‘Drama And Lies, Envy, Unnecessary Competition, Divide & Rule’ -Manager Of 18yrs Percy Ademokun Itemises Factors That Eventually Made Him Part Ways With Fuji King, Wasiu Ayinde

+kwam1 has to reconcile with pasuma, resolve Paso’s feud with Osupa

Percy Ademokun, the name that has become synonymous with King of Fuji, Wasiu Ayinde Anifowoshe for far as far back as memory carries suddenly departed world of Kwam 1.

And he kept sealed lips on the reason (s) for the move and manner of separation.

But in a recent interview to celebrate his 46th birthday, the top rate artiste manager made startling revelations, reproduced below

You no longer manage K1, how easy was it telling him of your plans to go into other areas of entertainment, what do you do now? Why do you live abroad?

I had always wanted to move to do other things even though I have been doing my other things along with managing K1, and each time I tell him I was ready to move to other things, he had his way of talking me out of it and for me loyalty is 101%, without compromise but I also believe loyalty is a 2 way thing and this became missing at a stage.

Drama and lies, envy, unnecessary competition, divide and rule began to crop in so it was easy in taking the decision when I did. I had a show on Jan 1st 2014 at motherland and I knew that was my last event, at that show, I danced and even sprayed money which was never my style but it was a way to thank God that I was part of a success story. I love and respect K1, and will always do but I think he is beginning to get carried away by too many things that don’t matter in life. I am saying this not to spite him but rather to reach out to him so he can deal with these issues.

He should realize that relationships are a 2 way thing, you can’t have it all to yourself alone as a tree does not make a forest. Remember always that joint efforts is what put a man at the top. Never disrespect your patrons no matter the situation. They are the boss, it’s not a favor to perform for them. Relationships should always be forever and your old friends must always form your core irrespective of where there is nothing.

Like in the bible that I know he reads along with his Quran, most powerful men have always been brought down by women. He needs to be very careful, Samson in the bible is an example. He should also never disrespect loyalty, no matter what Pasuma does he must settle with him and use his present position in fun world to bring Paso and Osupa together.

My thought originally was to go to the Federal House of Reps to represent my people of Ijebu North/East constituency but I discovered the internal body language did not favor such, so I decided to return to school.

‘Are you still into entertainment?

Yes. But after 23 years of artiste management and 27 years in the entertainment industry, I decided to do a career change. I recently got licensed as a Realtor in the USA. As a lover of property market, and it’s an area of investment interest for me now and in the future. I can now buy, sell and manage properties anywhere in the world. I am also upgrading my certificate and looking to go as far as doing a PhD, God willing before am 50.

Why did you relocate abroad?

I decided to relocate abroad as the business terrain for those of us who do business with our own money based on the high interest rates on loans from banks, was not attractive to me. I ran a haulage business in Nigeria with more than 10 trucks and trailers at a time however the bad roads that the insurgency in the north affected the business badly. Only a truck is working right now, however we are putting together another fleet here, however the high rates being put on importation has not allowed us to ship the trucks over yet.

We also run a tailoring service known as Percy clothing’s and like you know once you are not home to run it , your efforts will be sabotaged, we have a young workaholic man called Bimbo running the business right now. However people owe too much, electricity is bad and all of these is making us have a rethink on closing down for some time and repackage soon. We had a drive to own transport outfit where we bought over 30 buses for drivers on Lagos roads to pay weekly and over time the buses become theirs, but greed and insincerity on the part of the drivers also ruined this. We once had a driver who actually bought a shell and removed all of the parts from our vehicles to put his together and he wanted to give us a shell! He was on the run for months until we got him arrested but nothing came out of it.

‘The guy that was put in charge was collecting money from drivers and telling us stories. At a stage Oshodi local Government even auctioned four of these buses while it was parked in their warehouse buses worth over 2m each. We tried to get to the LG to release those involved to us and he tried but upon dice ring, his efforts came to nothing, we decided to move on and count it as a loss.

We also have a factory that is gone over roofing stage in Ijebu Itele that was meant to produce bottled water, drinks, yogurt etc., where we had put in over millions of naira, a factory that was meant to provide employment for over 500 people from operators to drivers and we had a unique template we were going to use which no company in Nigeria has ever used till date but I had to stop where our finance could take us.

That project too has been suspended, we are thinking of converting it to a leadership institute for leaders of tomorrow but there is still a but. We ran a magazine called Ipaa Magazine which actually at that time broke news that Fashola will be made the candidate of his party. Which the Fashola campaign team at that time used our magazine as gifts at its campaigns. Advertisers were owing, vendors were dictating, and we could not sustain it as we did not believe in seeking for loans.

