I have a different kind of friends. I never talk about them but just sha used to look at them and laugh.
These ones are the ones who will sometimes call you up on their own and say,’ Edgar, you are doing so well with your plays, send your details, and I’ll send you my support….
Immediately after that, they stop taking your calls. You see them read your chats, but they don’t answer.
Other times, they will pick and say – ohhh you hear I am in a noisy place I’ll call you back and you never hear from them.
Initially, I used to feel humiliated cos I would wonder what exactly I had done wrong to deserve such treatment.
I would feel useless and begin to flay myself feeling Iike some kind of a rag.
This time, two of my friends stood out in this regard. One is a retired general. He had taken me to his house to show me his N17m couch. I had marveled at it and said welldone
He is a childhood friend, and we have come a long way. Love him to bits and have never had any ill feeling towards him.
I shd have known cos he came for my Plays in Dec with his wife but unfortunately couldnt get a sit inside. He didn’t know that I had another friend seated in front of him, and he released a lot of bile about me to his wife.
My other friend called me and said,’ oh there was this gentleman at your play who said some very nasty things about you and he pointed him out and I said ohhh dts the General we went to primary school together.
Anyways, he says, ‘ Edgar, I want to support you. How much do you want. I said, “Just give me N200k. He said no dts nothing na and I said, don’t worry I have corporate sponsors, do N200k and that will be just fine.
Till I am writing this morning three months after, oga has not taken my calls or responded.
The second is the most annoying. A young man. Very junior in age and everywhere thing else.
He wants to really support as he is igbo. He would send me a list of other igbos who will also support me, and I should send account details.
Stops taking calls, continues to read the chats, but never responds. So I stop engaging him and begin to wonder what kind of a person is this.
I reach out to a mutual aquinatnance, and she calls him, and he says ohhhh Edgar, I will send the money.” Don’t worry. In fact I’ll call him now or tell him to call me.
I do dt and same response, he doesn’t pick and on the last day of the show he calls and sends N100k.
Now my point. This business is really not about me. It’s a serious business that allows for hundreds of thespian to better fulfill their promise
Every promise or pledge is taken very seriously cos it goes into a budget that takes flight.
You don’t have to say I will when u won’t. There is no compulsion. This is not me begging, I really do not need the money to do the show or indulge in my lifestyle of Afang and shoe prostitution.
So if you won’t, don’t pledge. This Ladi and Zik, I have over N30m in pledges out there, some with confirmed letters of engagement, leaving me with confusion as to why people do these things.
On this project, we took over 10 boys from under the bridge in Fadeyi. Sent them to Segun Adefila for one month to train them, cloth them, and fed them and then used them as stage hands.
If you had come for the shows, you would have seen the reformed area boys in green t-shirts run around the stage moving props after each scene
Today, I am owing those boys cos of some irresponsible rascal who as a general, as an investment banker, as a real estate mogul, as a firm felt the need to thug at their dick at my expense.
I will pay off the boys and others, but a warning, if you do not have the intention, don’t pledge. It’s not a must.
It’s a failure in character, a shine thru of a masked deviousness. A deviousness that education and success have tried unsuccessfully to mask but will still force its way out.
This is on you not on me, and all I can say at this point is,’ How are you, my friend?
Thank you
Duke of Shomolu
