Talk about the life of a celebrity…
A very unhappy Kelvin Keshi who once
worked for Nollywood actress, Monalisa
Chinda‘s Monalisa magazine has written a
rather long “Tell it all” prose about “her
marriage of inconvenience”.
Read prose below:
It was Tuesday August 27 and another
lifeless day filled with uncertainties,
inconsistencies and a shameful lack of
direction at Monalisa, the white elephant
magazine misadventure of Lanre Nzeribe
and Monalisa Chinda. Lisa had suddenly
gone AWOL for close to a month from her
ceremonial publisher’s seat, staff were
being owed two months’ salary and Lanre
was stalling. He rarely showed up in the
office and whenever he did, he barely
spoke with anyone before he would zoom
off again in his black Maserati. Outside, he
was always conscious to give off a
deceptive public image of the hip ‘big boy’
and perfect gentleman to camouflage his
real insensitive, aloof and condescending
sides.
Back to the farce at 19 Ademola
Adetokunbo Street, Victoria Island (Chase
Mall). After their publicised breakup, there
were whispers Lisa had reconciled with
Lanre and was coming back to her
ceremonial seat. The ‘news’ cheered up
some of the junior staff. It wasn’t
surprising because to some degree, she
was the life of the party in the company
with her chirpy, free-spirited, girl-next-
door, almost simpleton nature. Some of the
workers wanted to buy coloured cardboard
and decorative materials and another one
got external speakers from outside the
office. The driver had angrily left the
company two weeks earlier because he said
Lanre paid him N25, 000 as salary instead
of N40, 000 they had agreed, so I offered to
drive them to the store.
While waiting at the park of the megastore,
I glanced at my wristwatch. It was 3pm. The
‘party’ was ready, but no word yet from the
‘red carpet’ guest. I decided to call her.
“Hello Keshi, what’s happening in the
office?” she asked.
“Nothing, really,” I replied and hesitated to
gauge her mood. “…just that some of the
staff are excited you’re coming back and
are planning a small welcome for you.”
“Oh, no ooo. Who said I’m coming back?
I’m not ooo. I’m not talking with Lanre. I
don’t know what they’re talking about,” she
answered tongue-in-cheek.
A fading façade
Let me pause here and introduce myself.
My name is Kelvin Keshi and, until
Thursday August 29, was the Assistant
Editor of Monalisa Magazine. Lisa and
Lanre had hired me sometime in April, on
the recommendation of a mutual friend, to
help set up a trendy lifestyle magazine that
would in no time set the pace in its genre.
Even though it was an onerous task, I was
set for the challenge and knew I could
draw from my skills and experience to
deliver on their request.
I earnestly set off for work, most of the
time multi-tasking as editor, administrative
and human resources manager and
working late into the night. Incidentally, I
had another offer from an Abuja-based
company to be an Assistant Editor and
Lagos bureau chief of a political magazine
but I turned it down on the excuse that I
just got engaged with a similar job and
wanted to give it 100 percent.
I remember the several meetings I had with
Lanre, Lisa and the mutual friend –
sometimes lasting till 10:30 pm – to discuss
and deliberate on issues like editorial
thrust, philosophy, mission, vision, target
demography, templates, sectionalisation,
themes, pagination, story ideas, online
presence, USPs, advert generation,
circulation and distribution and staffing for
the magazine.
In all of these sessions I noticed almost
everyone else was shallow about what they
really wanted; but after much prodding,
Lisa said she‘d like a lifestyle magazine with
a mass appeal.
Truth is, they were largely vague about the
new magazine concept, but I still tried to
decrypt their nebulous ideas, concretised,
gave life and substance, documented and
presented to them.
But as it would appear eventually, that was
all Lanre wanted from me: to use me to set
up the magazine and then whip up and
amplify inexistent and inconsequential
issues along the way as convenient alibis to
sever the working relationship. I first
suspected when he issued three-month
temporary employment to the first batch of
staff and arbitrarily fixed salaries without
giving room for negotiations. When I
questioned it, he said salaries would be
reviewed upwardly at the end of the three
months and permanent employment letters
issued. Lies!
