Hajia Oluremi Amina Dangaji is the president of Performing Musician Association of Nigeria (PMAN). She spoke with The Octopus, on why she spent millions to rehabilitate Majek Fashek, the challenges of being a female president, how her husband has accepted her new person and many more.
A lot of people know that you spent millions to rehabilitate Majek Fashek. Did you really spend that much?
Yes, I did and I am thankful to God for giving me the opportunity to be able to do something that good. Today, a lot of people see Majek and they wonder how he became as good as he is now, but I made that sacrifice. I had about N30 million which I wanted to use in procuring a property then and it was that money that I spent on him.
Have you had any reason to regret that decision?
No. I have not because Majek’s album is ready and waiting to get into the market. We have concluded work on it but we are just waiting for the printer to conclude work on the jacket and as soon as we have done this, we will go full swing in terms of publicity, both on television and radio stations. We are also working on his video and it should come out by the second week of next month.
Some people say you are a bad businesswoman for investing so much money in Majek.How do you feel about that statement?
For you to understand where I am coming from, you need to understand that I did not know him before I decided to help him. His case was like that of an abandoned child when I first met him.
How did you meet him?
He was brought to me by a musician known as Prince Wadada. When he was brought to me, Majek was pulling at my hair and touching my breast and at first, I asked myself if he was healthy. That day, he and his friend left my house and his friend later returned to tell me that Black Tribe wanted to do a show in the shrine and they needed money to participate. Due to the passion I had for the artiste, I decided to give them some money and they left.
Did you attend the said show?
Yes, I did.
What was your impression?
I was shocked because I saw Majek pulling off his trousers and showing off his buttocks each time he performed. He was simply behaving like a mad man. I was so surprised that I had to climb the stage and talk to him to stop behaving the way he was doing. Each time he wanted to do it, I winked at him and he would stop it. That was how our journey started. Some months later, his friends rushed him to my house, saying that he was dying and when I told them to take him to hospital, they said they did not have any money. To cut a long story short, they abandoned him in my house.
Who abandoned him in your house?
I am talking of MC Morris and his friends. I had to call Prince Wadada and he switched off his phone. At the end of the day, I had to call my doctor, who started giving him drips in my sitting room. The situation was so bad that Majek breathed once every five minutes. I went through a lot then because I remember that during that occasion he lived only on liquid foods like pap, custard, soya beans milk and tea. He destroyed a lot of my property, but I kept on. At a point I had to call my brother to advise me on how to get rid of the things that were challenging Majek and he said I would have to go to Niger and look for marabouts to handle the issue. He, however, warned that it would cost millions of naira because the men would have to be flown in from their country or be transported from Abuja or from Kano because they don’t come cheap. They collect nothing less than N20million and that is exclusive of their feeding and accommodation fees.
How did Majek feel when he became well and saw the things he had destroyed?
He felt really bad; he felt ashamed because I was the one who was feeding him. I was also packing his excreta whenever he defecated. To cut it shut, he was simply ashamed of himself. He was always crying because I remember he told me that if I, who am not a member of his family, could do all these for him, then I automatically qualify to be his family. He said I was his mother.
Did you make effort to know his family?
I did, but he told me he had no body. I went to Hypetonia, his former manager, and I told him I could not take care of Majek alone and the man said he could not spend his money on Majek. We paraded his house severally but we did not get any positive response from him, so I decided to do it by myself. Having spent N30 million, I went back to my account and collected more money, got Majek a new apartment, furnished it and even took him to a dentist, who cleaned his tooth and gave him an artificial tooth but surprisingly as soon as we left the dentist, Majek removed the tooth and put it in his pocket.
Were you not tempted to dump him at a point especially as he was not your relation?
I was not because I was used to things like that. I have helped insane people get well before, I have a Non-Governmental Organisation, and I have attended several seminars.That is why his case was not strange to me.
Some people have the belief that you bought your way through to become PMAN president.Did you?
I did not just wake up one day and become the PMAN president. I am a musician and my genre of music is Alatika hip hop. My mother was also a musician, so for me, music runs in the family. I am a registered member of the association and all my artistes on my record label, A Plus Global Entertainment, are also full members. I belonged to a state chapter of PMAN and I held the post of the 1st Vice President of the chapter for about two years.
How do you explain that you bought your form four days to the election and you still won?
I did not want to contest for the election but when I noticed that the contestants were all men, I decided to contest. If you check all the state chapters, you will find out that there is only one female president. I wanted to change that. You asked if I bought my way to emerge the president of PMAN; well I did not buy my way but I must tell you that election is all about money. Election without money is like a romance without finance and it is not possible. Buying the form involves money, submitting it is also about money and even touring the other state chapters is about money. PMAN is all about politics and it is one where the men intimidate the women. I have always been in the forefront of the peace work in the association. I started the peace forum and I settled a lot of conflicts among many members of the association.So I have achieved, I have paid my dues.
What were your challenges before you emerged the president?
I faced several challenges because most of the people who I trusted and believed would support me eventually turned their back on me.
People like who?
Raz Van Murphy was always telling me he was not contesting againbut when we got to Port Harcourt for the election he stepped out as a candidate. He was even the one who told his thugs to disrupt the election before it was eventually brought to Lagos State.And when we even came to Lagos, Murphy tried to disrupt the election because he created a scene on the day of the election, when he simply disappeared and his wife said that they had kidnapped her husband.
There are several factions in PMAN and people don’t know which is which. What is the problem with the association?
The problem with PMAN is the men in the association. Most of them put all their challenges on the association and it is not supposed to be like that. Most of these people don’t have jobs and the moment they see that you have a little money to throw around they come to you and say pay me N20 million and I will make you the PMAN president. So, they are feeding on the crisis in PMAN. Kelvin Luciano could not have emerged the president of that faction if they did not collect money from him. It was the same thing that happened to Preddy Wise; he fell a victim before he knew what was happening. Luciano called me and I told him that I was hearing stories about him saying he would deal with me and he said he, too, had heard similar stories about me saying the same about him. So, I just told him it was the PMAN people; because when they want peanuts they start saying different things.
How does your husband cope with your newpositionasa wife who is also a president?
I am a soldier’s wife and as you know, the wife of an average military man is never around. They are always far away. Sometimes, we don’t get to see our husbands for six months and because I did not want to be an idle hand, which will eventually be the devil’s workshop, I decided to keep myself busy.
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