… Sighted wearing faded grey beards, tattered clothing, walking bare-footed, talking to self and looking emaciated
*Ex-National Secretary of Nigerian music house stops commuters, passers-by along the road, on the street, in shops involuntarily, earlier evicted from Rastaman’s Hotel
*Current photographs could not be taken in crowded places at marketplaces
*Bushy, unkempt, begs for alms, holding a nylon trash bag saying to everyone he meets: “Give me money, I am hungry, I want to eat, I have no place else to go”
*“Without a shred of doubt, from what I have seen today, this Nigerian PMAN scholar, Kenny George needs prayer, rehabilitation, support and help to be able to get back on his feet again. It is going to be a long process all the way”-Sunday Abegunde, An Eyewitness Witness
*BY TEMI ANUOLUWAPO/Entertainment Correspondent NAIJA STANDARD NEWSPAPER INC USA
DR KENNY GEORGE, a prominent name in the Performing Musicians Employers’ Association of Nigeria, PMAN, is a destitute, a homeless man, who seems suffering from mental crisis in Lagos State. This former 2nd vice-Chairman of PMAN walks around, talking loudly to self, wearing tattered clothing, walking bare-footed, and looking emaciated.
The ex-National Secretary of Nigerian music house stops commuters, passers-by along the road, on the street, in shops involuntarily begging for alms. He was earlier evicted from Rastaman’s Hotel, Isheri, Lagos State almost three years ago after he had squatted under the roof of Ras Storm, a reggae musician, he began to behave abnormally and constituted a nuisance to the surrounding.
George was sighted on several occasions, in various marketplaces at Ikeja, Ojodu, Berger and Isheri wearing faded grey hair, bushy, unkempt: begging for money, holding a nylon trash bag.
When our reporter got close to him by way of interaction in one of these markets, he was seen conversing with everyone he meets and begging aloud in the following words: “Give me money, I am hungry, I want to eat, I have no place else to go.”
In a close observation, it was noted that he kept talking to himself, scratching his head and looking lust in a long gaze in different directions. It took the quick intervention of Okada riders and Keke Napep operators to horn repeatedly for him to walk away from the road in a bid to avert any domestic accident.
In those circumstances, we could not take his current photographs as large crowd of people are always in those marketplaces. He looked pitiful.
An Eyewitness Witness, Sunday Abegunde, an undergraduate of the University of Lagos State who observed our brief conversation with Kenny, walked over to this correspondent to explain that this was the daily routine of the former scribe of PMAN, since only a few people could place his face because he looked so different due to the crises he is going through. He tied George’s challenge to a mental situation.
His words: “Based on the physical, empirical traits in Dr Kenny George, a Nigerian PMAN scholar, there is no shred of doubt, from what I have seen today, that he needs prayer, mental rehabilitation, support and help for him to be able to get back on his feet again. It is going to be a long process all the way”, added Abegunde.
Kenny was last heard about him six years ago during a power tussle then in the national secretariat of PMAN between him and General-Secretary, Mr. Okoimoise on one hand and between other elected members of the association and the secretariat staffers on the other.
Investigations then revealed that the elected members of the association who are fond of ordering staffers of the association around without respect to protocol were set to battle Okoimoise who always stops such errands.
In 2013, Kenny, as National Secretary of the music union, campaigned for the association in need of a secretariat.
Then, he told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the association needed offices in Lagos and Abuja, to enable it function effectively.
He said the former secretariat of the association in Ikeja had been taken over by the owners of the property.
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