[ 2014-01-17 ]

Sidney Ofori, known in showbiz circles as Barima Sidney

Sydney loses interest in political satirism
Political Satirist cum musician, Sidney Ofori,
known in showbiz circles as Barima Sidney has told
NEWS-ONE he has lost interest in doing political
satire.

“People hate me for what I do and even take that
hatred to destroy my commercial investments.
Political satire is allowed in any advanced
multi-party democracy but in Ghana it has cost me
a fortune and brought me hatred. I think we have
not reached there as a country because we can’t
take a joke without getting angry, we can’t make
fun and laugh at ourselves, we can’t tolerate
divergent views, and we tend to be overly
partisan. I am just fed up with this whole idea
and want to do something else,” Sidney told
NEWS-ONE.

The musician said because of his recent song,
‘Donkomi’, a senior political figure at the
Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts
recently acted very rude towards him in public and
treated him as someone who had a highly contagious
disease.

Sidney noted further: “I felt very sad and it
dawned on me that if I was not doing satire and I
was doing my normal music, I would not be facing
some of the problems I am facing now. They hated
me for ‘Enko yie’, ‘Gadindingadem’,
‘Bye-Bye’ and now ‘Donkomi’. They have
blacklisted all the songs but they can’t give
any reason so they just ignore me like a bad boy.
My brother, I would stop the satire and we would
all be doing ‘Shatta Wale’ because that is
what Ghana is ready for. They think because I sing
about hardships, then I am working for NPP or I am
against the government or I am insulting the
President. What would I gain from insulting the
President? It is very sad people think this way
and treat me with enmity.”

Barima said what made his plight pathetic was that
while he was accused of doing the bidding of the
New Patriotic Party (NPP), the party neither
recognized not appreciated his works.

“If I was doing this for the NPP, I would have
charged them for it but not a single person in the
NPP has even called me to say, take this for your
recording or take that for your videos. No, not
one! Each time my song gets blacklisted, it is my
few media friends who show some sympathy. The NPP
people claim I am working for, does not give a
hoot. They won’t even call to say anything. I
use my own resources and gain nothing from it
because the songs get blacklisted with no one
telling me anything. It started with GTV and now
even the private stations have joined. It is very
frustrating and I am sure that 2014 would see me
doing something very different. I did not start as
a satirist and when I was doing Nananom, I was
even better off,” Sidney noted.

Source - Ghanamusic

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