Also in breach of initial discussions before
I agreed to resign a job and join him, he
affixed the title ‘Assistant Editor’ to my
name instead of ‘Editor.’ Curiously, after all
editorial work had been concluded, he
introduced his sister, Ejine, as ‘Editor’ and
requested me to forward all edited
materials to her. Another devious stunt by
Lanre to sell and credit my intellectual work
to someone else.
Ingenious! This is the true Lanre. (You’ll
wonder why this guy cannot maintain five
seconds of eye contact. Psychologists, go
figure. And no, he isn’t shy). It was the
same manipulative ploy he used against the
first Fashion Editor, Margaret that forced
her to resign angrily after he paid her N50,
000 less than the agreed sum on the sly
excuse that she didn’t write enough
articles. Amusingly, his current ‘Fashion
Editor’ and ‘Creative Director’ cannot boast
of a single story in the magazine!
I only fear for some people. But I guess the
saying ‘once bitten, twice shy’ doesn’t ring
a bell for everyone. Ejine never showed up
in the office once and her editing via e-
mails was just so-so, forcing me to re-edit
again.
Lanre also asked that since stories for the
first edition were completed, my team and
I should write for subsequent editions
which I obliged him out of trust. As I
discovered later, his wily game plan was to
get as much intellectual and editorial
contents out of me for subsequent editions
before he schemes me out of the set-up.
(Round of applause dude, but like the
Warri man would say, ‘Lanre, this time, u
don dive rock.’).
He who pays the piper…
The next day, Lisa was back in the office
and to her glorified seat after a month
forced hiatus. Lanre too was there, as
happy as a lark – or more fittingly, like a
little boy whose stolen toy had just been
found. They wanted to meet separately with
some staff members over some petty non-
work related issues Lanre had deliberately
sensationalised with willing pawns to create
distractions and play out his script of
getting rid of me after I’d created a working
structure for him.
Lanre repeated those same trivial lines –
about some staff having tiffs, being
emotionally attached to each other and
some people not working enough. …The
same worn-out quibbles he had rehashed
over and over again and magnified as
excuse also not to pay salaries.
For the benefit of doubt, all editorial
assignments for the first issue had been
completed, edited and designed on the
template and he had no complaints about
that. In assigning stories, editing them or
relating with my team, I operated with a
spirit of fairness, objectivity and balance;
the very sacred principles of ethical
journalism.
Only the pictures and images were
outstanding. He had hired a flashy and
dreadlocked mannequin ‘Creative Director’
with zero media experience or knowledge
and side-lined the professional freelance
photographer that was initially engaged for
magazine images. But it was taking Mr
‘Luxury’ forever to get the job done.
He was an overly ambitious, smooth-
talking, I-know-it-all-and-should-lead-the-
team kind of guy. He understood Lanre’s
self-centred language of luxury and elitism
and fully explored it to manipulate him to
take some drastic decisions, including his
breakup with Lisa.
Chuks (the guy’s name) said
Lanre had handed over the
project to him and he was ecstatic
about it. He told me Lanre said he (Chuks)
was now ‘in-charge’ of the project and
could sack anyone he wanted. He said
Lanre had been having private meetings
with him and told him he wanted to lay me
off.
I felt offended and asked why. He was
rambling on I ‘not being able to lead the
team’ or ‘being incompetent.’ How? What
insult! Was the magazine not ready for the
first issue, from an editorial point? Were
my stories watery and substandard? Like
Lanre when I confronted him (with due
deference though), Chuks was incoherent.
True to the assertion, Lanre cut off
communication with me, and without a
cogent justification, gave off a body
language that suggested he was done with
me. All of these were after I’d laid the
foundation that none of them had the
knowledge or experience to do.
I knew Lanre’s game plan. He (and his ilk)
only sees people as tools; so Chuks blind
ambition was a perfect diversion and pawn
until he’s filled and needs to go on to the
next meal. Chuks kept changing concepts
and philosophies at will midway through
production and walking through a maze.
He was what you might call inefficiently
busy (maybe eye service or in Warri lingua,
‘forming activity’). The team was groping in
the dark.
