Nigerian Idol Jury Should Be Disbanded: Opinion (photos)

The above mentioned music reality show currently running on DSTV and GOTV platforms may likely be the “wackiest” (for want of words) music reality show in recent times going by the quality of opinions thus far by the jury, made up of a 3man panel of Obi Asika; a Record Label Exec, Seyi Shay; a perpetual upcoming artiste going by the unpopularity of most, if not all her songs and DJ Sose; who at best is skillful at selecting songs that’ll mostly appeal to club audiences.

One would have thought the record label executive in the person of Asika, who ordinarily should have been exposed to artistes of various kinds, will as a father figure, be in full control of the selection process, by way of influencing the opinions of the others even though the antecedents of past judges on the show clearly sets a pace for divergence in opinions that in the end, engenders a robust decision for or against the candidates. This is terribly in deficit this time on the show, as as much as a snarl from the perpetual upcoming artiste is enough influence of the opinions of two supposedly mature and independently minded men. Sose even managed to take his obvious lack of knowledge of music and consequently, a lack of sound judgement to annoying levels by always concurring to whatever Seyi Shay breathes, despite his body language telling otherwise.

All of the above is obvious in the audition of the young music producer, whose image you’ll find attached to this post. I can bet that IK, the show host was shell shocked that the young man had to be turned down for no reasonable point, except for displaying his musical dexterity. If that’s a crime, then pray tell me what Idols is all about?

I was part of the very first Idol show in Nigeria that produced the likes of Timi Dakolo and Omawunmi and what I can clearly remember is that singing foreign songs or even displaying your vocal dexterity wasn’t a crime. If it was compulsory for candidates to do local pangolo songs for the show to be seen as “Nigerian Idol”, like Miss Shay foolishly posits, then I dare the show organisers to switch the nomenclature to “Naija Oosa/Ojuju etc” and compel the judges to speak Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo.

Besides, in the first Idol show in Nigeria, the jury made up of seasoned music industry legend like Dede Mabiaku, Radio Joc; Dan Foster and a Ghanian lady popularly referred to as “It’s not werking for me” had their independent opinions of the candidates even though one out of the trio always played the devil’s advocate.

Question now is; who the hell is the devil’s advocate that’ll ensure a robust decision making process in the ongoing Idol show, when from all we see, all trio are sleeping with their heads in the same direction??

Reason the current panel needs to be disbanded, asides the joke Seyi Shay has made of the show by unprofessionally making mockery of young chaps she is meant to encourage, thereby wreaking psychological damages that may be indelible in the lives of the up and coming generation.

PS: I don’t know the guy being auditioned in the attached pictures as I am speaking for countless others that are in my opinion, obviously far ahead of the judges musically, but were turned do