Enduring Legacies Of Orlando Owoh

November 4, 2018 marks the 10th anniversary of the transition to the great beyond of the music icon, Pa. Stephen Olaore Oladipupo Owomoyela, popularly known as Orlando Owoh. Orlando Owoh was a popular highlife musician during his life time.

Born on February 14, 1938 to a building contractor father and a musician Pa. Jeremiah Olusesi Owomoyela, in Osogbo which today is the capital of Osun State, His father wanted him to follow his vocation, that is, building contractor. However, having music running in the vein of his family, Orlando Owoh decided to take a career in music. After droping out of school in Standard Four, his father handed him over to Chief Kola Ogunmola to be trained in both theatre and Juju music. 

He did not stay long with Ogunmola due to a circumstance that was beyond his control and ended up with another Juju band in Osogbo known as Dele Akindele and Chocolate Randies Band, where he was trained and granted freedom. He set up his own band in 1958 which he called Orlando Owoh and his Omimah Band. Omimah is the cognomen of Ifon, Ondo State, his home town.

A good entertainer, he was among the Nigerian Musicians/artists who entertained Queen Elizabeth of England at the Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos in 1956 during her official visit to Nigeria. Not only that, he joined other musicians to perform at Independence celebration at the same venue in 1960. Also, he was among the musicians who entertained the wounded soldiers on the Nigerian side during the Nigerian Civil War between 1967 and 1970. Others are Dr. Victor Olaiya and Cardinal Jim Rex Lawson. On the Biafran side was Philip Ejiagha. Not only that, he was among the Nigerian Musicians contracted by Military Government to welcome dignitaries to the Festac 77 in Lagos.

Psychoanalysis of his music shows him as an entertainer, teacher of moral praise singer, story teller, promoter of African culture, social critic and pro-democracy activist. During the struggle for democracy between 1989 – 1999, he joined other musicians like Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Kollington Ayinla, Sikiru Ayinde Barrister and others to oppose the continued stay of military in government. Beyond this, however, his album on the gruesome murder of a renowned journalist in Nigeria, Dele Giwa on October 19, 1986 where he pointed accusing fingers at the government of the day brought him into collision with the authority.  

A trump up charges of unlawful possession of drugs was made against him and he was detained for more than two years until a tribunal set up by the military government set him free for want of evidence. After the attainment of democratic rule government in 1999, he served as a watch dog of Nigerian government by producing albums where he criticized them for failing Nigerians. For his death, he would have led other musicians to bemoan cluelessness of the Nigerian ruling class which has made the nation the bastion of poverty in the world.

Orlando Owoh was a controversial musician in life no doubt about that. Aside being a social-critic and a non conformist, he was an ardent hemp-smoker and saw nothing bad in it. He even called on government through some of his albums to legalise it. He was down with a stroke affliction in 2003 which affected his career and fortune. In the course of seeking solution to the ailment, former governors Olusegun Agagu of Ondo State, Olagunsoye Oyinlola of Osun State and Babatunde Raji Fashola of Lagos State rallied round him when the trouble lasted. They variously footed his hospital bills both at home and abroad. The affliction became protracted around 2007 and caused him his life on November 4, 2008.

A decade after his demise, his memory lingered due to many evergreen albums he produced which are still relevant to the contemporary socio-economic and political events in the nation. More importantly, three of his children followed his footsteps as musicians and with other musicians who are singing his brand of genre are keeping his memory alive.

Adewuyi Adegbite writes from Ogbomosho, Oyo State