The year was 2021, Omah Ley and Tems came to Uganda for a performance. Uganda was on lockdown, but authorities had given a green light to parties of 200 or people.
When Omah Ley posted a picture of himself on his socials, with a throng of Ugandan fans, both the Ugandan artists and their fanbase got furious.
All this happened when local entertainers had been barred from performing for more than a year.
Local artists took to social media and called out the government, police, and any other authority they felt should be concerned. Then news broke; Tems and Omah Ley had been arrested.
After the two were released, Temilade Openiyi- alias Tems, took on X- formerly Twitter, and made a post alleging that singer Bebe Cool had been behind her and Omah Ley’s arrest. Of course, Bebe Cool being the controversial figure he is, even some Ugandans blindly joined the Nigerians on social media to attach the Ugandan superstar as one of the key people behind the move.
However, while appearing on the Afrobeats Podcast, hosted by Adesope Olajide, the singer took off time to offer a clear explanation about how events unfolded.
In a rather revealing submission, Bebe went ahead to narrate how he actually fought to see the Nigerian stars released.
At the time all the drama happened, Ugandan artists were on a lockdown, and Bebe Cool was one of the many that had criticised the organisers for putting up the concert yet local artists were not allowed to perform.
“I didn’t get Tems and Omah Lay arrested in Uganda. It’s very difficult when the internet picks on a story in a direction. It is different to turn it around,” he said.
“I was sleeping around 3am, when a friend called me to inform me that the Nigerian artists had been arrested. I got the details from him and then I started making calls. So, by 6 O’clock in the morning, I went to the police station and spoke to the DPC, the head of the police station, and he confirmed that they had arrested Tems and Omah Lay. I told him, ‘why did you go to arrest the artistes, because the artistes are not in charge of the show. The president has given an allowance of 200 people, but the artistes don’t control the number of attendees. So why arrest them?”
Bebe Cool adds that because he had tweeted about this concert before, when he reached the police station, one of the organisers opportunistically used him as a scapegoat.
“Once the event started being advertised as a brunch, artists were furious, we started tweeting, asking government that if you let Omah Lay perform, you should let us perform as well. The DPC told me that I should go and speak with his superior. But as I was speaking to the DPC, the show promoter saw me and started saying; “That’s the guy. That guy is the reason that you are in prison.”
Bebe Cool says that as he was still negotiating the artists’ release in another office, in Naguru (the headquarters of the Uganda Police), he saw online that the artists had been taken to court.
“I made a call to the DPC and said, ‘I just left, I’m waiting for the big man to come so that we can discuss, why go behind me and to take the artistes to court?’ He explained to me that when I left, the lady promoter made a mess, and was bragging about how her mother has connections to the president.”
He says, however, that he later managed to get the artists released without any intervention from the of Nigerian diplomacy. He goes on to reveal, that he managed to explain everything to Omah Lay, when he had just been released, but did not get to talk to Tems.
Which he says, could be the reason she went ahead to make the barricade of tweets, when she got back home.
“When I saw Omah Lay’s demenor, I knew he understood, of course Tems tweeted because that’s what she was told, and of course the trauma.”
Bebe Cool has had a busy 2025, releasing the Bebe Cool List, and later the video of his Circumference single. Currently fresh from London, he re-emphasized that he is deliberate about his ambition to move Ugandan music in a new direction.
This is a new journey, and I encourage more East African artistes to join me on the new dawn. That’s the motivation behind my new album- Break the Chains
Bebe cool speaks
Here’s a link to the detailed podcast: https://youtu.be/BOP_tjKncz8?si=TbotSrN4BaCDnprQ”
