Congolese music star Koffi Olomidé has returned to Kenya four years after he was deported for assaulting one of his female dancers.
A video recording of the incident at the main airport in the capital, Nairobi, was posted online and sparked outrage on social media.
The then Minister of Gender Cicily Kariuki said that the musician’s conduct “was an insult to Kenyans and our constitution”.
“[It] cannot be accepted in any shape, form or manner. It is a blatant violation of their human rights,” Ms Kariuki said.
On Monday, Olomidé thanked the government for “allowing me to be back again” during a press conference.
He also announced that he would be holding his comeback concert on 5 May.
His return to Kenya has not sparked the public anger on social media or on mainstream media that it did in 2016.
The singer, whose real name is Antoine Agbepa Mumba, has been in trouble with the law several times before:
- In 2019 a French court found him guilty of the statutory rape of one of his former dancers when she was 15
- In 2018 Zambia ordered his arrest after he allegedly assaulted a photographer
- In 2012 he was convicted in DR Congo of assaulting his producer and received a three-month suspended prison sentence
- In 2008 he was accused of kicking a cameraman from DR Congo’s private RTGA television station and breaking his camera at a concert, but the two later were later reconciled. BBC News
