…His love for flutes, dogs
By Christy Anyanwu
Dr Tee Mac Omatshola Iseli is a Nigerian flautist with cross-cultural Itsekiri and Swiss roots.
He was a former PMAN president, a position he held for nearly four years.
He was vocal in the last election, a vibrant force in the Labour Party.
But in this interview, he doesn’t want to talk about the goings-on in the country, but strictly spoke on what makes him happy and the secrets of his good looks at 76. Excerpts:
You are a bit quiet now, vocally, what’s up with you these days?
Well, let me tell you, I enjoy my life. I wake up happy every morning, I wake up healthy. I Look at the blue sky, the trees in my garden, I walk my dogs, I come home, I exercise, I eat my bowl of fruits. For an hour or two, I check my emails, I respond to my partners, to my companies and I just realised that life can be wonderful if you keep off stress. People are looking at me and said, Tee Mac, how can you look as well at 76 years. What is your secret? I will like to tell my secrets to my friends, readers of The Sun Newspaper. I have been involved with The Sun Newspaper from the inception when the Editor and Managing Director came over from the Weekend Concord.
What are the secret of your great looks at 76?
I am a living evidence that aging is a mistake. Aging is the abuse of the body, number one, you have to sleep your seven to nine hours. In the afternoon I take a nap of one or two hours, then I go back to work. I work late, I speak with my patners in Canada late nights. Rest is important for your body to regenerate. But I think the main item to be healthy and feel comfortable in your body is your feeding. Eat little. Three square meal kills you. Some people say eat like a king in the morning, I don’t believe it. I eat a whole bowl of mix fruits, a cup of chocolate drink, not the sugar chocolate drink they sell in the supermarkets, but real chocolate cocoa, I put a little bit honey in it, hot water, and drink that. Cocoa has certain nutrients in it which helps immune system and builds stem cells. It helps to build anti-bodies against sickness. Cocoa and black chocolate is very important. Then I drink regularly a cup of water during the day. I have a little container where it gets iodinezied. I have a small water company where we produce organic water. My water goes through coconut ash into gravel sand and comes out absolutely cleaner and soft.
Do your food consumption matter in all these?
I don’t eat meat. The last time I ate meat was about 1971. For 35 years, I have been a pure vegetarian. I have fish occasionally and once in a while some chicken breast. I am not into animal protein. When those animals are slaughtered, that fear, that frustration goes into the meat and it causes a kind of bad vibes in your body. I love animals. My dogs are my best friends, I have eight in the house . When I wake up in the morning I see them sleeping beside my bed on the floor enjoying the fresh breeze in my room. We go for walk regularly a couple of times a day, depending my schedule.
Exercise walk?
Another thing is exercise. Don’t sit for so long on your seat in the office, even in the airplane, every hour I stand up and exercise, I joggle on the same spot and some people in the airplane they love it, and they start doing the same thing. Sitting on a chair for so long is the next deadline sin. If you sit in your office, every hour stand up, jog on the spot, do some knee bent, health is very important. I walk seven to eight in the morning then midday I feed the dogs, I walk again with a couple of guys I have employed, when ever my time allows me. Those guys have finished school and have no jobs. They get salary and remunerations weekly.
The three things to watch out for?
Sleep, exercise and food. No sugar. Forget about those soft drinks, it kills you. This Microsoft boss invested now in one of the soft drinks company and they are doing some AI stuff. They want to kill the world. They want to depopulate. All those drinks are deadly. One Igbo trader exported these soft drinks to the UK and they were confiscated. He believed our own soft drinks are sweeter, stronger, yes it is, but it kills you quicker. The UK seized all the drinks, stating that it is not following European standards. So, he is suing the company. They are right, our soft drinks have very high sugar content and a high chemical content, they use components which are not even allowed in Europe and America. You know, if you have products and take them to the regulatory bodies, stating you have a new product, and you give them some money they will authorise it. Our food security is not tight enough.
Frequencies?
