Obviously, Commandant Shem Obafaiye of the National Security and Civil Defence Corp, Oyo State, was not prepared for the aftermath of the live interview conducted with him on a Channels Television’s promamme, Sunrise, on March 16, 2013. Just one innocuous question – What is the website of the NSCDC? – and he tripped. He struggled over the question and with the insistence of the interviewee, he couldn’t but give in to the blunder that earned him instant fame: My Oga At The Top.
The immediacy of his fame was almost unprecedented. While he, so to say, basked in the fame, countless Nigerians worked on the side, projecting
his popularity and smiling to the banks in the process. T-shirts, face-cap, bangles, ties and countless other accessories bore Obafaiye’s picture and the new found cliché, My Oga At The Top.
Shortly after the “project fame,” the commandant was transferred to Oyo State from Lagos, a move which many people believe was a face saving measure. And there, life assumed a new dimension. The now famous Obafaiye lives far away from where he made his name. Several weeks after he resumed work in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, it was mum from him. With characteristic curiosity which the average journalist shares with the cat, a mission was embarked upon by Saturday Mirror, and the destination was Ibadan.
The subject was Shem Obafaiye, the new Commandant of the NSCDC in Oyo State. And what about him? To do an undercover work of how he operates in his new duty post; how those under him hold him, especially against the backdrop of the fame he has enjoyed and how he had also carried on despite the negativity attached to the event that led to his fame. With two days of undercover work at his office located in Iyaganku area of Ibadan completed, this reporter decided to go for the kill: Get My Oga At The Top to speak about life after the event that led to his new trade mark.
A visit to his office was frustrating.
Obafaiye was said to be out of town and would not be around until the week after! Oh, how fantastic it would have been getting the interview at once to complement the undercover work. But hope was not lost as the Assistant Public Relations Officer, Mr. Segun Odedina, promised to intimate My Oga At The Top with the interview request when he came back.
The reporter’s call card was dropped with the hope that a call would one day come through to announce the date of the interview. Would such a call ever come? Skepticism reigned. However the undercover work was as reflected in the Saturday Starters story published as What is new with My Oga At the Top on Saturday, July 27, 2013. But barely 72 hours after the publication,a call came through to this reporter and it was the Public Relations Officer of the Oyo State Command of the NSCDC that was on the line. “Would you come for the interview with the Commandant in the afternoon?”
The NSCDC officer must have thought that the reporter was resident in Ibadan when making the request. But when he was made to realise the reporter was in Lagos, a change in date was effected. And on Friday, August 2, 2013, at exactly 2.00 p.m. as agreed, My Oga At The Top, in his spacious office, was already talking, for the first time to any newspaper, after the Channels’ interview, to Saturday Mirror on how he felt about the incident that led to the My Oga At The Top fame.
Quite free, very lively and unrestrained, Obafaiye spoke on how he felt about the incident.
Surprisingly, his position was far different from the way many Nigerians considered it. To him, the incident lacked the negativity attached to it. Rather, it was a divine announcement of His glory in his life.
NATIONAL MIRROR
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