Orlando Owoh: Musings Before The ’87 Raid, By Asuka Jebose

I left work early evening of a mid-September Tuesday in 1987.  I was still gathering content for the Saturday entertainment pages centre spread in The Punch newspapers. Thursdays were my production day for the Saturday edition. That Tuesday, I felt like leaving at 5P.M to avoid the Dopemu/Akonwojo/Iyana Ipaja chaotic traffic. My younger brother in journalism, Rotimi Durojaiye, and I were roommates then at Punch Compound.

PUNCH offered senior reporters  Flats at its PUNCH Estate located off Mulero bus Stop, in the Iyana/Ipaja /Agege axis. So that evening, I brazenly and dangerously crossed the busy Agege Motor road by Idi Mangoro bus stop and hiked a bus overflowing with passengers. I hung onto a part of the door as the Bus rode to the next bus stop. I remembered that Orlando Owoh lived in that neighborhood. So as soon as the bus slowed down at the bus stop, I quickly jumped off and disappeared into the crowd. I hitchhiked a loaded molue bus and didn’t pay for the ride. Minutes later, I was sitting beside the juju highlife music maestro, in the front yard of his home. Orlando Owoh, one of Nigeria’s original juju highlife musicians, a radical patriot and fearless social engineer who engaged the military governments with his lyrics and music, a man with a sassy voice, primitive free spirit that was anti-establishment with his guitar, and the African Kenneries Band.

“Ah, Asuka oremi omo Aboderin… ka bo( Azuka my friend, child of Aboderin, welcome). The late Olu Aboderin was the founder of THE PUNCH Newspapers, so you understood why he referred to me as “Omo Aboderin”-I worked for the newspaper. I sat next to him and we began to shoot the breeze in front of his yard. Minutes after our welcome salutations, I began my interview. His young children played around the house, ran to him, climbed, and held him, interrupting our conversations. We sat on the mat outside his home, along with a few members of his band, especially his manager. Orlando ordered a huge wrap of Ganja and lit one for the evening. Big Stout and soft drinks littered our front mat, a mini conversation party. I was high from the secondhand smoke of the marijuana.

That night we got seriously wasted, Orlando Owoh opened up during the interview. We discussed the state of our nation, the military’s agenda, and everything else. We sat outside until the moonlight began to break out from the sky. It was getting late when I rose to leave. I needed to get home. But he refused, stating that he had ordered his second wife to prepare a special “Amala and ewedu” soup meal for us that night. I pleaded that I had to leave but promised a return the next day at 10 a.m. to continue. He yelled at the woman behind their home and told her to save my portion of the meal till the next morning because I had to leave. She responded. Orlando also asked that the remaining bottles of drinks be kept for the morning session with him. I left his home that night and returned the next day at about 10.30 a.m. We continued with our interview and drinks and I ate my ration of saved solid home-cooked meal.  By the time Orlando freed me from these two-day interview sessions, I was like a drunk at a free beer festival. My eyes don shine.

A few hours after I got to Onipetesi’s office, one of Orlando’s band boys rushed to the newsroom to inform me that Orlando had been arrested. He said as soon as I left his place,  a band of the Nigerian Army and Police came to Orlando’s house and raided the compound for alleged cocaine and drug trafficking. He said Orlando instructed him as he was being arrested, to come to Punch and informed me of the raid.

A quiet peaceful community with its known personality disturbed by Nigeria’s armed forces.

He was detained at Alagbon Close for alleged cocaine and drug trafficking. Orlando Owoh remained in detention without trial for 14 months. If I had stayed 30 minutes longer with him, I would have been arrested too. He was released in 1988. After his release, he chronicled his experiences inside Alagbon in his 1988 hit, EXPERIENCE.

Chief Owoh died on November 8, 2008. May his soul continue to Rest eternally. I don waka. Make I kontinu?