They had no idea. It was three months and
the debut issue was not out, except my
team’s editorial contents that were 100
percent complete. Where in the world does
a greenhorn photographer-turned-Creative-
director-overnight lead a magazine project?
Without a single previous experience? It
was a cul-de-sac!
Laughably, they want to build the fantasy
magazine on the stories my team and I had
painstakingly researched and written. But I
have my aces up my sleeve. I’ll come to
that later. On behalf of his future victims, I
want to change Lanre’s (and his ilk) skewed
and twisted use-and-dump immoral
business beliefs and gimmicks.
But I digress. Back to Lanre’s merry-go-
round ‘luxury’ magazine house. Sneakily,
he blamed the editorial unit still for the
delays. ‘How, sir?’ I asked him
exasperatedly. But he kept prevaricating.
How dumb did he think everybody was! If
he thinks he could buy people’s voice and
opinion and maybe love, I wonder what
makes him think integrity, intelligence and
grit are for sale too.
He had obviously schooled Lisa on what he
wanted – of course without the underlying
motives – and she was already playing the
tunes he dictated while putting on a flaky
bold face. Classic Lisa! Even when it seems
she finally has an opinion of her own, it’s
always shaded by Lanre’s ego-fuelled
preferences and biases which often border
on his crave for a God-like reverence and
being ensconced in his little elitist burble
world. God help you if Lisa agrees with you
on a matter in private and Lanre has a
differing opinion later. She’ll deny you
flatly.
The lies you didn’t know
She was back on the project and they were
suspending the editorial unit, she
announced to me in Lanre’s presence.
Rather than being miffed, I was amused
and felt pity for this stunted project. In the
weeks Lisa went missing, Chuks had
suggested to Lanre that to publish a ‘luxury
magazine for upper class citizens,’ as they
myopically re-termed it midway, he doesn’t
need the editorial unit on full-time (Huh?
Tell me about it. Definitely, another world
first!).
Not surprisingly, Lisa did a volte-face and
agreed – a sharp contrast to our
discussions on phone when she was away
on protest, long before it became public.
“I know there’s a problem. You’ve not been
in the office for two weeks now. Please
what’s happening?” I had enquired.
“It’s a very deep problem, Kelvin. Chuks
wanted pictures of naked girls in the
magazine and Lanre is on the same page
with him, but I don’t want to be part of any
of that.
He told Lanre to remove me as publisher
and face of the magazine and that the
magazine project can go on without me,
and would you imagine Lanre agreed? He’s
changing the magazine at will and
spiritually manipulating Lanre. Chuks is
illuminati. He’s evil and God will scatter
them.”
“But I don’t understand why Mr. Lanre has
stopped communicating with me. Does he
have any complaints about my work?” I
asked, deliberately sidestepping the rash of
issues she raised.
“No. Your writings are standard and OK for
any standard magazine anywhere,” she
replied in measured tones. She paused and
then asked, “Are they still planning to use
my name as the title of the magazine?”
“I can’t say categorically; Mr. Lanre doesn’t
talk with me much. But Monalisa’s still the
name on the template.”
‘’I can’t allow them use the name I built as
a brand over the years. How can I take it
back?”
“Just get it registered with the Copyright
Commission and the National Library. And
if they still go ahead to publish the
magazine with the name, you can report
them and the government agencies will take
it from there.” I shrugged and paused. I
didn’t want to be part of this any longer. It
was clear too many things were wrong at
once. “But I didn’t bargain for all these…” I
complained.
“I’m sooo sorry, Kelvin. I’m really sorry
about how everything turned out…” Her
voice was tired.
“What are you going to do now?”
“I just want to leave the country to clear my
head. Later, I’ll work on my project, a tv
talk show.”
“Great. Although I wished you guys would
reconcile; it would be great for the
magazine. You’re the brand they wanted to
leverage on. Most new magazines don’t last
beyond a lifespan of six months because
certain key elements are missing.”
“No; I’m not coming back. It’s a deep
spiritual problem.”
