‘This Country will be Salvaged by its Exceptional People’

Mr. Charles Oputa, better known as, Charly Boy has earned his badge of honour as an advocate of good causes. Nseobong Okon-Ekong finds out why he has spent the better part of his 70 years on earth, which he lives on his own terms, promoting activities that are not managed for profit, particularly shaping the perspective of Nigerian youths

Do you have any group or movement by description with which you galvanize your followers or society towards a better environment?

Yes and no. No, because there is no known group like that. The closest I have come to that is Our Mumu Don Do, which was more or less a campaign about our docility and our shameful ignorance when it comes to our environment and government, but I am proud of the brand called Charly Boy that for the past four decades it has inspired millions of youths to be their authentic self, regardless of what anybody says, even their parents or what the environment is pushing out or their rubbish and stupid leadership, that they should never ever give up on their self; that everything comes through hard work, being focused, being consistent, being tenacious and a then a little touch of sagacity and audacity can help you get their faster. These are the values that I promote. I remember at one point at the beginning of my career, I was the underdog. My parents never believed in me. Most Nigerians never believed either. These shows you what consistency can achieve, which is what I will say I have in common with the late Fela Kuti-consistency and doggedness and following whatever your mind tells you; whatever you believe. I don’t have to have a movement. I believe that my life has influenced millions of people. I don’t have any desire to enter into active politics, I don’t need a movement. Thank God for social media. Thank God that we keep sending our messages to inspire and encourage young people to be their authentic self

Yours is not about political sloganeering or trying to compartmentalize yourself into a democrat, republican, liberal, nationalist, federalist or progressive

Charly Boy means different things to different people. Charly Boy is everything like a packet of potato chips. Like I keep saying, Charly Boy no fit finish and e no dey finish because till tomorrow, I am still studying the soul and the life of the brand. You can’t put Charly Boy where you find the trend or a particular way that people are doing things, you can’t see Charly Boy there. That is why some times, I say that it is unfortunate. Tha is the bane of pioneers-people who start something; they start-they are not the ones who are recognized. You know in the music industry how it used to be not too long ago, may be 25 years ago. It has changed dramatically and some people fought for that change. You don’t get that far by following trends. One should be able to be a trailblazer. I consider the Charly Boy brand as one of the biggest things I have done in my life. I consider the brand a classic, a special edition; you can’t put the brand and any other brand in the same category, I don’t think it is fair.

Will it be fair to say the Charly Boy, where politics is concerned, is a liberal?

Why would you associate the brand with politics, even though life is politics? When you use that word politics, you should be really careful because the kind of things that are done under that term is not politics for the people. It is politics of oppression. I am not comfortable when that word is thrown my brand because the word politics is different from what the Area Fada as an influencer does, which is to show young people that they should demand a better life. That is the focus of the brand, the youths; no more no less

You are never shy or afraid to dabble into the politics of the day-you are always commenting and you take sides, as things happen

Unfortunately, people like me suffer from diarrhea of the mouth. We suffer from our nakedness, in terms of telling it like it is. You can’t see something and not pass a comment. You can’t see something that you love or something that really causes a revolt in you as a person; something you can’t stand. I cannot be frustrated and never talk about it and keep it to myself. Ordinarily, you should have people who are sincere. We should not have the kind of environment that we have today, which is not good for young people. That is where my anger stems from. How can you bring up young people in this kind of toxic environment, where dreams die? Is it any wonder when people leave the shores of Nigeria, they start to excel. I believe in the Nigerian youths and I believe that this country will be salvaged by its exceptional people. I have been privileged to meet one or two outstanding Nigerians. I know it is possible and we are not all demons. We are not all that bad. Because we have a shameful government the world starts to see us as the worst of the worst, but there are good Nigerians. My only concern is that most of the good people are in hiding and that is why you have demons parading the space.

Why do you still believe that you can be an authentic voice for people 50 years younger than you? Is there no disconnect? Do you still see things the way they see it? How is that possible?