Next, and the most important aspect of staying young and healthy is your healing frequencies. Our body has frequencies, every thing in our body has frequencies. Listen to it and let it penetrate your body and it can regenerate cells. It goes into the genes. Brain fog can go away. Maybe I can just give you the number: frequency 528, the Solfeggio frequency is the most important one. You can download it from the Internet, listen to it and let it go into your body. I never missed listening in the morning to the frequencies. Even before you go to sleep, get the 963 frequencies, it’s good for your brain. My favourite one is the 528. I play along with the flute as a breathing exercises and I feel the frequencies penetrating my system. It regenerates you. Those of the readers who believe me and download these frequencies and listen to it regularly, in a few days they will feel the regeneration in their system. They will suddenly realize the clarity in their brain. Your memory which goes a bit down when you get older, like the computer, your brain is filled up; clarity comes back. I remember every concert I have performed in my life since 1968, these are thousands because my brain is crystal clear sharp, because my brain is regenerating. Let me repeat again, the secret of living to old age healthy without collapsing your system is: exercise, resting, feeding and frequencies. There’s one more aspect, which is the social behaviour. For instance, when I walk my dog, and I pass through the streets I greet everyone, have some small talk and people appreciate that.
Maintain positive attitude?
I walk, I greet everybody. The kids going to school, they wave to me, Tee Mac, how are you? I smile to them. When you are walking , smile at every body. To be happy and smiling help. To greet people, to be nice to people. In the morning I checked my LinkedIn. I have like 25,000 friends on LinkedIn, I wish them happy birthday and I get so many beautiful messages of them being grateful that I wish them a happy day. That positive attitude towards existence again is an aspect of slowing down your aging process. At 76, I’m blessed, no wrinkle, no grey hair, but again, I don’t eat late, I was never a heavy drinker, I never smoked and I don’t womanize. I live in moderation. Only in the last 10-15 years, I came to have this knowledge about frequencies. I have a fantastic cook. He has cooked for me for 17 to 18 years now. Another thing, don’t drink ice water, it can give you a heart attack. It kills you. Take room temperature water.
What do you dislike now?
I don’t go to night clubs anymore. I owned night clubs for many years. The noise, the smoke, the bad air for many hours, is bad for your health!
How did your passion for dogs start?
When I was 13, I got my first dog in Switzerland. His name was Bully. I lived with my wealthy uncle. We had a chauffeur driving me to and back from school. I will just rush when home, take my dog, Bully for walks. We walked in the forest and he was just happy. It was pure love between Bully and me. That’s when I started to love dogs. When I came back in the 70s, I lived with my mother who was the wife to Sir Mobolaji Bank Anthony (my Swiss father who died early) and I had my first dog in Nigeria. From then on , I had at least 150 – 200 dogs. I had a famous dog known as Balewa, he was the one that acted in the TV series Papa Ajasco under the name Bingo, it was my dog. My son, Joseph would take him for the filming of the show twice a week. He was extra-ordinary. Intelligent. When I travel abroad he would be so miserable that I had to speak to him on the speaker phone every day. Balewa was acting in Papa Ajasco for two years. The day he died in my bed room was one of the worst days of my life. I still miss him. Mentioning the names of my dogs has caused so much controversy. Dogs are special angels sent onto this planet earth and they reincarnate into dogs, to either give you love, or to be your guardian. A life without a dog is no life. When you are surrounded by all these wonderful friends, giving you so much attention and so much love, how can you get old? They are becoming expensive now to maintain . They are eating imported dog crunchy which is dried fish, meat, soya beans and it’s imported with vitamins. They eat two bags of 20 kg a week. Daily I buy fresh meat and liver for them. In a month, I would say I spent one and a half million naira to feed the dogs. Maybe medical bills, to deworm and vaccination cost another N500,000 a month. I have three puppies who got virus from the streets (Pavro) , each puppy costs me N200,000 to be treated. They were on drips for five days twice a day. If I tell people how much I spent on the dogs they will say I’m crazy, when there are lots of hungry people in Nigeria. But they don’t know how much I spent helping people every month. I won’t mention numbers, but I help a lot of people every day. I get 30, 40 calls everyday for help. I walk in the streets, I reach out to the elderly people.
What’s your advice to musicians/upcoming musicians?
They should invest their money. 90 per cent of the musicians are suffering at the moment. There are just top 10 mucians who are making money at the moment and one day the money will go down if they don’t invest, then they will be very miserable. We were all superstars some time ago, we all made lots of money . As PMAN president I buried seven or eight of the top stars and I had to scratch money together and had to actually appeal to governments to help me bury them. They were superstars when they were alive, they had no reserves. It’s sad.
So much hunger nowadays, sure you have calls for helps?
It is unbelievable. Sometimes during the weekend I just put my four phones on airplane mode. Maybe I want to have some rest or play the flute , or want to compose. If someone tries to reach me on the iPhones I can see some missed calls and I select and call back the important ones because I don’t want to be rude . I can’t spend the whole day on the phone. You wake up in the morning there must be a dozen WhatsApp messages asking for help. I get tired of it. On a last note. I am preparing for some interesting shows abroad.