The headlines are almost becoming forgettable now, but the narrative created following the death of Davido’s associates Tagbo Umeike, DJ Olu and Chime, will linger on for longer. First came an Instagram call out by actress Caroline Danjuma (who was later revealed to have been in a relationship with Tagbo prior to his untimely demise), accusing Davido escorts of abandoning the body of the deceased at the hospital. Though she had not intended it, her recourse led the public to suspect Davido’s culpability in her lover’s death, especially after initial autopsy results revealed Tagbo may have died of asphyxiation.
Davido’s team initially tried to play down the narrative, distancing the star from the events around the controversy and carrying on with concert dates. Earlier last week however, the Nigerian Police Acting Commissioner for Lagos, Imohmi Edgal, recalled Davido’s involvement following the retrieval of the vehicle that transported Tagbo’s body to General Hospital Lagos Island, buttressing Danjuma’s claim that Davido’s escorts dropped off her late lover’s body and ran away. By this time this ‘new development’ hit the media, two other known associates of Davido, Dj Olu and Chime had also been found dead in the Banana Island less than four days later, an unconnected event that all but amplified the media storm around Davido.
To reclaim some of the accusations, Davido’s legal team released a statement denying any involvement in the events that played out after Davido left the Shisha Room where he was last seen with the deceased. According to the OBO’s team, Davido neither instructed anyone to drop of Tagbo’s body, nor did he have any other encounter with him after leaving the Shisha Room for another turn-up at the DNA Club in Oniru. A CCTV footage obtained from the Shisha Room was also released to the media, to rebuff the narrative that Tagbo had left the luxury lounge with Davido. But these efforts proved futile in curbing public belief that Davido may be linked to the potential murder case.
In a country like Nigeria’s where gossip fuels the news, it’s not hard to understand how Davido became the centre of a shocking scandal. The initial story that followed Caroline Danjuma’s assertions about Tagbo’s death merely narrowed Davido as a potential murderer, instead of another one of many individuals whose company the late Mr Tagbo spent his last moments on the 3rd of October 2017. Davido is the most famous person of the lot, so it should be unsurprising that his name be affiliated with the death of Tagbo. But what should have been avenue for journalistic integrity was petered by the Nigerian media at the altar of salaciousness and gratuitous mockery, with a narrative that sought to implicate Davido as a potential suspect. Even to the point that the police also seemed to have made the OBO a focal point of the investigation, amidst rumours Tagbo may have died from alcohol poisoning, spawning from a drinking bet.
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While police investigations are still on-going, one wonders what sort of media would subtly tilt the public into believing Davido may have killed his friend Tagbo, without facts. But the answer is inherent in the people such a media serves. In today’s post-truth world, Nigerian media still thrives on clickbaits because information dissemination is skewered by the tendency for readers to only engage with news presented as ‘hot scoops’.
A conservative culture, permits some of the worst human acts to be kept as family secrets, while those who are not precarious enough at keeping their secrets are scapegoated and witch-hunted for all to see. For the rich and famous who don’t have a choice of hiding secrets, their lives become exemplary for what is socially acceptable and what is not (this may not necessarily reflect individual reality). We have seen this before, in the chaos around 2face’s baby-daddy drama, Tiwa Savage’s marital problem, Genevive’s multiple rumoured relationships, even DaGrin’s untimely death was not spared from superstitious ‘sweet gists’ about the cause of his demise. Ours is a whispering culture, a gossiping town where judgmental stereotypes are silently formed about the rich and famous while the society waits for a controversy to validate a popularly held bias, even if it comes at the expense of facts. We all believe what we choose to believe at the end of the day.
this is the best i have read so far as regards this Tagbo’s case.
Well said