On the entertainment field, I managed Dele Taiwo for 5 years, managed K1 for 18 years. With time we initiated lots of innovations which includes, music as a viable marketing tool for government programs, co-produced over 15 albums since we took over K1s management from DO and Associates. Even co-writing one or two songs, running the media campaigns of an artiste of K1s personality for 15 years without a budget! Thanks to the good relationship we had with the media friends, making sure that in the face of all we were able to succeed. Based on these issues am sure you will agree with me that having invested over 500m.

Yes I say it’s over 500m of hard earned money in the system from our 10k to 100k to 1m to 5m and above with all frustrations from individuals to government policies to lack of friendly business environment, you will agree with me that it’s worth it to go try in a stable society, also I decided to spend more time with my family. My first daughter is 17 and the last is 7, my family stays in the UK now but I have moved to the USA in readiness for my children who have said they will love to have their University education in the states.

I have been lucky with family life as my wife is the best woman any man would want for a wife. She has been so supportive all the way and we always agree before I do anything. I am one person who is never scared of starting from nothing and God has always been by me. That is why he is the head of my house hold, it’s not been easy but God has always been there and I have found favor all through my life even when I had a situation where someone once said I will make sure all those he knows through me don’t help!

God is the only helper of man in life and if you don’t close a chapter of your life, another one can never open. I am thinking of writing series of books on life and how to help younger people shape

what they do in life. Also I am getting involved seriously in youth mentoring and upbringing and that’s a project we are presently engaged in and looking at ways to relate it to the Nigerian youth by putting together exchange programs. Politically, never say never, I will not seek position in any political party for now, but if a worthy appointment comes bye, I definitely will take it, as long it’s an area I will be useful such as transport area, as we put together a template on how to bring about cheap and easier means of transportation for our people. Local government is also an area am presently under studying in the USA.

Am also looking at tourism. And how it can be related to the Nigerian situation, these are areas that I will be willing to get busy if an opportunity comes and at this time my politics now is more about the individual involved rather than a party affiliation so if an individual catches my fancy and says Percy come home and work with us, I will be willing so long such a person is one that has a vision. I believe Fashola is one of the best around right now and must be allowed to go beyond where he is. Gov. Amosun I must say is a blessing to Ogun State but he needs to learn human relations if he must succeed as am never for the removal of a performing govt.

On K1, he is my Egbon, a man I respect and hold high regards for and one that I sincerely love. We are both from Ijebu and can never wish any bad for anyone, but our question of working together again as before is never going to happen as I have retired from artiste management. Jan 2nd 2014 I had the best of this nation, musically calling for us to manage them but like I said we are done with artiste management but might train some younger ones someday on that field.

‘Congrats on your birthday, what are your reflections on life at a time like this?

I was born 46 years ago, and I have seen the beautiful and the ugly part of life, but above all, I have always been grateful to God for the nature he gave me and my parents for the type of upbringing I had. When I turned 40, I started to see life differently, I saw that there was more to life than how we use to see it, I see God as the all in all, I believe we came to this world with nothing and will leave with nothing and so material things had no meaning to me anymore at a stage in life I had 7 cars but I discovered that I was constantly only driving one but was paying insurance on others and maintaining them.

Was staying in a 7 bed house all by myself with my wife, we went about doing champagne endlessly, but I never lost focus. My life has always been how to turn 100k to 1million, how to turn a million into 5m and God has always been good to me. However when I turned 45 last year, I chose to live differently, I started to get involved in the life have not. I decided to start giving to people who needed school fees, who needed Medicare, who needed to sort personal issues, I developed a giving spirit than I had.

I also believed in telling the truth no matter who or what was involved and I fight cheating with all my might. Based on this, I and some friends stood on the side of the people when in January 2012 they brought the government to its kneels to reverse the removal of fuel subsidy led by the save Nigeria group. We gave all the support we could and we were ready to do more but for the call off of the protest.

On that ground we formed a group called January 9 collective and I was made pioneer chairperson for 2years. A body that has the likes of the best publishers, editors, captains of industries, entertainment persons, bankers, broadcast station owners etc. as members, in our believe was to make government responsible to the people. We have held series of events yearly since then. Lectures and symposia, where leaders from executive and legislative arms of government have given papers, financial greats and politicians have also been part of our projects.

So for me, life is about service to your conscience and remain fearless, and above all remember God. Like I said in all you do, be true to yourself. At over 40, a man should always know when to say it is time to move on. First kindly let me state that I was only a representative of Percy incorporated, the management company to k1 for 18 years, I was never a staff there.

Societynowng sourced this interview from city people magazine