Veteran singer and radio personality Tendo Tabel, popularly known as Lady Titie, has revealed how her popular Ebbaluwa segment on Beat FM became a secret source of income after traditional healers began paying her to prioritise their fabricated letters on air.
For years, Ebbaluwa was one of the station’s popular programmes, with Lady Titie reading letters from anonymous listeners who shared personal challenges and sought advice from her and the wider audience.
The emotional stories turned the segment into a favourite among listeners, many of whom tuned in regularly to hear the problems being presented and the advice that followed.
However, in a recent church testimony, Titie revealed that behind some of the letters was a scheme involving traditional healers who had discovered a way to use the programme to promote their services.
She said she initially received many genuine letters from listeners seeking help, but gradually noticed that some traditional healers were submitting fabricated stories designed to advertise their abilities.
According to Titie, the healers would create stories about people who had supposedly suffered from different problems before claiming that they had been healed through their traditional remedies.
When she started identifying and rejecting such letters, the healers allegedly changed their strategy by approaching her directly with money.
“They became smarter and realised they could use me to promote themselves. They started paying me to prioritise their letters over the genuine ones. Honestly, the money was a lot. Each letter earned me Shs1 million, so I could make about Shs5 million a week,” Titie confessed.
The arrangement, she said, was kept away from the knowledge of the station’s management.
As demand for airtime increased, some of the healers allegedly began competing against one another, offering even more money to have their letters read before those of their rivals.
“They eventually started competing for the first slot. Some would even offer more money because they wanted their letters to be read ahead of the others,” she said.
Titie said she continued with the arrangement for some time, earning substantial amounts from the letters while listeners remained unaware that some of the stories they were hearing had been deliberately created for promotional purposes.
Her perspective, however, changed dramatically when her six-month-old daughter fell ill.
Concerned about the child, Titie turned to several of the traditional healers she had been dealing with and sought their help.
She said the healers made several attempts to treat the baby, offering herbs, bathing remedies and different explanations for the child’s condition.
“They all tried very hard because helping my daughter would have given them a free advertisement. They gave her herbs to bathe in and came up with different explanations, but none of their efforts worked,” she said.
Despite the various treatments, her daughter did not recover.
For Titie, the experience became a turning point. She said it was during this difficult period that she began seeking God more seriously and eventually became convinced that some of the healers she had previously promoted were not what they claimed to be.
“That is when I found God. As I got closer to Him, I started realising that these people were fake,” she said.
Her newfound faith also influenced how she interacted with people she had previously referred to the traditional healers.
Titie said she began reaching out to some of the people she had directed to the healers and encouraged them to turn to church instead.
The move, she admitted, did not sit well with the traditional healers, who had benefited financially from the clients she had helped direct their way.
“I started pulling out the people I had referred to these healers and leading them to church. This did not make the healers happy because they were making good money from those people,” she explained.
The change also created an internal conflict for Titie.
She found herself questioning whether she should completely abandon the Ebbaluwa arrangement now that she had embraced Christianity, particularly because the money she was receiving was tied to letters she no longer considered genuine.
“I had a conflict within me because I was no longer sure whether I should continue with the letters or drop them completely now that I was saved,” she said.
Seeking guidance, Titie approached a pastor and explained her dilemma.
According to her, the pastor advised her not necessarily to abandon the income but instead to use it for a different purpose, including giving a portion to the church and helping vulnerable people.
“I asked a pastor for advice and told him about the situation. He advised me to continue receiving the money, tithe from it and use what remained for good causes, such as helping orphans,” she said.
For Titie, the experience eventually became much bigger than the story behind a popular radio programme.
What began as a lucrative arrangement behind the scenes became intertwined with her daughter’s illness, her doubts about the people she had been promoting and, ultimately, a deeper spiritual journey.
The experience, she says, ultimately pushed her closer to God and changed how she viewed both the people she was promoting and the responsibility that came with having a platform capable of influencing thousands of listeners.
@faithfavour304Buli week nafuna nga million tano (5m)?mukusoma amabaluwa gwo bulimba
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