Rememer the #SaveOJB campaign?
Rapper Jude Abaja aka M.I has revealed the reason why many Nigerian artistes could not donate Money for OJB’s kidney complications last year.
M.I in a recent chat with My Africa podcast, blamed it all on the
fear of being ridiculed made many artistes not to give cash to the
producer
“This is what happened; OJB was sick and people were trying to raise
money. I all of a sudden went 0-100 broke, like instantly. All of a
sudden there were letters going out, ‘like this person didn’t
contribute, why would you ask a publicist (to write a letter), and it
became a big thing. What caught me was the fact that Nomoreloss was a
fellow artiste, and he’s writing letters saying, ‘Why won’t artiste come
out, why won’t D’banj speak out and say he didn’t donate this money?”
“Everybody was confused, every artiste was confused, so one or two
things started happening. A certain artiste told me that he went and
contributed the little money that he had, and by the time he got home,
it was put in the broadcast, ‘this is how much you gave’.” And it was
embarrassing because somebody else is giving N5 million, and you have
your little N100,000.
“Already, everybody was in that N100,000 category, of which there was
maybe 20, 30 people. Automatically it’s like ‘Yo, I’m gonna keep my
N100,000, I’m not trying to be embarrassed. On the second hand, you have
artistes, like myself, who were just confused, if we were to go, what
would have happened, what would we see, because it had become a media
thing.
OJB later got the help he needed when the Governor of Rivers State,
Rotimi Amaechi, funded the surgery. M.I Abaga recognizes that, but
believes that more discretion and understanding should have been applied
by Nomoreloss.