Showbiz | S-Square Split - The Background

Peter and Paul Okoye, the popular Nigerian singing duo we know as P-Square, are said to have gone separate ways - again.

This is the second time this is happening. The last time they went ballistic, Peter owned up to having started the fire, eventually issuing an apology, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xU2S8mOpIk (he's since deleted the original video).

He happens to be caught in the eye of the storm again, along with his wife Lola Omotayo. This time they want out. For good.

The reasons given for their split are as varied as your average mechanic's explanation for some shoddy work when a car he's worked for two bloody days keeps throwing tantrums.

From issues pertaining to Peter's choice of spouse (Lola Omotayo, a former business development officer six years his senior) and lack of creativity to differences in career preferences, almost every aspect has been fronted.

But the twins are not about to make it official. They have since gone ahead to record separate music projects, heightening the speculation none of the two appears willing to talk about.

Paul's most recent single,"Call heaven", is done in RnB while Peter has an Afro-pop track called "Look into my eyes".

I spoke to a Naija buddy of mine, someone who has followed the duo for some time. He opines that it could largely be down to a clash of egos, and the fact that most of Peter's songs never get the attention he thinks they deserve.

Paul is the more creative of the duo and is the one who has written a huge chunk of their most successful albums. He is also an introvert of sorts, and would rather spend a night in the studio than gloat over his achievements on social media.

Peter, now re-branded as Mr. P, is the loud mouth. It is the reason every endorsement deal (one of those being with telecom giants globacom) he signs finds its way into both mainstream and tabloid media.

Paul is the guy who has a low tenor and does the opening verses on songs like "Beautiful Onyinye", "Ifeoma" and "Bring it on", while Peter sings in a high-pitched tenor. He is also a better dancer and openly confesses to having a particular penchant for the same.

In P-Square, the general unwritten rule is that whoever writes the song does the opening verse. This is largely because whoever writes the song does his verse first and the other one comes in later. So you can do the maths and make your judgment on who, between the two has bigger hits. 

Paul may or may not be getting the kind of endorsements Peter is getting (As a fan, I hope he is), but one thing is clear - he's got the talent to stay afloat.

Whether this is real or a mere marketing strategy is anyone's guess at the moment. I just hope it does not spell the collapse of their estimated $120 million-estate.

Commentary | Of Anite, Abiriga and Yellow logic

Evelyn Anite once read a bedtime tale between two guys that went thus;

Bob and Jim met at the bar. Jim says, "You know what, Bob? I want to go back to school for further education."

Jim goes back to school. On his first day, his teacher who tells him he’ll be learning four basic subjects: English, Math, Science, and Logic."

"Logic? What’s that?" he asks. I’ll explain it this way, his teacher says; "Do you have a lawnmower?"

"Yes, I do", Jim replies.

"Well logically, you must have a yard".

"I do have a yard!"

"Then logically, you must have a house."

"Yes, I do have a house!"

"Well then, logically, you must have a wife."

"Oh yes, I do have a wife!"

"Then, logically, you must be heterosexual."

"Hell, yes! I am heterosexual!!!" screams Jim.

Jim is both excited and surprised that his teacher got to know all this stuff about him "just because he did own a lawnmower".He now believes he understands what logic is all about.

At the end of the day, he goes to the bar. He can't wait to see Bob again.

"Hey Jim!" (Bob wanted to know what Jim learned). "How was your first day at school?"

"I learned all about English, Math, Science, and Logic."

"Logic? What’s that?"

"I'll give you an example; Do you own a lawnmower?"

"No"

"Then you must be gay."

Anite recounts the tale to an absent-minded Abiriga who is probably still reeling from his haunted past as a UNRF rebel.

He certainly cannot be gay because, among other women, he'd been running with a certain Inzikuru (not Dorcus) and even got biological evidence to support his claim.

"What do you mean?" he prods more.

"Well, let me bring this closer to home"

"Do you support NRM?"

"No"

"Then you must be broke".

And just like that, Abiriga got his eureka moment, embarking on a project that would see him paint everything around him yellow. Clothes. Cars. Cows. Cats. Gadgets. Beddings. Et cetera.

So last evening as he was taking his (yellow) Volkswagen beetle for an evening ride, he got a call of nature in the middle of town. Right next to him was an imposing structure whose fence had been given the wrong paint.

"Why should a perimeter wall of the mighty Ministry of Finance have DP colors?" he wondered. And that is how he ended up here, giving this unfortunate wall a yellow coat of his pee.

Commentary | Debt in the Corporate World

"There's some money I am expecting. I’ll sort you out as soon it comes in" – Ugandan proverb.

Casually thrown around by corporates with little or no intention of honoring their obligations, this phrase could easily pass for the most abused promise in this (our) banana republic.

It could be a debt, payment for services rendered, rent or otherwise. It probably justifies the existence of people like Moses Kirunda (the "baddest" bailiff in town, in case you didn’t know).

It’s been adopted by just about everyone who settles here; Nigerians, Congolese, Kenyans, South Africans, etc.

Just about everyone.

Most times, the blame shifts to a bad employer (who never pays on time), the government, a boss who is "still out of the country", or some stubborn cheque that just refused to mature, choosing to bounce so people won’t settle their dues.

