Maybe I’m overreacting, I
don’t know, but let me start by saying that I know the subject of this post,
Ms. Debbie Veren. I think it is only right I put that out there. In the past 24
hours I’ve heard a lot about what went down mostly on Instagram. I never thought I’d see the day I would write
extensively on a social media “battle”, but here we are. First, the backstory:
Singer/Superstar (depending on who you ask o, as the “haters” have refused to
recognize her now and we will get to why soon enough) Seyi Shay posted an
online competition that involves fans (or just any ol casual singer) to send
their rendition of her song Jangilova,
a song which I had never heard till having to write this post! …It’s okay! But
anyways, where were we?
The rules of the competition seemed pretty simple; the
contestant with the most like gets a Blackberry Passport (a phone I had to
google, just to make sure it wasn’t an actual passport colour. I am an illiterate
like that!) and N50, 000. Seems like a nice reward. My girl Debbie posted her
rendition of the so-so-just-there song (just my personal opinion, NO SHADE or
should I say NO SHAY! …DRY!!!) and I noticed it on a friend’s page who asked us
to go to Ms. Shayi’s page and vote for her. Seemed simple enough and besides I
can’t watch every video. Suffice to say, I did not get to like Debbie’s video
as I was somewhere with too much noise to even listen to it, so I moved on!
On Sunday, Debbie asked me if I had seen her video. I replied,
yeah, but in that kind of what-are-you-trying-to-sell-me kind of way. She
proceeded to take my phone; go to the page and revealed to me she was in third
position. “See, you didn’t even like it.” Because I didn’t hear it and once
again I couldn’t listen to it in the environment we were in, but I tried to tag
my friends, after all I ride for mine, unfortunately Etisalat was fucking up.
Etisalat by the way is the company that Seyi Shay endorses, so I have my
suspicions… you see how this works? I knew the competition ended on Tuesday and
I thought fuck it, I’ll check it out later. Later being Monday. I never did.
Come Tuesday and Debbie who had about 1000 something
votes on Sunday (which I saw with my eyes) and 3000 something on Monday (as I was
told), now had 18, 000 likes by Tuesday morning. Suspicions were raised and
someone threw the first shot. At this point I don’t know whether to do like
some criminal investigative programmes and protect the names of those involved
but fuck it. A Victoria Miraj fired shots at Debbie claiming she bought votes
overnight! Now, here’s the thing. Is a girl getting 15, 000 likes overnight
suspicious? Not if you consider that there are more than 18, 000 users of
Instagram in Nigeria, it is not! Is it suspicious that she just overtook the
previous first two with such a meteoric number of likes? It can be, yes, but it’s
all suspicion and how do you prove if one indeed bought likes? I didn’t even
know you could buy likes on Instagram!
Let us look closely at the accusation first of all,
before concluding whether or not it is possible that she or someone on her
behalf indeed bought likes. By the way Abuja has people o! Don’t think because
half the workforce goes out of Abuja at the end of the day, we don’t have
people! WE HAVE! It is one thing to be suspicious of the increasing number of
likes Ms. Veren got, that is fair enough, but it is a completely different
thing to be suspicious of Ms. Veren herself. (God damn it, I sound like a
lawyer. This is my Boston Legal moment…
Denny Crane!)
Victoria Miraj, who henceforth shall be referred to as
the plaintiff (I can’t be advertising her name) went on a rant against the person
of Ms. Veren, even going as far as reporting the alleged crime to Seyi Shay
herself. This included insulting the person of Ms. Veren as people are wont to do
on social media, because we never had internet etiquette in school. There was a
back and forth between supporters of Ms. Veren with their comments (whether she
bought those comments, we don’t know, but it seems highly unlikely you could
buy such passionate defense) and those of the plaintiff and her ilk.
This would have been all fine if it just stayed between
these two factions. I personally would have joined just for the fun of it, but
my phone crashed, thus saving my integrity as Ms. Veren’s defense lawyer. What
made this matter worse was Seyi Shay now joined the issue by posting a picture
of Ms. Veren and basically siding with the accusers with no evidence whatsoever
and threw my client under the bus (this is where Ms. Shayi earned herself some
new “haters”). Ms. Shay did not have to do that. She did not come out plain to
say that Ms. Veren bought votes, but her comment under the picture said it all.
She was surprised she herself had never gotten 5000 likes on her page, so how
could Debbie? It’s quite simple. You see under every Instagram picture is a
heart shape button and when you tap it, it is registered as a “like’. That’s
how.
But to mention that she never got 5000 likes herself,
makes Ms. Shayi sound conceited. Perhaps when you post something worthy of 5000
likes… you’ll get 5000 likes! I have no qualms with Seyi Shay, should she ever
see me in public with her bodyguards and have me roughed up (the problems of finding
yourself on occasion running in the same circle with “superstars” and someone
points you out as the fellow who wrote this). I have no one to fight for me and
public humiliation is not in my future plans! I’m just saying though, you can’t
get sour on an innocent-till-proven-guilty girl over 5000 likes. PLEASE!
Ms. Veren on her part has left the competition and said
she no dey do again! So please, biko, keep the passport, we know our way to Immigration… *someone whispers in my ear, it’s a phone* wait sorry, keep the
phone! Whether the likes were bought or not, there is no way of assessing this
till someone confesses and unless this confession comes from Ms. Veren, whoever
bought her likes should not be used to deny her her victory. The rules were
simple: highest likes win! If votes were bought, are you going to take away
from the people who genuinely voted for her?
Now this is where I stop being impartial, for I have
tried throughout this post. You can be suspicious as you want, that’s fine, but
please do not insult the character of my client, Ms. Veren. Beyonce has a
beehive… Debbie has an army! What’s a beehive to an army?! Motherfuckers never
loved us! *drops mic*. I’M OUT!
Abdulnasir
General for Debbie’s Army!
Abuja get people o! All over Twitter &
Instagram… and we ride for ours! That’s a possible way for you to get 18, 000
likes!