Two weeks later, Lisa was back and giving
her nod to Lanre’s baseless grudge against
me. But that was OK; the atmosphere was
suffocating already. One week later, I sent
Lanre an SMS requesting for my salary and
that I had other engagements that wouldn’t
allow me frequent visit to his office to
recover his debt to me. He felt offended. “I
advice (sic) that all communication from
you should be in writing and directed to
the company, please do not use this
channel to reach me again,” his reply read
in part. I sensed the Nigerian typical case
of social class bullying.
It’s half time whistle
Piqued, I called Lisa to complain. But she
told me to stop calling her too. She told me
she was with him when my message came
into his phone. “I don’t even know why I’m
dignifying you with a response,” she added
cheekily. Such a cocky submission from
Madam ‘Celebrity’ and ‘Superior.’ But I
knew that attitude: the tame voice of Jacob
and the wild, arrogant hand of Esau – as
always.
Well, I have a piece of advice for them too:
THEY SHOULDN’T BOTHER PUBLISHING THE
MAGAZINE WITH THE STORIES IN THE
TEMPLATE ALL OF WHICH I EDITED, EXCEPT
THEY DON’T MIND PUBLISHING STALE
ARTICLES. Rather, Lanre should tell
whichever ‘editor’ he plans to name on the
masthead to get a new set of writers write
new stories for his or her editing for the
magazine.
I will never allow Lanre credit my
intellectual work to another ‘editor.’ It’s a
promise because all the stories and articles
are with me and I will publish them online
and in newspapers and magazines before
his magazine goes to press.
Already my lawyers have slammed them
with a court notice over the monies they
owe me. Lanre (and Lisa too) probably
thinks I’ll be cowered by the ‘might’ of his
wealth and high-powered connection. They
also probably believe that as ‘upper class
citizens’ – as they have classified their
stillborn magazine – I should beg, grovel
and lick their boots in exchange for the
‘favour’ of being given MY OWN MONEY.
But they fall into the common trap some
people make when relating with ‘unknown’
persons. Asides, an ‘unknown’ cannot be
stereotyped.
Lanre and Lisa have had their time in the
sun to play, trampling at will on my right,
dignity and pride. But the half-time whistle
has gone and it’s substitution time. It’s my
time to play on the field and I sooo want to
score!
A very unhappy Kelvin Keshi who once
worked for Nollywood actress, Monalisa
Chinda‘s Monalisa magazine has written a
rather long “Tell it all” prose about “her
marriage of inconvenience”.
Read prose below:
It was Tuesday August 27 and another
lifeless day filled with uncertainties,
inconsistencies and a shameful lack of
direction at Monalisa, the white elephant
magazine misadventure of Lanre Nzeribe
and Monalisa Chinda. Lisa had suddenly
gone AWOL for close to a month from her
ceremonial publisher’s seat, staff were
being owed two months’ salary and Lanre
was stalling. He rarely showed up in the
office and whenever he did, he barely
spoke with anyone before he would zoom
off again in his black Maserati. Outside, he
was always conscious to give off a
deceptive public image of the hip ‘big boy’
and perfect gentleman to camouflage his
real insensitive, aloof and condescending
sides.
Back to the farce at 19 Ademola
Adetokunbo Street, Victoria Island (Chase
Mall). After their publicised breakup, there
were whispers Lisa had reconciled with
Lanre and was coming back to her
ceremonial seat. The ‘news’ cheered up
some of the junior staff. It wasn’t
surprising because to some degree, she
was the life of the party in the company
with her chirpy, free-spirited, girl-next-
door, almost simpleton nature. Some of the
workers wanted to buy coloured cardboard
and decorative materials and another one
got external speakers from outside the
office. The driver had angrily left the
company two weeks earlier because he said
Lanre paid him N25, 000 as salary instead
of N40, 000 they had agreed, so I offered to
drive them to the store.
While waiting at the park of the megastore,
I glanced at my wristwatch. It was 3pm. The
‘party’ was ready, but no word yet from the
‘red carpet’ guest. I decided to call her.
“Hello Keshi, what’s happening in the
office?” she asked.
“Nothing, really,” I replied and hesitated to
gauge her mood. “…just that some of the
staff are excited you’re coming back and
are planning a small welcome for you.”
“Oh, no ooo. Who said I’m coming back?