When a 50-something year old fronts this as their excuse for not paying up, you may be inclined to believe them (though there is an increasing number of crooks in this age bracket).

But when someone below 40 says the same, you may need to say a little prayer and set a reminder for hounding them until they come through.

Some may be justified – the cheque could actually be held up somewhere – but others simply choose to blame a non-existent source of funds.

Now, the latter category happens to predominantly feature the bright chaps. Creative folks who are simply good at conjuring up unique excuses every time that reminder comes their way. Innovative young corporates who are always on the verge of clinching some $1 million deal.

Do cheques simply beef them? Are they just so unfortunate that they end up with bad jobs? Or are they such bad decision makers that they always end up choosing the wrong deals?

Probably they and honesty don’t mix. They are immiscible. Like oil and water. It’s their nature. God created them that way. So we should embrace and accept them the way they are.

Perhaps.

Government should probably all collect Ugandans who just trust "fwa"" and lock them up in Nalufenya for fanning this vice.

#OfStubbornCheques

#OfBossesWhoFlyOutWhenTheyArerSupposedToBeSigningCheques

#OfPeopleWhoNeverRunOutOfExcuses

#OfPeopleWhoFeelBadHonoringTheirDebts

#OfDelayedGovernmentPayments

Commentary | Of Angola’s Dos Santos, cronyism and an impoverished citizenry

For the first time in 38 years, many an Angolan will finally get a chance to vote a new president after Jose Eduardo Dos Santos chose not to contest in today’s election.

Dos Santos’ move leaves Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) with a new flag bearer in Joao Lourenco, the current minister of defense and his long time crony.

It’s a move that critics believe will still leave Dos Santos with as much influence as he’s always had, seeing as he’ll remain MPLA party president.

Dos Santos leaves at a time Angola’s oil reserves are still estimated to be in excess of seven billion barrels, perhaps enough to last the nation another twenty years.

The 74-year old has probably had enough, having allowed his relatives, cronies and political allies considerable leeway to plunder one of the country’s major resources (oil overtook Agriculture as the leading export since 1973).

Isabel dos Santos, his daughter and firstborn with an estimated net worth of over $3.5 billion, was appointed as head of the state oil company – Sonangol – in 2016, while Jose Filomeno – his son – is the chairman of Angola's sovereign wealth fund.

Despite its oil wealth, most of Angola's 22 million people still live in abject poverty. The gulf between the two classes is best epitomized by the largely unoccupied Nova Cidade de Kilamba, a residential estate consisting of 750 eight-storey apartment buildings and sitting on 5,000 acres.

Kilamba has since been christened the ghost city because majority of the Angolan populace simply cannot afford the property rates in the area. This was worsened by credit access complexities in the former Portuguese colony.

It’s a situation Dos Santos tried to manage in 2013, when he launched a state-backed mortgage scheme to help middle class Angolans access credit to buy their own homes and prompt price drops in the empty city. The properties range from $100,000 - $200,000.

Such a gulf, perhaps, is one of the biggest reasons many of the impoverished Angolans living beyond the confines of country’s elite will be rooting for UNITA, formerly a rebel outfit founded by Jonas Savimbi and now headed by Isaias Samakuva.

Whereas Dos Santos may have reached his satiety point at 74, a certain peer of his to the far North East restively awaits the start of commercial production of "his" (thick) oil before he can call it a day.

After 38 years, the country that gave the world Sam Mangwana, Cabo Snoop (music), William Carvalho, Rio Mavuba, Manucho (football) will finally give its people a new president.

Commentary | Aaron Aroriza, the birthday boy & the Ugandan Corporate dream

Before I saw the light, I once aspired to live that textbook 1-2-3-4 dream of the average Ugandan corporate; 1 wife, 2 children, 3 bedroom house and a 4-wheel drive SUV, partly because many in our generation seem to have been conditioned to live that way.

Every University alumni you meet a few years after campus will ask the same questions;

"Wawasa?"

"Olina abaana?"

"Have you bought some ka land somewhere (Fat-Boy calls it "in the middle of nowhere")?"

"Wazimba?"

We'll soon raise a generation of robots, at this rate. People who do things just because everyone else around them is doing the same.

Now, one of the people supposed to mastermind the "3" in my then blueprint was Aaron Aroriza, a fine Architect with the brains and experience to match.

Once, I casually asked him how much I needed to put up a basic house. He had set up something cost-effective and decent that I felt I could ape and "live happily ever after".

"10 million and you should be good to start. Then you take one step at a time", he said.

Every time I took a stroll around my suburbia with family, I showed them one of his projects and remind them about how the brains behind that project will soon be camping at mine.

Nature, lady luck or "hard work" (like those mystery Pakasa tycoons want us to believe) soon handed me what I thought was enough to tickle Aaron’s fancy, only to discover that my friend had moved on (from small projects, not the profession).

He now rolled with the big boys, and my fantasy house now looked like the equivalent of a servant’s quarter’s extension that probably did not deserve his full attention.

The man I had last seen pushing a humble Kikumi now moved around in a mini-monster of an SUV that roars and the rest of the road users listen.

Aaron turns 30-something today (Is men’s age supposed to be kept confidential as well?) in what should be a merry-filled day for the unassuming Architect.

Happy birthday, chief. When I grow up, I want to be like you.