That is why somebody may be counting my physical age that is increasing but not my mental state of mind and not my spirituality. I am talking to my No. 1 group-young people. I believe I can never go wrong and I can never run out of ideas. How do you talk to a group of people if you are not into their psyche already, if you don’t understand their nuances, if you don’t understand their lingo? I am not called Area Fada for nothing. These are the people that I learn from, in terms of their lingo, what is frustrating them. You may see a disconnect because of their age disparity, but I don’t see that kind of disconnect. The problem young people have when they come into this space is that they forget that I am not their mate. I don’t carry myself about as an ancestor. I don’t carry myself as somebody’s father or brother. I carry myself as their buddy. This is the same principle I apply to my biological children. Sometimes you can’t even differentiate who the father is and the son or the daughter is because I decided from the word go that I will raise my children totally different. I remember when I was younger my father will tell me stories of how he walked four miles to go to school. One day, I asked my father why he wanted me to always hear these stories. There are God-knows-how-many-cars in the garage. Are you telling me this story so that I can be walking to school? I was not born in your era. I do not even know what these stories are supposed to do for us. You don’t expect me to be walking to school when there are cars in the garage. My father was a big disciplinarian. He ran our home like a military barracks-time for this; time to come to the table to eat, time to pray, time to be with the family together and everybody is talking to everybody about how their day went. I was raised in a family filled with love. As a young person I didn’t lack anything. My father was very strict. My father whipped my ass. At one point I didn’t like my father. I hated my father. I thought he was overbearing cantankerous, too old fashioned, too stuck in his old ways. We used to argue because my father brought me up to question certain things. I wasn’t going to accept just anything from them. As a little boy we were encouraged to be among elders. We were not asked to go to our rooms because there was an elder in the room. We were encouraged to stay and ask questions even though we did not know what they were discussing at the time. My disposition to life is coming from this pedigree. Growing up in the city of Port Harcourt in the early 50s, when my father was attorney to some of the oil companies, we were used to seeing white people in the house. A white person did not make any difference. I did not even think about it until I went to America. My stay in America was cut short because as a Black person I was being asked the stupidest question. I confronted racism head on. They almost killed me. After that incident all my racism came out. I had to go for counselling to reset my head. I decided ‘okay I have my papers but I do not need to stay in America.’ I stayed in America for about six years and that was it. The rest of my life I have lived in Nigeria and nobody is driving me away from this country, not even Buhari.

Are you saying that you are not grateful for the manner that your father tried to raise you?

Far from it. As a young person, sometimes you don’t understand what is happening? I used to be asked when I came to adulthood about my hero. It wasn’t up until like 30 years ago that I started to really look at my father as my hero. Even though he did a number on me when I was young, but he prepared me, not for the Nigeria of today, he prepared me to be a good father, a good husband and a good citizen. And that is a lot. All the things that I rebelled against when I was young are all the things that I have run back to in my adult years-that, integrity is worth emulating. Truthfulness is good. There should be reward for goodness. When we were born in the early 50s. If you are caught in the neighbourhood doing something naughty, it was not just your parents that had a responsibility to discipline you, the community too. The government had indirectly had some hand in it, but now you see how the whole equation has changed against young people. Is it the elders that they can look up to? It is the leadership they can look up to? The community has failed. Everything has failed them, but like we always say when the manage to leave the shores of this country, Nigerians are excelling in a lot of areas.

What numbers will you put to this group of young people who see you as an example worthy of emulation? Is there a membership?

I am not taking count. I have inspired millions of people never to give up on themselves. I remember some 45 years ago, when I came back I was spotting an earring. It was taboo, at the time. My parents almost had a heart attack. There is nothing Nigerians did not call me that time. Look at how many crazy people are around now on the streets with ear rings! If what everyone does is coming from the soul and from a deep place, it is not your job to say how far have I gone? You keep doing till you drop dead. Whoever gets it, gets it. I am not in the business of taking records. I know this through my social media platforms that there are things that I will post and I get just 1000 views, I will see that same post on one blogger’s page and may be there I will see 1 million views, but on my own page it is only 1000 views. They have collected the same post to post on their own platform and because they have more followership, more people get to see that message. Do I take it that it is only the people on my platform who saw that message? No!

I have problem with my Instagram so I started again. I have problems with Facebook. I have given up the Facebook Fan Club which was heading to about 600,000. The person that hacked into it removed me and the Admin. We just came one day and we couldn’t access it again. That was the fourth time the same was happening. I decided to give it up because I don’t want anything to bother me at all. I totally gave up that Facebook Fan Page. I came to my Instagram. It had roughly about 90,000, that was in December last year. Then the thing stopped counting, even though I will see that 500 people followed today, another 500 follow tomorrow, it still kept reading 90,000 till today. I decided to start a new page.

