in the politics of Osun state in the past few weeks.

Davido, whose uncle is the standard bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the yet to be concluded governorship election in the state, has been a strong youth mobiliser for the opposition party.

However, Mrs Doyle said if Nigerians had demonstrated a similar passion and fervour in politics as Davido, the nation would have escaped the political and socio-economic doldrums it has found itself in present times.

She went further to urge Nigerians to get their PVC and aggressively support the candidate of their choice during the 2019 elections.

Sharing a photo of Davido on Instagram, the actress wrote on her Instagram handle: “Who he’s campaigning for and why is immaterial and beside the point.

“The way I see it, if a quarter of us got involved and pursued our political preferences with as much passion, single-mindedness, loyalty, doggedness and “we die here” fervour that @davidoofficial has displayed and sustained over the last several days, it’s safe to say that the last 2 decades probably wouldn’t have gone down the way they have and we probably wouldn’t be in the current socio-political situation we are in.

“It doesn’t matter how cerebral or articulate you are; backseat driving and armchair political analysis don’t change a thing.

“Everyone is analysing what A, B, C and D are doing, the real question is what are you doing? How are you getting involved? What is your political preference and how are you ensuring that you are effectively represented?

“Alas, classic Nigerianese, you no go do, person wey gree do will be damned for doing… Na so!

“Davido has found his “why”. I am PVC ready currently on the lookout for my “why”. A candidate whose politics I agree with, who I feel I can trust.”