I’m not ooo. I’m not talking with Lanre. I
don’t know what they’re talking about,” she
answered tongue-in-cheek.
A fading façade
Let me pause here and introduce myself.
My name is Kelvin Keshi and, until
Thursday August 29, was the Assistant
Editor of Monalisa Magazine. Lisa and
Lanre had hired me sometime in April, on
the recommendation of a mutual friend, to
help set up a trendy lifestyle magazine that
would in no time set the pace in its genre.
Even though it was an onerous task, I was
set for the challenge and knew I could
draw from my skills and experience to
deliver on their request.
I earnestly set off for work, most of the
time multi-tasking as editor, administrative
and human resources manager and
working late into the night. Incidentally, I
had another offer from an Abuja-based
company to be an Assistant Editor and
Lagos bureau chief of a political magazine
but I turned it down on the excuse that I
just got engaged with a similar job and
wanted to give it 100 percent.
I remember the several meetings I had with
Lanre, Lisa and the mutual friend –
sometimes lasting till 10:30 pm – to discuss
and deliberate on issues like editorial
thrust, philosophy, mission, vision, target
demography, templates, sectionalisation,
themes, pagination, story ideas, online
presence, USPs, advert generation,
circulation and distribution and staffing for
the magazine.
In all of these sessions I noticed almost
everyone else was shallow about what they
really wanted; but after much prodding,
Lisa said she‘d like a lifestyle magazine with
a mass appeal.
Truth is, they were largely vague about the
new magazine concept, but I still tried to
decrypt their nebulous ideas, concretised,
gave life and substance, documented and
presented to them.
But as it would appear eventually, that was
all Lanre wanted from me: to use me to set
up the magazine and then whip up and
amplify inexistent and inconsequential
issues along the way as convenient alibis to
sever the working relationship. I first
suspected when he issued three-month
temporary employment to the first batch of
staff and arbitrarily fixed salaries without
giving room for negotiations. When I
questioned it, he said salaries would be
reviewed upwardly at the end of the three
months and permanent employment letters
issued. Lies!
Also in breach of initial discussions before
I agreed to resign a job and join him, he
affixed the title ‘Assistant Editor’ to my
name instead of ‘Editor.’ Curiously, after all
editorial work had been concluded, he
introduced his sister, Ejine, as ‘Editor’ and
requested me to forward all edited
materials to her. Another devious stunt by
Lanre to sell and credit my intellectual work
to someone else.
Ingenious! This is the true Lanre. (You’ll
wonder why this guy cannot maintain five
seconds of eye contact. Psychologists, go
figure. And no, he isn’t shy). It was the
same manipulative ploy he used against the
first Fashion Editor, Margaret that forced
her to resign angrily after he paid her N50,
000 less than the agreed sum on the sly
excuse that she didn’t write enough
articles. Amusingly, his current ‘Fashion
Editor’ and ‘Creative Director’ cannot boast
of a single story in the magazine!
I only fear for some people. But I guess the
saying ‘once bitten, twice shy’ doesn’t ring
a bell for everyone. Ejine never showed up
in the office once and her editing via e-
mails was just so-so, forcing me to re-edit
again.
Lanre also asked that since stories for the
first edition were completed, my team and
I should write for subsequent editions
which I obliged him out of trust. As I
discovered later, his wily game plan was to
get as much intellectual and editorial
contents out of me for subsequent editions
before he schemes me out of the set-up.
(Round of applause dude, but like the
Warri man would say, ‘Lanre, this time, u
don dive rock.’).
He who pays the piper…
The next day, Lisa was back in the office
and to her glorified seat after a month
forced hiatus. Lanre too was there, as
happy as a lark – or more fittingly, like a
little boy whose stolen toy had just been
found. They wanted to meet separately with
some staff members over some petty non-
work related issues Lanre had deliberately
sensationalised with willing pawns to create
distractions and play out his script of
getting rid of me after I’d created a working
structure for him.
Lanre repeated those same trivial lines –
about some staff having tiffs, being
emotionally attached to each other and
some people not working enough. …The
same worn-out quibbles he had rehashed
over and over again and magnified as
excuse also not to pay salaries.
