One Friday in July 2016, Congolese Soukous and rhumba maestro Antoine Christophe Mumba, professionally known as Koffi Olomide, touched down at Jomo Kenyatta International airport for his 28th visit to Kenya.
The veteran music composer and producer had been accompanied by his entire band when he landed aboard a Kenya Airways plane, having made a six-hour journey from Côte d’Ivoire’s capital Abidjan. He was slated for a performance the following day at the Bomas of Kenya in Nairobi. The concert never happened.
Olomide was arrested later that night as he left a local TV station where he had gone for an interview.
Earlier in the day, on Friday, the 63-year-old had been involved in a scuffle at the airport, where he was captured on tape kicking one of his female dancers while three Kenya police officers watched.
In the TV interview, Olomide denied assaulting his dancer, claiming he did not kick her but was rather trying to protect her from a mugger.
By the time of his arrest, the video had gone viral, with the public calling for his deportation. He spent the night as a State guest in a police cell and on the morning of Saturday, the day of the concert, at exactly 11:15am, he was deported to Kinsasha, DR Congo, aboard a KQ flight and declared persona non grata.
Fast-forward to last Sunday, four years later, and Olomide made a low-key return to the country, perhaps to avoid awakening the ghosts of the infamous incident on a day the world was celebrating International Women’s Day.
On Monday, Olomide met the press, having kept them waiting for over an hour, where he announced his grand return concert slated for May 9 at the Carnivore Grounds in Nairobi.
“I’m sorry guys to come late. Maybe the promoters should explain. I’m also sorry for being four years late, but today I’m very happy to be back in Kenya. We are going to have a show on May 9 and it will be for the ladies. Thank you to the government for allowing me to come back,” Olomide said as he took his seat beside his lawyer Prof George Wajackoyah and his promoters.
Revisiting the July 2016 incident, Olomide claimed he had suffered injustice for the incident and how he was handled.
“I have suffered injustice. I’m a good man. If women of Kenya knew what happened, it could have been a big shame to me because the dancer is mine. That’s why since then, I have never spoken about it. I’m not proud to speak about it,” he said.
“I have performed in Kenya 27 times and there has never been any drama. I blame the cameraman who recorded it. After the incident I did a 10-minute interview to clear the air, but the only thing that was aired is the unfortunate incident.”
Prof Wajackoyah explained what transpired that fateful day, claiming the dancer had issues.
“On that material day, something happened which the media didn’t want to investigate. The media took advantage of what they saw,” he said.
“The lady in question had a problem on the plane. The lady had been [detained] by KQ for something she had done in Abidjan. She had stolen something. She did the same thing at JKIA and when Koffi was addressing the media, they told him about it and he banged into a suitcase. Somebody took advantage and said Koffi kicked a woman”.
For Olomide, courting controversy is not something new. Controversy has been part and parcel of his life for the past three decades that he has been in the music industry.
In March last year, a court in France found him guilty of statutory rape of one of his former dancers, who was 15 when the assault happened. He was first charged in 2012 with aggravated rape but the charge was later reduced.
It handed him a two-year suspended prison sentence in absentia. The sentence allowed Olomide to return to France after a decade, where his family lives. He was also fined 5,000 euros.
“You people love songi songi (gossip) about Koffi too much. I live in France with my family. While I was coming to Tanzania before jetting here, I was in Paris and I will be travelling back,” he said.
But he was quick to admit to the Saturday Nation that since he was put on trial back in 2006 for the rape allegations, he never set foot in France. “When the case was ongoing for 10 years, I never lived in Paris, but now I’m good, the case was cleared.”
The suspended sentence means Olomide will not serve his sentence in prison unless he violates the conditions of his sentence.
Olomide was also quick to play down an incident that happened in Zambia in 2013, when it was widely reported that he hit a photographer who was trying to take pictures of him.
“You see what I am talking about — media like gossip. I did not hit the photographer. I just prevented him from taking pictures of my dancers who had just come offstage and were rocking half-naked costumes. What I did was like that incident of the Pope,” he said, referring to the Pope’s incident last December when he slapped a lady’s hand to free himself.
In another incident, on December 28, 2012, Olomide was accused of kicking Rwandan photographer Jean Nepomuscene Ndayisenga during a performance at Pamodzi Hotel in Lusaka.
Even at 63, the founder of Quartier Latin International band, despite having a catalogue of over 300 albums under his sleeve, doesn’t plan to quit music. “Many friends and people have asked me to take a break and even join politics but my life is in music. I will know my time is up when I stop filling venues,” he added. And when that day comes, Olomide jokes, he will transition to become a cameraman.
