Rex Omar, a veteran highlife artist and songwriter from Ghana, has disclosed that Mark Okraku Mantey, the current deputy minister of tourism, was fired from his job at Multimedia Group Limited for playing his (Rex) hit song, "Abiba."
He claimed that when the minister was fired, he and Okraku Mantey grew to be the best of friends. He mentioned that once the song was released, some radio stations declined to play it because they did not like the lyrics.
It will be noted that the song's sexually explicit lyrics were inspired by his wife Abiba and were published more than ten years ago. It nevertheless continues to appear on modern playlists. Actually, the resistance originates in Ghana, he said. Even radio stations refused to play Abiba for six months after I introduced it. Even though I wrote the lyrics for the song "Abiba" so that they wouldn't be explicit, some of them didn't like what they said.
In fact, Okraku was fired, which is why he is my best friend, he said. Because he went to play Abiba, he was fired from Multimedia. As a result, his supervisor Kwesi Twum said that Abiba only got popular later, go and bring the song back.