For the benefit of doubt, all editorial
assignments for the first issue had been
completed, edited and designed on the
template and he had no complaints about
that. In assigning stories, editing them or
relating with my team, I operated with a
spirit of fairness, objectivity and balance;
the very sacred principles of ethical
journalism.
Only the pictures and images were
outstanding. He had hired a flashy and
dreadlocked mannequin ‘Creative Director’
with zero media experience or knowledge
and side-lined the professional freelance
photographer that was initially engaged for
magazine images. But it was taking Mr
‘Luxury’ forever to get the job done.
He was an overly ambitious, smooth-
talking, I-know-it-all-and-should-lead-the-
team kind of guy. He understood Lanre’s
self-centred language of luxury and elitism
and fully explored it to manipulate him to
take some drastic decisions, including his
breakup with Lisa.
Chuks (the guy’s name) said
Lanre had handed over the
project to him and he was ecstatic
about it. He told me Lanre said he (Chuks)
was now ‘in-charge’ of the project and
could sack anyone he wanted. He said
Lanre had been having private meetings
with him and told him he wanted to lay me
off.
I felt offended and asked why. He was
rambling on I ‘not being able to lead the
team’ or ‘being incompetent.’ How? What
insult! Was the magazine not ready for the
first issue, from an editorial point? Were
my stories watery and substandard? Like
Lanre when I confronted him (with due
deference though), Chuks was incoherent.
True to the assertion, Lanre cut off
communication with me, and without a
cogent justification, gave off a body
language that suggested he was done with
me. All of these were after I’d laid the
foundation that none of them had the
knowledge or experience to do.
I knew Lanre’s game plan. He (and his ilk)
only sees people as tools; so Chuks blind
ambition was a perfect diversion and pawn
until he’s filled and needs to go on to the
next meal. Chuks kept changing concepts
and philosophies at will midway through
production and walking through a maze.
He was what you might call inefficiently
busy (maybe eye service or in Warri lingua,
‘forming activity’). The team was groping in
the dark.
They had no idea. It was three months and
the debut issue was not out, except my
team’s editorial contents that were 100
percent complete. Where in the world does
a greenhorn photographer-turned-Creative-
director-overnight lead a magazine project?
Without a single previous experience? It
was a cul-de-sac!
Laughably, they want to build the fantasy
magazine on the stories my team and I had
painstakingly researched and written. But I
have my aces up my sleeve. I’ll come to
that later. On behalf of his future victims, I
want to change Lanre’s (and his ilk) skewed
and twisted use-and-dump immoral
business beliefs and gimmicks.
But I digress. Back to Lanre’s merry-go-
round ‘luxury’ magazine house. Sneakily,
he blamed the editorial unit still for the
delays. ‘How, sir?’ I asked him
exasperatedly. But he kept prevaricating.
How dumb did he think everybody was! If
he thinks he could buy people’s voice and
opinion and maybe love, I wonder what
makes him think integrity, intelligence and
grit are for sale too.
He had obviously schooled Lisa on what he
wanted – of course without the underlying
motives – and she was already playing the
tunes he dictated while putting on a flaky
bold face. Classic Lisa! Even when it seems
she finally has an opinion of her own, it’s
always shaded by Lanre’s ego-fuelled
preferences and biases which often border
on his crave for a God-like reverence and
being ensconced in his little elitist burble
world. God help you if Lisa agrees with you
on a matter in private and Lanre has a
differing opinion later. She’ll deny you
flatly.
The lies you didn’t know
She was back on the project and they were
suspending the editorial unit, she
announced to me in Lanre’s presence.
Rather than being miffed, I was amused
and felt pity for this stunted project. In the
weeks Lisa went missing, Chuks had
suggested to Lanre that to publish a ‘luxury
magazine for upper class citizens,’ as they
myopically re-termed it midway, he doesn’t
need the editorial unit on full-time (Huh?
Tell me about it. Definitely, another world
first!).
Not surprisingly, Lisa did a volte-face and
agreed – a sharp contrast to our
discussions on phone when she was away
on protest, long before it became public.
“I know there’s a problem. You’ve not been
in the office for two weeks now. Please
what’s happening?” I had enquired.
