It has been a festival of sorrow and tears at the Gbaja, Surulere, Lagos residence of late, talented music producer and singer, Babatunde ‘OJB Jezreel’ Okungbowa ever since he died.

The entertainer, who passed away in the early hours of Tuesday, had battled with a kidney disease for some time before he eventually had a transplant in India in 2013 after a public appeal for funds.

However, OJB’s family and friends are not finding it funny with colleagues of the deceased beat-maker in the entertainment industry. Many of them feel the entertainer was neglected in the latter part of his life.

According to one of the sympathisers at OJB’s residence who spoke on the condition of anonymity, even during the public appeal for funds in 2013, majority of the funds that came in weren’t from the entertainment industry.

In his words, “The entertainment industry is full of fake friends and fake love. They only know how to pretend on social media. How many of them cared about OJB’s welfare when he was alive? Even when he was looking for funds for his kidney transplant some years ago, majority of the money didn’t come from the entertainment industry. He was even on the verge of selling his house for N50m, so he could use the money for an important surgery before he died.”

Another sympathiser, simply identified as Kola, chipped in, “All the entertainers know how to do is eye-service. Before you know it now, everyone of them would start putting up his pictures as if they really loved him. But Baba (referring to OJB) took everything in his strides. He was at peace with everybody, and he didn’t take offence that some people chose not to help him. That’s all part of life.”

Meanwhile, the air of hostility around the late OJB’s residence was so palpable that a Vanguard reporter was almost manhandled yesterday. Some of the relatives of the producer, who were obviously emotional, walked the reporter out of the house when he requested to speak with any of OJB’s wives. According to them, some Vanguard reporters had been at the house earlier and they were tired of the press’ intrusion.

As expected, many entertainers have taken to their social media pages to pay tributes to OJB.

By Tofarati Ige, Anozie Egole