ORLANDO OWOH AND DELE GIWA.

HA hot slap to his face woke Orlando Owoh up from his siesta that particular day in his house in Lagos. Orlando Owoh, the philosophical Yoruba singer, received more beating as he jumped to his feet.

A drama had happened outside his house in Lagos which always had loyalists in their numbers. The security men drafted from Alagbon (the once drēāded Førce Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) of the Nigeria Police Førce), Moloney and Agege had arrived to arrest him.

He was dragged to the sitting where all the other family members had been kept. "Who is Orlando Owoh?" One of the officers asked.

Orlando stepped forward. They apologized to him for the beating. Then, he was taken away, accused of dealing in drügs. Everyone knew Orlando took cigarettes and Indian hemp. He had even waxed songs in that respect. But by this time they raided, Orlando had stopped taking it and had even detoxified himself at the hospital. However, the officers found cøcaine. That became their reason for his arrest even though it was not directly found in Orlando's house, but among the many boys outside the house.

Many years later, his son, Orimipe, said in an interview: ”They came for him because of the record he waxed on Dele Giwa who was brütālly k!lled with a parcel bømb. They knew Orlando was smoking ganja and he even waxed records (Ganja 1, Ganja 2), everybody knew him for that. Their annoyance was that they did not disturb him smoking his ganja but he went ahead to  wax a record on Dele Giwa. That was the main reason why they came.  They took him away...There was a song Orlando sang, Kini ka ri ka ma gbodo soro, oro yi si mbo….oro yi si nbo wa dija…

”Yes, they saw cøca!ne, but this is what happened: when everybody was running helter-skelter they saw little quantity in the front of my father’s house, but you know whoever they found in his house is liable. Orlando smoked Igbo, he smoked cigarette but then, the time they came he had since  stopped it."

He was supposed to be charged to court, but at the 11th hour, the officers told Orlando's family that President Ibrahim Babangida had instructed that he be taken to a tribunal instead. At the tribunal, the judge in charge adjourned the case indefinitely and Orlando was taken to Kirikiri.

Orlando talked about the beating in one of his many songs when he said: “Oju orun ni mo wa mo ngba siesta mi lo, igbaju ni won fi ji mi loju orun o, nitori gbaana (I was in the realm of sleep, taking my siesta, when they woke me up suddenly with a slap because of ganja)."

The case dragged until he was freed at the Supreme Court. When he returned, he waxed an album in which he described his experience at Alagbon.

Credit: Ethnic African Stories