“It’s a very deep problem, Kelvin. Chuks
wanted pictures of naked girls in the
magazine and Lanre is on the same page
with him, but I don’t want to be part of any
of that.
He told Lanre to remove me as publisher
and face of the magazine and that the
magazine project can go on without me,
and would you imagine Lanre agreed? He’s
changing the magazine at will and
spiritually manipulating Lanre. Chuks is
illuminati. He’s evil and God will scatter
them.”
“But I don’t understand why Mr. Lanre has
stopped communicating with me. Does he
have any complaints about my work?” I
asked, deliberately sidestepping the rash of
issues she raised.
“No. Your writings are standard and OK for
any standard magazine anywhere,” she
replied in measured tones. She paused and
then asked, “Are they still planning to use
my name as the title of the magazine?”
“I can’t say categorically; Mr. Lanre doesn’t
talk with me much. But Monalisa’s still the
name on the template.”
‘’I can’t allow them use the name I built as
a brand over the years. How can I take it
back?”
“Just get it registered with the Copyright
Commission and the National Library. And
if they still go ahead to publish the
magazine with the name, you can report
them and the government agencies will take
it from there.” I shrugged and paused. I
didn’t want to be part of this any longer. It
was clear too many things were wrong at
once. “But I didn’t bargain for all these…” I
complained.
“I’m sooo sorry, Kelvin. I’m really sorry
about how everything turned out…” Her
voice was tired.
“What are you going to do now?”
“I just want to leave the country to clear my
head. Later, I’ll work on my project, a tv
talk show.”
“Great. Although I wished you guys would
reconcile; it would be great for the
magazine. You’re the brand they wanted to
leverage on. Most new magazines don’t last
beyond a lifespan of six months because
certain key elements are missing.”
“No; I’m not coming back. It’s a deep
spiritual problem.”
Two weeks later, Lisa was back and giving
her nod to Lanre’s baseless grudge against
me. But that was OK; the atmosphere was
suffocating already. One week later, I sent
Lanre an SMS requesting for my salary and
that I had other engagements that wouldn’t
allow me frequent visit to his office to
recover his debt to me. He felt offended. “I
advice (sic) that all communication from
you should be in writing and directed to
the company, please do not use this
channel to reach me again,” his reply read
in part. I sensed the Nigerian typical case
of social class bullying.
It’s half time whistle
Piqued, I called Lisa to complain. But she
told me to stop calling her too. She told me
she was with him when my message came
into his phone. “I don’t even know why I’m
dignifying you with a response,” she added
cheekily. Such a cocky submission from
Madam ‘Celebrity’ and ‘Superior.’ But I
knew that attitude: the tame voice of Jacob
and the wild, arrogant hand of Esau – as
always.
Well, I have a piece of advice for them too:
THEY SHOULDN’T BOTHER PUBLISHING THE
MAGAZINE WITH THE STORIES IN THE
TEMPLATE ALL OF WHICH I EDITED, EXCEPT
THEY DON’T MIND PUBLISHING STALE
ARTICLES. Rather, Lanre should tell
whichever ‘editor’ he plans to name on the
masthead to get a new set of writers write
new stories for his or her editing for the
magazine.
I will never allow Lanre credit my
intellectual work to another ‘editor.’ It’s a
promise because all the stories and articles
are with me and I will publish them online
and in newspapers and magazines before
his magazine goes to press.
Already my lawyers have slammed them
with a court notice over the monies they
owe me. Lanre (and Lisa too) probably
thinks I’ll be cowered by the ‘might’ of his
wealth and high-powered connection. They
also probably believe that as ‘upper class
citizens’ – as they have classified their
stillborn magazine – I should beg, grovel
and lick their boots in exchange for the
‘favour’ of being given MY OWN MONEY.
But they fall into the common trap some
people make when relating with ‘unknown’
persons. Asides, an ‘unknown’ cannot be
stereotyped.
Lanre and Lisa have had their time in the
sun to play, trampling at will on my right,
dignity and pride. But the half-time whistle
has gone and it’s substitution time. It’s my
time to play on the field and I sooo want to
score!
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