Of Obituaries and Hoaxes 

Femi Akintunde-Johnson

The latest rumour swirled wildly and remorselessly through the Social Media last Sunday – on the last day of June 2024. Someone with a dark talent for mischief and morbid fancy must have spurned the tale just eleven days before the 82nd birthday anniversary of the iconic actor, theatre administrator and entrepreneur, Oludotun Baiyewu Jacobs, MFR.

 Once again, and roughly four times since 2020, the Social Media has sought to kill off the longtime darling of Nigeria’s Nollywood – a formidable figure in African entertainment business. Sometime in the middle of 2020, family, friends and colleagues scrambled to deflate a ballooning rumour that Jacobs had passed away. Several public declarations by well-known thespians and guild officials shut off the sporadic flow promptly. 

The subsequent peace lasted till the last quarter of 2021. Gracefully swatting off another distressing fable, his wife Ajoke Silva, MFR, used the occasion and pageantry of that year’s AFRIFF Global Awards ceremony, wherein Olu Jacobs was bestowed the Lifetime Achievement Award for creative contributions, to put “sand-sand” in the eyes of unscrupulous rumour vendors. She regaled us with pictures of her husband receiving the accolade, and admiration of peers and mentees.

  Less than a year after, in the third quarter of 2022, the phantom keyboardists dug up another “obituary”. In a swift response on her Instagram account, Joke railed: “Good day everyone, trust all is going well. The Jacobs Clan would love to inform you that Papa J (Olu Jacobs MFR), is alive and well; enjoying himself as always in the comfort of his home and loved ones…”. And then, she added this: “To all those who have decided to ignore our last warning regarding fake news, kindly prepare for legal action”.

That plain threat appeared to work for a while, as some of the purveyors of fake news, ostensibly waited for what they thought was inevitable; especially as the Jacobs family had revealed the enormity of the man’s ailment. Strangely, all of 2023 was untainted with any death rumours. 

  Remarkably, earlier in November of 2021, while fielding questions from Chude Jideonwo, on Channels Television, Joke had, matter-of-factly declared thus: “He (Jacobs) is dealing with issues and it has been going on for a couple of years. It is known as ‘Dementia with Lewy Bodies’. It is a degenerative disease that affects the brain and it is almost like a Parkinson’s type of disease, it affects the brain so you don’t see the shaking… It’s been hard on him because he doesn’t understand what is going on and also on family members as well. We have gone through it over the past couple of years, and we thank God…. We have gone through some times and situations recently that I wish I had the old you (Olu) here so I don’t battle these times on my own but we are grateful for the moment of clarity. I miss the times we worked together.”

Perhaps the unusual openness and disarming calmness of Joke in the face of what is an unimaginably cruel situation, the family were spared the annual rumour fest in 2023 – until last Sunday.

Expectedly, family, friends and colleagues rolled out disclaimers same day, and throughout the week (even video evidence were deployed) to show that though Jacobs is ailing – he is over 80 years old, for the sake of anything good and glorious – that he is very much alive… and within prevailing circumstances, he is quite well.

While we understand the need to refute an evil report concerning their patriarch, one was worried that the videos – the one shared by his son, Soji, while Olu was having his beard shaved, and the follow-up bit when the entire family spent the day, this week, luxuriating joyously at a public space (Soji had earlier mentioned going to Ikoyi Club in the barbing video)…that the miscreants would pivot into further mischief and disinformation, using the videos unscrupulously.

Of course, the trojans of the Social Media never apologise for their misdemeanors; the unsanctionable, unregulated denizens of the blogosphere do not regret their obnoxious actions and damage. Hours after the first video hit the Social Media, you could see video collages, playing the “barbing video” alongside a clip from an old movie showing a virile, stately Jacobs acting as an Igbo king while describing how his glorious last days would be like. Juxtaposing the two videos is not only puerile and distressing, but also irresponsible. If you wonder how any reasonable person would see parallels in a filmic performance of a creative work as against the current reality of an actor out of work…a glance through their comment sections would render you flabbergasted.

But OJ is not the only victim of death hoaxers and purveyors of fake news. In the past few years that Social Media have attained an outstanding level of penetration amongst our active youth demographics, a number of Nigerian famous faces have been “killed” on Social Media – and have continued to live on miraculously.

Pete Edochie, veteran actor and former broadcast executive, has “died” a number of times on Social Media; so have veteran comic actor, Chiwetalu Agu; young music star, Rema (his “demise” was actually confirmed on his Wikipedia page – only to turn out that someone hacked the page). Renowned movie ‘bad guy’, Hanks Anuku has been pronounced dead, or declared insane, homeless, and once thrown into  extinction by drug-induced coma)… and so on. Yet, strenuous rebuttals have never stopped the maddening fake news.

 Internationally, artistes and entertainers are also usual menus for death hoaxes. Perhaps, the most commonly “killed” is Justin Bieber, the former global music teen idol who has been ‘dying’ since his breakthrough debut in 2009. Then, the action superstar and stuntman, Jackie Chan was declared dead twice in 2011. In fact, a Facebook page titled “Jackie Chan RIP” was opened to honour his “memories” with over 15,000 likes! Music sensation, Rihanna, also died twice that deadly 2011 – the stunning Barbadian reportedly perished in a plane crash in January, and later in August, of same year, she succumbed to heart attack after collapsing into an alcohol-induced coma. Home Alone child star, Macaulay Culkin has been rumoured dead for so many times that in 2018, he told Tonight Show host, Jimmy Fallon, “I die all the time…I’m just a specter right now”. And finally, when pioneer American actress and comedienne, Betty White eventually died in 2021 at the age of 99, most people, including the media, refused to believe it was not another hoax – even when the publicist of the Hollywood legend confirmed it!

Our general advice to families who suffer the needless emotional torture of reading about the obituaries of their living loved ones, do not give them more artillery to foster and bolster their sickness (the unmitigated desire to share anything and everything juicy or inflammatory, irrespective of its veracity or unwholesomeness. They are after clicks, monitisation perks, and farming engagements. They do not care about your mental or physical well-being. They do not “send you”. And they are largely emboldened by our ineffective law enforcement structures.

Simply put out a short text declaring that your person of interest – the one presumed dead – is alive and well. Let those who want to believe do so, and those whose souls are tied to Social Media remain in their haze.

 We shall not be tired of admonishing our Social Media “practitioners”: the tools you are using may be yours – at whatever cost – and new to you…like a glittering toy to a curious child…note that the activity you are practising is as old as human creation. Handle news – especially as they concern people, customs and government – with a sense of responsibility, fairness and empathy. Surely, one day – as certain as the sun shining over us all everyday – “monkey go go market, he no go return”. It is the inevitable law of nature.