You are drawn into many groups and you also sometimes encourage others to follow you to street protests and such enterprise of registering your grievances against one thing or another and I know to be able to participate in such enterprises it is usually about the number, what is the strength of the group that you are bringing?

If it is the power of mobilizing which is what I think you are referring to if I want to get two million people on the streets in my hey days, you know how it used to be. For the past two years I have retired from street protests. I am not a professional protester. There are other avenues to fight the same fight. I have decided to use music. I realized that I can’t be jumping around. I am not a spring chicken no matter how backward I am ageing. I decided to use all the other platforms that are available to make sure that people are taking this message and they are duplicating in different areas and different platforms. I have decided to use music as a tool for my advocacy. I think it works better because it also enables me to go back to my first love-music.

Of the all the aliases that you are known by, which one would you say describes who you are now?

Area Fada. An area fada is a father to a lot of area pikins. He is a father figure. I have millions of youths who call me Area Fada. It first started with the okada people. They gave me that title Area Fada and it just stuck. I have counselled married couples. I have done that for about 20 years now. Where you find young people you will always find Area Fada. Where you find the underdogs you will find the Area Fada. Where you find poor people is where you find the Area Fada. I come from a rich, rock solid heritage, nobody sees the brand hanging around the so-called big boys. I have love for the poor people. I have love for the underdogs. That is why I can advocate for the LGBT community, for instance. I think anybody’s sexual prerogative is their business, as long as they are a decent human being, they have a right. Away from the underdogs, the poor people, the marginalized people, that is where you find me. Those are the people I speak on their behalf. That is what qualifies me as a father. I am the Area Fada. A lot of people are bringing their problems to me to solve.

Once you get involved in all these rights issues in the manner you do, it involves some form of politics

Mine is social politics. The politics of the right kind of mentality. The politics of a more positive mind set. It is not the politics of my thief is better than your thief. The politics of, even as things have gone so bad, that there is still dignity for hard work. I am against anything that is a quick fix. Like I tell young people, I don’t believe in quick fixes and I don’t want to feel that I have wasted my time all these years working so very hard. I don’t know anything about quick fix. I know the hard and rugged way to get to your destination. As long as you remain consistent, persistent, you are likely to live your dream. This is my mantra to young people.

Which of your musical pieces can you point to that addresses issues in the society?

There are so many of them. If you go back to 1990 I have been warning about fake politicians to even the recent ‘Buhari Pack and Go’. Or the one I sang about ‘Another Guy Man Wan Enter’-telling Nigerians that the All Progressives Congress and Peoples Democratic Party are all the same thing-na the same papa, the same mama. There is not difference and they can never get anything reasonable from any of those parties. It is not possible. I believe that though, right now I can see a change, because we are going back to the root of the problem. And what is that problem? The foundation of this contraption called Nigeria is faulty, right from the time the British hand it over to us. It has always been faulty. You can’t continue to put floors upon floors on a building with a faulty foundation. That building will collapse one day. That is what we are about to witness. We can’t have a constitution that favours one part of the country over the other. That is a scam. How do we make progress, if we can’t at least come to the table to resolve some of the issues? Is that not why the Middle-belt is shouting, Oduduwa is shouting, Biafran people are shouting. All these emanate from the injustices that parades the whole country. That is why I say, even the youths are Biafra. Why is the fight for Biafra all of a sudden getting this loud? Because of the injustice. Oduduwa? Because of injustice. Middle-belt? Because of injustice. Injustice everywhere. And who is the group that has suffered the most injustice in Nigeria? Somebody will say it is the Igbos, but I say even before the Igbos, the youths of this country have suffered a lot of injustice. When our forefathers started they were youths. Why is that most of the people from the crop are still perambulating in the corridors of power? Where is the future for young people? When is it ever going to be their turn. Of course, it is never going to be their turn. Except they take it by force. You know what that means

What does it mean? Armed struggle? Violence?

Of course, because the people they are dealing with are Barbarians. They are people from the 18th century. All they know is that might is right and that is why they are using the ultimate tool- terror. I dare say that there is no how that these people from the 18th and 19th century can defeat the young people, the millennial of the 21st century. Shebi dem say they ban Twitter? Have they effectively banned it? Most of the leaders who are announcing this ban, do they know how to use Twitter? Do they know what it is? They have started a fight, how that fight will end, they don’t know?

Have you ever voted in an election in Nigeria?

I only voted in the 2011 presidential election

Are you concerned about the political issues in Imo State, which is your home state?

