Has Paul Play’s health relapsed? Is he back on sick bed? These were the questions that agitated the minds of his fans and followers of happenings in the industry early this week when a slip on twitter by singer, Lanre Fasasi aka Sound Sultan, opened a floodgate of enquiries as to his well being. The artiste had tweeted, “I pray for you Paul Play, we must judge together this season, waiting on your return. God strengthen you. Get strong fast.”
This was preceded by controversial rapper, Ruggedman’s tweet: “Please join me in praying for my friend, brother and colleague, Paul Play, to get well soon and come back home to us from South Africa. He went for surgery.” Curiously, a few minutes later, the tweet disappeared from Ruggedman’s timeline only to appear by those who had saved it as having been posted on August 1st 2009. This abracadabra was explained away by Sound Sultan who claimed that his earlier tweet was as a result of the rapper’s which he discovered was posted at the time of Paul’s illness. Interestingly, as at Wednesday afternoon, Ruggedman had over 26, 300 tweets. Why would he retweet a post of August 2009, just a few days after he joined twitter? Who is fooling who?
The scion of late juju maestro and Member of the British Empire, Sir IK Dairo, Paul’s illness began in 2009. According to him, “I was in South Africa to shoot a video when I noticed I was getting weak and tired, so I checked into a hospital and was diagnosed with tumour of the kidney.” An unabashed teetotaler, the news of Paul’s illness sent shock waves round the industry. He would later claim in media interviews that it took interventions from a pastor before his health was fully restored. Since then, however, the singer-songwriter-producer who was one of the pioneer hit makers in Nigeria’s contemporary music industry had maintained low profile, hardly appearing at industry events or performing at concerts. Meanwhile, E-Punch’s several efforts to reach The Angel of My Life crooner were futile. His two mobile phone numbers were switched off, and a check at the church where he claimed to have received healing yielded nothing, lending credence to the fact that he might have been flown back to the South Africa.
