Saidi Balogun
The Yoruba people have a proverb that says ‘A kii ka omo f’olomo’. This literally means that it is culturally wrong to say in the public the number of children a person has.
While it may not be too difficult to understand the sentiment the elders are trying to play up through the adage, modernity has since laid the wisdom in it to rest.
Nowadays, ‘modern people’ do not even wait for an outsider to count their children for them. They do so themselves. Apart from the fact that you have to officially declare the number of children you have on certain occasions, many people, following what obtains in the western tradition, are eager to ‘broadcast live’ not only the number of kids they have, they also take to the social media to announce to the world as soon as they get pregnant. And seconds after the baby is born, its picture is already everywhere.
Popular Yoruba actor, Saidi Balogun, says he neither grumbles with tradition nor in any way tries to resist the influence of civilisation. But he adds that he detests something: the idea of people carrying rumours about his family status. Indeed, he is currently angry with some of Nigerian bloggers who, he notes, are fond of publishing false stories about celebrities.
“Recently, the bloggers said I had another child from one woman. This is not true, and none of them bothered to call me to verify whether or not it was true.”
The actor/producer, who recently premiered a new movie – You or I – was spotted at Shoprite, in Ikeja Mall on Sunday, where he went to shop alongside his children. On sighting the fair-complexioned actor, it was natural for the correspondent to look out for probably a woman – other than Balogun’s estranged wife, Fatiha – who could be carrying a baby, based on the rumour that filtered through the Internet recently.
“This is me, and this is my family,” he said. “Although one cannot stop any blogger from doing his or her work, it is also good to respect the dignity of other people, and to respect the rules of journalism too. How can someone just go and hide in one corner and say anything he likes in his or her blog?”
He declined further comments on the domestic end as, according to him, many people tend to misinterpret utterances of celebrities too easily.
On his romance with Ibadan – he is said to have recently been seen with Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State – Balogun explained that he only ‘returned home’ because of what he has observed in Ibadan.
“There we go again o!” he said jovially. “The fact is that I am a native of Ibadan. I am from the Kobomoje area of the city. I am part of the family of Chief Lekan Balogun, who was murdered some years back. What happened is that when I visited Ibadan recently, I noticed that the city has changed. Many of the major roads are now free and the dirt that used to litter everywhere has disappeared. Grasses and flowers have also surfaced in different places, like you have in parts of Lagos. So, as an indigene, I felt somehow inspired and decided to express this to the governor.”
On the way some showbiz stars now patronise government quarters, he noted that what mattered was the intention, while adding that, that one is an artiste does not mean he does not have anything to contribute to governance.
Source: Punch
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