Hamisa Mobeto, a Tanzanian socialite of repute, has married her Burkinabe boyfriend, Stephane Aziz K, amidst a family controversy oozing with bitterness. It was a wedding that can be summed up as a fanfare amidst a bonfire. There are things almost everybody will like at this wedding, but there are other things they won’t like about this exquisite wedding. This article revisits this mega-wedding.
It was a wedding made in heaven. We didn’t hear much about courting, but then we were dumbstruck when the news of a marriage in the pipeline began sneaking around. Some thought it was some sort of satire, while others said they would believe it when they nailed it with their own eyes. Huge signposts bombastically announced the wedding of “Hamisa – Aziz K” in Dar, with the noisy Mwijaku waving and stopping cars on the tarmac road to alert them of the signage reporting a celebrity wedding was nigh.
Then we were toasted with two semi-lorries (canters) brimming with cows which look like the Rwandese or Ugandan Ankole. However, we were later corrected those cows were our own from Shinyanga. We couldn’t count them because many were on top of the trucks. Later, we learnt that was lobola or dowry passing hands. The dowry also included Tshs 30 mill that was paid in half with the remaining balance to be settled in the future. Some queried how such a loaded Yanga striker couldn’t clear the balance now. One speculated that it could be a tradition of some sort lest the groom be perceived to be cutting the ties with his inlaws. Having unpaid lobola bills reassures the inlaws that you still have something in common to glue the two sides together. No room for bifurcated relationship.
While we were feasting our eyes on the wedding videos, the bad news crept in. It was on Instagram where the guardian’s mom was very inconsolable. She wrote a missive on her Instagram page that showed her family was forsaken, only to be alerted about the wedding when it was too late. We came to learn Aziz K, a Burkinabe soccer striker, was an orphan. His parents had passed away during his childhood a long time ago. He was raised by the nearest kin, who is now the grumbling guardian mom. It was this guardian mom who complained bitterly of exclusion.
She lamented that the wedding news came when she was on a trip somewhere in Ivory Coast, and had expressed intention to attend but was snubbed. She had asked for the wedding to be postponed so that she could also join them, but her request was ignored. She felt she was being ambushed in her own territory. Ageing parents sometimes tend to be financially and emotionally insecure. When a close relative ignores them, there is an apprehension that could mean the relationship is either in the ICU or gutted forever.
As we age, we begin to feel as if the doors to social interactions are closing so fast. Very few people are even interested to know what you are doing or giving you a courtesy call. The consequences could be damning. One may have lost an important source of emotional and pecuniary support. I really don’t know her true circumstances, so I cannot pinpoint the source of her grouses for sure.
She had a big beef to chew with one Yanga official whom she claimed was behind all this wedding melee, and she had attempted to portray that all was well while it wasn’t. She warned that
officials would stop interfering with her family and that there would never be one. She said God will look after her family. She seemed to disapprove of the marriage without uttering it. Her belligerent tone spoke volumes. In social media, there were all kinds of speculations, conspiracy theories and xenophobia gone terribly misguided.
Others claim it was Yanga’s ploy to keep Aziz K playing his soccer trade with Yanga Sports Club. There were rumours that Aziz K was plotting to move during a transfer window to either Saudi Arabia or South Africa. While which club he could have joined in Saudi Arabia was unknown, but Mamelodi Sundown football club of South Africa seemed to be a consensus of many soccer pundits. I didn’t see that nexus with this marriage because had he seriously wanted to go to Saudi or South Africa both could have gone there.
Hamisa Mobeto, whose sprawling business empire is swaddled in Tanzania, could have regularly come home to pay closer attention to her business entities. Others alleged Aziz K’s wages took a big cut when compared with lucrative overseas contracts he had passed up. Some said Aziz K attached more weight to love than minting some serious cash. This is why he took a pay cut to ensure a solid base for his marriage. We all know distance romance has its own formidable challenges. Couples tend to grow apart simply because “out of sight is out of the heart.” Then loneliness tends to lead to temptations and breakups.
Mama Mobeto was interviewed and seemed happy that her daughter had found a man of her taste. Unlike her in-laws who have a huge axe to grind, Mama Hamisa was really thrilled with the wedding. Commentators, however, were divided in the middle. Some said she was delighted by the huge lobola now in her hands, but others sided with her by invoking scripture about marriage as a divine gift from God. Some claimed Aziz K has a Tanzanian baby mama and wanted to know how she felt about all this. Others said this could be a love triangle in the offing and should be acceptable because both Hamisa and Aziz K were Muslims. If polygamy is a necessary evil to keep the trio happy, let it be.
As for me, there was something that I had closely noted during the wedding: the number of outfits Hamisa changed. I lost count of the attires she had dressed herself up. Being a professional model and a businesswoman in the thick of things modelling, one can appreciate that she was also marketing what her clothing label has in store to offer. She was combining business and pleasure, so to consider. Some accused Hamisa of gold digging and a treasure hunter who had carefully sized up before swooping in on her man with means who would be tasked to offset her expensive lifestyle. Others came to her defence and rescue that this was quintessential “love at first sight.”
Most tend to conveniently forget that both Hamisa and Aziz K have premarital children. Hamisa has two with two different dads, and Aziz K has one known child with a Tanzanian woman. The couple knows those and is unperturbed about them. Gone are the days when premarital children were stigmatised; we are now in an era where children are honoured irrespective of when they were born and by whom. So long as the couple are happy, we should be equally happy. After all, it is their wedding, not ours. Therefore, we have no reason to impose our own values on other people’s affairs.
We may never know, and it is probably not our business to speculate on why couples squeak “I do” because it isn’t our business. Our job is just to wish them a happy ending the way Hollywood does at the end of most movies. For those who wished Mobeto would have married a Tanzanian, love is indiscriminate and may pop up like a painful cyst anywhere and at any time, so shout it aloud!
Read more analysis by Rutashubanyuma Nestory
I’m very happy for hamisa’s wedding 💍