By Ayeni Adekunle
I love to take long walks. My walks from home to the office, or from our office, in Opebi, in Lagos, to Allen Avenue or Toyin street and environs, have become so frequent and fun, that some friends are now joining in.
But the one I took on Thursday December 27, 2012, was totally unnecessary, uncalled for and unbelievable. Totally.
Unlike many of my friends who turned back after seeing it was impossible to reach the venue (inside Eko Atlantic City) by car, and that walking could take up to one hour, I dumped the car and made the long, tiring walk with Tee A, Kelvin Orifa and others. It was a walk we were totally unprepared for. But guys adapt easily. Soon, we were rolling up our pants and cracking jokes. It wasn’t that easy for the ladies, the red carpet-loving ladies who came out all glammed up for Idris Elba.
With handbags, stilettos and jewelry suddenly becoming luggage, many a gorgeous sister was greatly ‘de-ladied’. Picture Genny or Eku Edewor carrying their giant handbags and Louboutins on their heads, walking bare-footed with sweat ruining their make-up and dust settling on their human hair…
It was a torture, embarrassment, humiliation that could and should have been avoided.
Let’s take it from the beginning: Should D’banj have taken his event away from Eko Hotel? Absolutely. I’m all for breaking Eko’s monopoly. I’ve said a couple of times that we urgently need alternatives to what Eko Hotels calls its Convention Centre. The kind of facilities on offer there, does not match up with the cost and the quite rigid restrictions and conditions every user must adhere to. So it’s a good thing that, just like R28, Solution Media, Sound Sultan, EME, 1Music and others who successfully used other venues for concerts that would normally have held at The Eko, D’banj chose to experiment with another venue.
Should he have gone to Eko Atlantic? Why not? It was one of three good alternatives, in my opinion (the two others being the grounds at Ocean view, and the TBS). D’banj and his crew wanted to have a mad concert, and they were certain the fans would come out. So why not use a venue that can accommodate one million, if necessary? I’m sure the Lagos government is more than happy with the wide media attention that comes with D’banj and his friends using the ‘facility’. The PR value is invaluable.
But if you’re leaving Eko, a controlled environment with very minor logistics requirements, for an open beach area, then you must understand the challenges ahead and adequately prepare for them. It seemed D’banj and his organizers had an idea, but it was a faint one, like having the negative, instead of the full picture… They made preparations for transit buses, for VIP tags (VIP ticket holders could drive into the property, while regular ticket holders had to take the shuttle), and set up a combination of private security and the Police. But they failed with traffic management, both outside and inside the Eko Atlantic. The jam that ensued made sure the shuttle buses, VIP cars, even security trucks, could not go beyond a point. It didn’t matter who you were – you had to either find a way to turn and head home or park and take the walk.
Because it was not in the plan that anyone would walk for 50 minutes to get to the concert area, the roads were not lit, and the organizers had not warned fans to come in smart and comfy shoes or to ‘dress for the beach’.
Thousands must have turned back. Regular fans, celebrities, friends, performers, what have you.
Yet, when we got to the venue, there was a mad crowd waiting. Crowd at the entrance (they didn’t screen entry from the main entrance, so all sorts of touts and bandits made their way into the beach area, and there way many cases of missing, lost items. A lady with us believes her phone was removed from her bag as we tried to get in. But I don’t think there was any case of ‘armed’ robbery or harassment), crowd in the regular area, crowd in the N1m VIP area. The elevated VIP area was so over-loaded that it seemed it would collapse – yet there were many paying ticket holders hanging around, with no reserved space for them.
I think it was Efe Omorogbe, writing in Hip-Hop World magazine many years ago, that called Tony Tetuila God’s property. It’s a lie. Dapo Daniel Oyebanjo is the real God’s property. Because, as we left there that night (we left quite early because, once I saw the concert had the characteristics of the many wild concerts of the past where I had been robbed and injured e.g. Akon’s 2005 Ocean view concert I became uncomfortable and nervous.) I was certain the fans and the media, including those on Facebook and Twitter would ‘cut off’ D’banj’s head and the Mavins his enemies would have the last laugh. He’s escaped previous accidents with scratches and even a fracture (remember, for example, the disastrous Sahara Reporter interview?) How will he get out of this monumental one?
A tweet did the magic, about 24 hours later. He apologised, jokingly likened the incident to the biblical walk to Jerusalem, suggested the problem was as a result of overwhelming crowd turn out, and assured it won’t happen again.
And the world moved on.
But wait, not just yet.
While he’s done the responsible thing by apologizing himself, I think it’s also appropriate to offer refunds or complimentary tickets to his next concert to the many ticket holders that turned back because they could not access the venue due to no fault of theirs. We’re in Nigeria where I’m sure few people will come forward because we’re not used to such refunds. But D’banj, an international artiste who understands how it’s done in sane systems, would do well to make the gesture.
There’s one thing we must do too – having identified the many mishaps that are absolutely the fault of D’banj and those who helped him organize his Koko Concert, we must give the young man credit for daring. It was a very bold, almost suicidal attempt to have tried to stage a concert of such magnitude, knowing the limited resources at hand, in a place with near-zero ready facilities or cushions. Had the experiment worked, everyone would have jumped on the bandwagon, as Nigerians are wont to do…
The whole episode sort of compares to his efforts to break into the UK and US – If it ends up well, and he breaks into the mainstream, everyone hops on the bus either to find their own break, or simply to say ‘I told you D’banj would make it, dude was born to do this!’ Even his biggest critics will come out and tell you of how they knew he would win Nigeria her first Grammy and be the one to sell our pop culture and music to the world… But God forbid he fails, everyone will suddenly become an expert on the subject, as it happened on the night at Eko Atlantic: ‘Didn’t I say it? I knew he was just wasting his time’ ‘stupid boy, he wants to enter America; why can’t he start with Zimbabwe and Uganda first like Psquare?’
Happy New Year guys!
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