Olumese@80: A Peep Into ‘My NiteShift Coliseum Odyssey’

Femi Akintunde-Johnson

Today the 27th day of July, 2024 is the day set aside to serenade and celebrate one of Nigeria’s brightest stars in the giddy firmaments of nocturnal entertainment. Though he turned 80 exactly two months ago, on Children’s Day (27 May), the man friends, associates and admirers call ‘The Guv’nor’, Ken-Calebs Omo Olumese will luxuriate deservedly amongst the cooing pleasure of niftily selected guests somewhere within the aquatic splendour of the Lekki Peninsula. As he was wont to holler, at the height of his nightclubbing glory…”People! It’s time to boogaloo!”

Quite remarkably, for a man whose deep dalliance with the Nigerian media has stretched over four decades, Olumese has never once written a paragraph in celebration of self or expatiation of his enigma. Today, however, he has succumbed to deep pressures – from children, friends and others – to pen his autobiography, simply titled ‘My NiteShift Coliseum Odyssey’. 

  Fortunately, one has had the privilege of casting more than a cursory look on the over 300 pages of text in the past few weeks, and we can easily confess that Olumese is an enthralling story teller of a lifetime rich and steep in diverse twists, turns and tumbles of life that can be escalated to a blockbuster cinematic release.  As an aside, we are informed that the book also has over 50 colour pages which must be replete with vintage pictures – recollect that during its glory days, Niteshift had a professional still photographer on duty at every special occasion. 

  Our attempt at unsolicited previewing of the book is not to patronise the eminently gifted entrepreneur and genial man of the world, but an ungrudging desire to expose the finer hues and indelible insights in the making and trajectory of a man who defied great anguish, tribulations, calamities and setbacks to build, unarguably, the biggest and most respected multi-layered entertainment edifice south of the Sahara.

 ‘My NiteShift Coliseum Odyssey’ opens with the stories of Olumese’s birth, childhood, and adolescent years in Ugbegun, Esan West Local Government Area of Edo State. The first three chapters reveal a clear picture of an independent-minded, fun-loving, adventurous boy with traces of mischief and dare-devilry. His rendition in chapter two of how as an underteen and the first son, he not only truncated his father’s well-laid mentoring/apprenticeship plans with his more endowed friend, but completely eviscerated that practice forever in the family.. His quote: “…something happened that impacted my life at the young age of ten. My father had the philosophy of sending his children for mentorship in so-called successful homes…Then, the baton came to me to go for mentoring with my father’s close friend, Venerable E.A.M Osemekhian…”. His riveting recollection of how he executed the counteroffensive is best read in full. Bold!

 The next two chapters open a window into more crevices of his life: how he met, wooed and married the love of his life, then Miss Celestina Otiono, a young nurse. She was instantly miffed by Olumese’s bohemian direct approach to “toasting” – an attitude that seemed to her as arrogant and proud. Here, we also begin to see the shades of a man convinced of the sort of family he wanted to raise.

In her down-to-earth testimonial under the closing section (‘Guv’nor In The Eyes Of Family:), Celestina captures a side of the man only a “better half” could grasp: “Ken is a very caring and kind man when he wants to be. He is also a very proud person. When we started going out, he used to be very jealous, which used to be annoying. He has an artistic mind, very creative, always decorating the house and regenerating it where and when necessary….” And plenty more insider info!

One of the most emotional, and therefore sensitive, experiences is the remarkable candour and temperament Olumese deplores in narrating the birth of their first child, Ken-Calebs Jnr in 1979. Chapter six is heavy in lingering pathos as he describes their shock when they discovered that their first child was diagnosed with the Down Syndrome ailment; and the incredible efforts to seek second and third medical opinions at home and overseas; including attempts to find a cure, or any remedial intervention. Stoicism. 

 Some say the best of men are wrought forth in the furnace of adversities. Such are the preceding elements that drive chapters seven and eight as we are exposed to two dimensions of Olumese in collision with formidable personal adversity. First were the intrigues and conspiracy to disgrace him out of his high-flying position as the executive director at Roussel Nigeria Limited (a multinational pharmaceutical company). The conspiracy was led by a British managing director incidentally named Mr. Swindle, with some of Olumese’s Nigerian colleagues as vindictive interlopers. This is how the author summarises the frightening spectacle: “On resumption as the new MD, Mr. Swindle, a rookie administrator, showed his hands and intentions early that he was not prepared to have a ‘strong’ Executive Director. Unknown to me, he methodically set up a chain of corporate boardroom intrigues that eventually consumed him.”

Olumese also recounts the devastating fire outbreak that gutted his duplex apartment on Allen Avenue, Ikeja, Lagos in 1993. He was literally stripped naked, as the entire family lost all they had, except the sleeping clothes they went to bed with.  Olumese uses the two “problems” to remind us of a life-saving truism as epitomized by his world-view: repeatedly, he was saved from the ignominy of being sacked and becoming destitute, because he was a loyal, generous and good-natured man of many parts, with friends and contacts beyond and across ethnic, religious and racial divides. Friends rushed to lift him up, and set him on his feet at every low point.

 He recollects: “As the news spread, some of my friends started converging. But there are some of them that I can never, never forget because of the remarkable things they did. Iconic journalist, Ray Ekpu of Newswatch magazine, who has been my friend for decades now, asked the entire family to move in with them. I thanked him, asked my wife and children to join them, but I didn’t. Rather, I started sleeping in my office, which was on No. 5, Ogundana Street, off Allen Avenue, Ikeja, Lagos. I used to wake up early, bathe and get ready for work before my staffers would start arriving…”.

(To Continue)