The year was 2021. Omah Lay and Tems came to Uganda for a performance. Uganda was on lockdown, but authorities had given the green light to parties of 200 or fewer people.
When Omah Lay posted a picture of himself on his socials with a throng of Ugandan fans, both Ugandan artists and their fanbase were furious.
All this happened while local entertainers had been barred from performing for more than a year.
Local artists took to social media to call out the government, police, and any other authority they felt should be concerned. Then news broke—Tems and Omah Lay had been arrested.
After the two were released, Temilade Openiyi, alias Tems, took to X (formerly Twitter) and made a post alleging that singer Bebe Cool had been behind her and Omah Lay’s arrest. Of course, with Bebe Cool being the controversial figure he is, even some Ugandans blindly joined Nigerians on social media in attacking the Ugandan superstar as one of the key people behind the move.
However, while appearing on the Afrobeats Podcast, hosted by Adesope Olajide, the singer took time to offer a clear explanation of how events unfolded.
In a rather revealing submission, Bebe Cool went on to narrate how he actually fought to have the Nigerian stars released.
At the time of the incident, Ugandan artists were under lockdown, and Bebe Cool was one of many who had criticized the organizers for putting up the concert while local artists were not allowed to perform.
“I didn’t get Tems and Omah Lay arrested in Uganda. It’s very difficult when the internet picks up a story in a certain direction. It is different to turn it around,” he said.
“I was sleeping around 3 a.m. when a friend called me to inform me that the Nigerian artists had been arrested. I got the details from him and then started making calls. By 6 o’clock in the morning, I went to the police station and spoke to the DPC, the head of the police station, and he confirmed that they had arrested Tems and Omah Lay. I asked him, ‘Why did you arrest the artists? The artists are not in charge of the show. The president has allowed gatherings of up to 200 people, but the artists don’t control the number of attendees. So why arrest them?’”
Bebe Cool adds that because he had tweeted about the concert before, when he arrived at the police station, one of the organizers opportunistically used him as a scapegoat.
“Once the event started being advertised as a brunch, artists were furious. We started tweeting, asking the government that if you let Omah Lay perform, you should let us perform as well. The DPC told me that I should go and speak with his superior. But as I was speaking to the DPC, the show promoter saw me and started saying, ‘That’s the guy. That guy is the reason you are in prison.’”
Bebe Cool says that while he was still negotiating the artists’ release in another office in Naguru (the headquarters of the Uganda Police), he saw online that the artists had been taken to court.
“I made a call to the DPC and said, ‘I just left. I’m waiting for the big man to come so that we can discuss—why go behind me and take the artists to court?’ He explained to me that after I left, the lady promoter made a mess and was bragging about how her mother has connections to the president.”
He says, however, that he later managed to get the artists released without any intervention from Nigerian diplomacy. He goes on to reveal that he managed to explain everything to Omah Lay when he had just been released but did not get to talk to Tems, which, he says, could be the reason she went ahead to make the barrage of tweets when she got back home.
“When I saw Omah Lay’s demeanor, I knew he understood. Of course, Tems tweeted because that’s what she was told—and, of course, the trauma.”
Bebe Cool has had a busy 2025, releasing the Bebe Cool List and later the video for his Circumference single. Fresh from London, he re-emphasized that he is deliberate about his ambition to move Ugandan music in a new direction.
“This is a new journey, and I encourage more East African artists to join me in this new dawn. That’s the motivation behind my new album, Break the Chains,” he said.
Here’s a link to the detailed podcast:
