Charles Oputa a.k.a Charly Boy is a man of different parts. Aside his entertainment vibes he is also well grounded in happenings in the country.
He had in the time past organized rallies to challenge the ills in governance.
In this interview shortly before his 71st birthday, ‘the area father’, opened up to Sunday Sun at his Lagos residence. Excerpt:
You were an advocate of social vices, with protests on the streets against ills in the society, we don’t see you again doing so in recent times, what is happening?
There’s nothing that is happening now that has not happened before. I can’t stop talking. I can’t stop agitating. Even though I may have stopped street protests, if that is what you mean because I’m no longer a spring chicken, after doing something for over 40 decades, I should let young people who I represent take over because the future belongs to them, not the elderly people. Young people should be the future leaders. If old people keep insisting on hanging around, where is the hope for the young people and I believe the salvation of this country, called Nigeria, lies in the hands of exceptional people who are obviously the youths. I am not a professional protester, just like the great Wole Soyinka, he still talks, but you don’t see him on the streets saying, ‘we no go gree’, ‘we no go gree’. “Soyinka is much older. For me, after 45 years of heavy physical protestation, I think it is time for me to use my wisdom and see how I could help the millenniums, the people who should take over the mantle of leadership in this God’s forsaken country.
What’s your take on what is presently happening in Imo State security-wise, because that would not attract tourists as it has a negative business impact?
How can we be talking about businesses and tourism when we have not decided on how we want to co-exist as brothers and sisters. The same thing you find in the East is the same thing you find in the North, in Borno, Sokoto and Benue, now it is our turn. But Imo State is most unfortunate in having some cantankerous people in power. It is just a question of time because evil jumps. What we have in the system right now is very demonic, but this is something that has been orchestrated through time. It is systematic. It was handed down by the British because Nigeria is not just a geographical expression, but also a transaction that benefitted the British and the Fulani oligarchy. And until people wake up to read the handwriting on the wall.
Our enemies are using the same play book when it comes to tribalism, but in corruption, the Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa are united. But when it comes to regional unity, they start to bring division, they set us up against one another, they make us hate each other so they can perpetuate this oppression for eternity, but nothing lasts forever. One day, the ‘shit is going to hit the farm’. It could be sooner or later. Before Nigeria will get better, it will have to get worse because we have allowed scumbags, bastards, ignoramus, thugs, criminals into our polity. Fela said ‘na animal in human skin’, we have allowed them into our system. They have entrenched themselves, now we are having problems purging them out of our system. So, there’s no way this contraction called Nigeria can stand because it is already standing on a faulty foundation. “Our constitution is a scam, the foundation of this country is a scam and you cannot just keep putting buildings, floors upon floors on a building that has a faulty foundation.
Do you believe in restructuring?
I believe in whatever will bring reasonable people to the table to say how do we move on as brothers and sisters. I believe if you are in a marriage, as husband and wife, and things are not flowing, then you guys should communicate. I believe you only communicate with people who are reasonable, people who are logical, not beasts, not animals, not people who are from the 18 century. I believe the millenniums and people from the 21st Century have upper hand and cannot be defeated no matter how bleak it is looking, no matter how ‘jagajaga’ Nigeria is, whether ‘he don cast o, or he don hook o’, I believe the salvation of this country lies in the hands of the exceptional youths. I have not stopped believing that and that is why I am ‘their area father’.
Things are hard in the country these days, people find it hard to eat, what would you say to this?
The worst is yet to come because of our docility over the years and because of ‘which one concern me over decades’.
Maybe God has brought Buhari to show us something for us to wake up from our slumber because ‘pickin wey no know wetin kill him papa that same thing go kill the pickin’. If we have no sense of history, this oppression did not start today, it just grew from bad to worse and it will get worse before the end of the year. The only thing we now have left is to fight for our survival both old, middle-aged and young people because the enemy wishes us no good. The poverty and the hunger you see are baseless. You are not supposed to be hungry, we are not supposed to be poor, but this is a systematic thing to break us, to break everybody. If we cannot see that an injustice to one is an injustice to all, then ‘problem dey’. If we think crises in the Middle Belt are their ‘wahala’, then we have a long way to go. Before, they said it is Hausa/Fulani, now we have seen it is Fulani because Hausa people ‘don dey receive the pepper’. Middle Belt is shouting, the West is calling Oduduwa, they want Oduduwa State, the Igbo said we are marginalised, we want the Biafra State, all because there is so much injustice. Even Buhari’s town, there is injustice; inside Buhari’s village, there is injustice. ‘So, na for Imo State injustice no go dey’? Like I said, evil jumps around. The atmosphere these days is demonic. Look at the churches we have in every corner and cranny in this country, is Nigeria closer to God and love? Hell no! People are doing all kinds of horrible things just to survive. Where do you think this is coming from, where do you think this influence of evil is coming from? When we were born, in my time, there used to be rewards for goodness, but these days, if you do bad, if you are a horrible kind of person, you will be rewarded, so if you keep rewarding evil what do you think will be the consequences. That is what you see today and the worst is yet to come. ‘Since my thief better pass your own thief’, since we cannot agree that a thief is a thief and as such must have the maximum punishment for thievery, then how can Nigeria regroup? So, if you promote evil that is what you will see. Kidnapping was happening in one part of the country, nobody cares, now it has spread, that is what I meant by evil spreading. Boko Haram started in the North, let them kill themselves there, but now, it is everywhere. ‘So, we go hear am’, ‘we never start’.
Is there hope for Nigeria?
There is hope. By being strong, by recognising that the office of the citizen is more important than the office of the president; that the people who serve us, who are in leadership positions are nothing but servants, but if we keep promoting them as lords and masters, we have ourselves to blame and that is the mindset of ‘my thief is better than your thief’. The followership in this country is part of this problem. Some people, their ‘mumu na factory fitted’ and I’m sorry most Nigerians live in ignorance.
What is the way forward?
The way forward is for the East, the West, the Middle Belt to all come together because the enemy of Nigeria will not stop at anything. Everyday something happens and some people would say it is well! How can it be well when we are living in a jungle and you say it is well. I see a lot of damage that religion has done to the black man. If you think by prayers alone, you will be saved, then you are an idiot because the pastors who are inculcating all of these into your heads are walking with bodyguards and security. If we are good followers, we should make sure we don’t have riffraff in positions of authority because when they give us 5k now, we just collapse in one place, saying this is the benefit of this democracy then how is it going to work? There is hope if we decide to push back. When we decide all the tactics they use to divide us by setting us up against one another.
What is your take on 2023?
I can’t be talking about 2023 when I have not even seen tomorrow. All these things are just to destabilise us for 2023, what I want us to be talking about is, how do we unite to push back. That is the talk, it is not about 2023, if Nigeria will last till 2023, at this rate, I don’t see it.
How did your father feel when people call you area father?
My father was a father to many people. He had always picked up people he found at crossroads, he trained so many priests, he trained so many lawyers, he trained different kinds of people. I’m taking after my father, the only difference is that he did it at the bar and at the bench, I did mine on social media and the streets. We are the same kind of person, we believe in the same kinds of values, we are from the same stock. You see my father, you see me, the difference is our approach. While my own is wild and dreary, his own was flowery, poetic. I mean it was evidence in his judgment how he talked, what kind of man he was, it has something to do with spirituality and religiosity. Anytime people judge a book by its cover, they are sure to miss words inside and that is the bane of most people, critical Nigerians.