It should be for everybody. Before it got to the East or the West or wherever, it was still a concern to me with what is happening up north, as a true Nigerian. We make the grievous error and mistake to say, it is happening there, we are okay here, e no go reach here. Wetin dey for Sokoto don reach Port Harcourt. It is like when they started kidnapping in that small region, Bayelsa and Rivers, some people thought it won’t get to them, but everybody is on the kidnapping thing now-from north to west; to south to east. That is the day work now-kidnapping. I am not a fan of the new governor of Imo State neither was I a fan of his predecessor. I figure there is something wrong. Was he the people’s choice? I am sure the people can answer that. Of course, he wasn’t. My heart bleeds. Sometimes, the kind of depression and frustration I undergo, I am not making it up, not for my sake o, for the way things are in the country. I feel totally helpless to see where we are and imagine where we could have been as a nation. Even with all I have tried to do over the decades I still feel like I have not scratched the surface. Anytime I see a group of people getting together like what happened at the Lekki Tollgate, I am praying to God that this should be it. I am not under any delusion that whatever little I can contribute will turn things around, but I am saying whoever is out there that is hearing my message, I hope they can pick it up and run with it. Imo State has been the most unfortunate state in this country, ruled by touts, 419ers and criminals. It is like that across board in the country, but Imo State has been the most unfortunate. I don’t know how we are going to get out it.

I have reached a point where I am taking things easy.

No be like this I plan say I go spend the other half of my life. I want to enjoy. I have tried. I have suffered. The first time I said I want to be selfish in my life, I am looking over my shoulder. Even though we all look like things are normal, I know nothing is normal in this situation and about us because a lot of people mentally are sleeping without even knowing. Do you know how many times I have thought of leaving the country? But even when I go abroad to reboot, I can only stay for two weeks and I will be missing home. I come back home and I can’t get a good rest. My heart is in my mouth.

A little while ago I thought of going to Oguta because I have not been there since my mother passed on, then Imo became a no-go area. Some people tried to burn down my father’s house. Of what use is that? My father is dead. He served this country and his people. What did my father do? Nothing! They said all the big men there who did not take care of them that they are now hungry so they will burn every big man’s house.

People in the village were urging me to return home. I said what I’m I coming home for? I thank God that the damage was nothing significant. We have fixed it. In my town now in the day time, young boys are carrying firearms openly. That is where I was hoping that if push comes to shove, I will leave Lagos, leave Abuja and retire home to Oguta, even it is to farm. Now, I can’t even go home. I am not afraid of my people o. I am not afraid of the boys. If the boys that I am living for want to kill me, no problem, but I am not too sure whether the flip side, like when we have a protest-‘Buhari must go;’; some will come out to say ‘Buhari must stay’. It is the people who engineer ‘Buhari must stay’ when everybody knows that he is supposed to go those are the people I am afraid of . People who will do anything because there is no rule in this jungle. You can’t find justice in this jungle. Everybody is on their own. What a way to live. What a way! We are just merely existing. We are not living. Whether it is Area Fada or not, there are people who don’t like what you are doing. I am not afraid, I’m I not the one who braves the odds of bad drivers everywhere in Lagos riding on my motorbike? I had an accident once, two days later I started to ride again. Anything can happen on the street. Do I know who is waiting for me at one junction?

QUOTE

The All Progressives Congress and Peoples Democratic Party are all the same thing-na the same papa, the same mama. There is not difference and they can never get anything reasonable from any of those parties. It is not possible. I believe that though, right now I can see a change, because we are going back to the root of the problem. And what is that problem? The foundation of this contraption called Nigeria is faulty, right from the time the British hand it over to us. It has always been faulty. You can’t continue to put floors upon floors on a building with a faulty foundation. That building will collapse one day. That is what we are about to witness. We can’t have a constitution that favours one part of the country over the other. That is a scam. How do we make progress, if we can’t at least come to the table to resolve some of the issues? Is that not why the Middle-belt is shouting, Oduduwa is shouting, Biafran people are shouting. All these emanate from the injustices that parades the whole country. That is why I say, even the youths are Biafra. Why is the fight for Biafra all of a sudden getting this loud? Because of the injustice. Oduduwa? Because of injustice. Middle-belt? Because of injustice. Injustice everywhere. And who is the group that has suffered the most injustice in Nigeria? Somebody will say it is the Igbos, but I say even before the Igbos, the youths of this country have suffered a lot of injustice