Over the weekend, Nollywood actress, Oge Okoye, after a long while of being in the news, re-surfaced, but in a negative way. She was accused of animal theft after she posted two dogs on her page claiming she just got them, and as social media works, the real owner surfaced online who happens to be Kenyan Moore, an American TV star and thereafter, the drama began.

Read It Here: Oge Okoye Caught Pants Down Stealing Dog Pictures

Ever since the incident, the actress kept mum as trolls began trolling her with so many harsh comments.

Many had wandered if she was ashamed of her actions which led her to keep quite despite how viral it went or she could actually be enjoying the publicity the situation is giving her.

Meanwhile, here are 5 suggestions on how the actress should have handled the situation as written by Chidi Okereke.

Own the fuck up 

One thing I love about Nigerians is our readiness to forgive people who apologize for their mistakes. We live in a country where people would rather make excuses, blame someone else, or just shut up, instead of saying they are sorry. The readiness to apologize is therefore seen as a virtue. One could commit a crime, confess and apologize, and people will say “shey him don beg nau, make una die the matter”. 

So, I’ll ask Oge Okoye to own the fuck up. Admit she saw the pictures, fell in love with them, and in a moment of weakness, stole and reposted. She should apologize, agree she deserves all the vitriol she’s getting and promise never to do it anymore. 

While it wouldn’t wash away her sins, most of the negative comments will turn to positive ones commending her for being humble enough to apologize. 

Demerits: People will now KNOW she indeed stole pictures and it will always come up. But then, there would always be someone defending her with the infamous, “he who is without sin” line.

I was hacked 

This is the typical thing a Nigerian will do. Deny it. Blame the enemies for trying to bring her down and posting that picture. Do a long post asking how she can be foolish enough to post pictures from the IG account of another celebrity with even less followers than her. Deny deny deny! Promise to better protect her account so nonsense like that won’t repeat itself. 

Merits: While some people will know she is lying, others will believe her. The rest of us will either be indifferent or unsure. Refusing to admit what she did will also ensure no one can use it against her without doubts. 

Demerits, She would have toed the lines of the typical Nigerian – refuse to admit your mistakes and seek forgiveness. There will also always be a question mark on her head – did she do it? Did she not? And we know how question marks can be.

Fire her Social Media Manager 

Whether she is managing the account herself or not, I will ask Oge Okoye to ‘invent’ and publicly fire (or at least sanction or redeploy) her Social Media Manager. 

Truth is, for the sake of plausible deniability, many celebrities do not manage their accounts themselves. That is why many have the disclaimer on their bio (Account managed by media team, tweets/posts by me are signed blabla). 

Oge Okoye can leverage on this and say her social media manager, who she has trusted to manage her account because of her busy schedule was the one who made the blunder. She would then relieve the manager of his/her duties, or (to seem like an even sweeter person) send the manager for ORM training in agencies. 

Merits: This would take the pressure off her a bit. The blame will shift to the manager who wanted to disgrace his/her principal. 

Demerits: People like to believe that they are interacting with the celebrities themselves on Social Media. If she says someone has been managing her account, it would make her posts impersonal.

Blame her dog dealer 

Simple! Blame the person who was supposed to buy the dogs for her. 

Say the person sent her the pictures as those of the dogs in transit and she believed him/her. Admit she hastily posted it because she was excited about finally having Rob and Rosy, agree she was wrong and apologize. 

Merits: She has shifted the blame on someone else, and still apologized. This is also the most reasonable lie to tell. 

Demerits: Are there any? None, except the fact that some people will still not believe her. And that is perfectly okay.

Keep quiet Another typical celeb behavior – just ignore all the trolling, insults, abuses and hurtful comments and pray everything dies down. And the truth is, it will die down. The government will do something, or someone else will trend, and our attention will be diverted to fresher news. 

Merit: Refusal to admit or deny may put a question mark on her head, but if people do not know why she did what she did, it will remain a question, not fact. 

Demerit: It will always come back to haunt her. She could post a picture of her beautiful daughter next year and people will ask her if she stole the baby pic too. Yes Nigerians are savage like that.