OJB Jezreel: Entertainers fail to perform

[Mirror]

• ...As Rivers State give him birthday present

For an industry that has practitioners taking home millions of naira for a single appearance, it has become a very daunting task to raise money to save one of its own, who badly needs a kidney transplant.

When Babatunde Jezreel Okungbowa a.k.a. OJB Jezreel, whose birthday was yesterday, July 4, broke the news of his imminent kidney transplant and the amount he would be needing for it, $100, 000, it seemed like a no-brainer where the money would come from and how quickly, too. The veteran musician and producer, who said he has spent millions of naira managing his health over the years, cried out in the last, but one week, in June but until last night, hope to raise the money was dim.

Countless entertainment people paid him a visit, but what resulted from it was controversy over who donated what and whether the $100, 000 itself was not too much for the operation. According to the reports last week, 2face was said to have given N1.5m, D'banj N7m, Whizkid N3m, Ini Edo N2m and Olamide N1m.

Ghanaian actress, Juliet Ibrahim, only last week, posted a message on her instagram page saying kidney transplant does not cost more than $50,000 and wondered why people raising funds for OJB were requesting for $100, 000. OJB was quoted to have responded by saying that he needed the money to continue to take care of himself after the transplant (like he has been doing singlehandedly in the last couple of years).

But while all the controversy and accusations rent the air, the man, Muyiwa Osinuga a.k.a Nomoreloss, who heads the Save OJB Committee that is helping create awareness and raise money for the transplant kept updating the public on how much money they had received at every point.

He, it was, who also made it known on his tweeter handle late last night that the Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, had come up with the $100,000 needed for the operation. He confirmed this to our correspondent by telephone, but added that the government will give the money to OBJ on Friday, that is, today. "Money has been approved and it will get to him by Friday," Nomoreloss said.

Asked about OJB's health, Nomoreloss said he was at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, where he is undergoing dialysis courtesy of the Lagos State government said to have withheld its support upon hearing of the controversy over the number of entertainers said to have made donations. When that came up Nomoreloss said he didn't know how to respond to it.

"A lot of things happen, and some people use the opportunity to do shows and pocket the money, which was why initially I refused to agree to doing a show to raise money for him," he said. Asked how much his committee has collected so far, Nomoreloss said there was N8 million in the committee's care and that the Copyrights Society of Nigeria, COSON, which was also collecting money for OJB, sent in an amount.

"Up until now, apart from the N8 million we put out, there are other platforms that have been collecting money for the cause. I have not collated. COSON also came up with some money yesterday (Wednesday) so they kept to their side of the deal," he said, but did not reveal how much even when our correspondent pressed him. Nomoreloss explained that at the point when the committee had collected N2 million, the reports came that musician D'banj contributed N7 million and that other musicians also gave money.

"They (Lagos State) just added it up and decided that OJB didn't need any more support. So, with all these claims coming out, they had to validate before supporting. Considering that there was the news circulating that it was a scam and so on. You know how it is with government, they need that proper verification.

From then on they had gone ahead to discredit that it was a scam," he said. He said that is why they were giving him free treatment at LASUTH having done a test, which led them to send an ambulance to go get the musician from his house.

He said that because OJB was trying to be strong and was walking about, people didn't know how bad it was. "Even Lagos State didn't believe it was that bad until they ran tests and said, oh my God! Then they sent an ambulance to come get him.

He is at LASUTH and is receiving free treatment. I don't think that he would be receiving that if they did not do due diligence and find out that he was ill. Lagos State is the one giving him the free treatment," Nomoreloss said. He emphasised that the money from the Rivers State has not yet been collected.

"They are going to come through on Friday (today)," he said. "When early diagnosis was done, it was just a case of renal failure. Right now, my two kidneys are gone.

We are running dialysis at the moment. It started two years ago, but gradually depreciated," OJB had said while making his condition public. He had also said at that time that he had only about 10 weeks more to get the transplant done.

National Mirror