From New York to London, Sweden to
Helsinki, India to China, the trending topic was how "CharlyBoy snatched
the microphone from Rochas Okorocha, the Governor of the state of Imo".
Comments flying in different directions about what happened, the people involved, the controversies, the virgins...Kai.
People ask why CharlyBoy is who he is.
Why have two days of musical concerts after the death of his iconic
father? Why argue or fight a sitting governor – doesn’t he fear the veto
venom of a man in power? Why walk around with 6 feet tall,
provocatively clad girls wearing bizarre wigs in public, even in the
presence of God, his wife and the dearly departed? For some reason, the
last one elicits more provocation than most questions about my dear
alter ego, CharlyBoy.
Funny how envy, anger, timidity,
mongopark mentality, hypocrisy and sycophancy have crippled the minds of
many of my brothers and sisters. Oh my God!
A lot of people in Nigeria live in
fear and express it through anger, jealousy and spite – everything
acceptable; than actually having the courage to face that fear and be
the person they really were made to be. Me I no send. The CharlyBoy
brand is me doing my job well – it’s an image, a character invented to
shake monotonous minds from their daily doldrums and pull them away from
the comforts of the familiar, just for a while. All we have seen from
pictures and videos from the weeklong event is more than enough to stir
excitement and controversy – good and bad.
Let me warn: those who are easily shocked should be prepared to be shocked even more and more often.
I have been called everything from a
cheap publicity monger to a cult leader. Those "Charlys Virgins" whose
tests are yet to be confirmed have been identified by busybodies as my
grand-daughters, spiritual wives, satan’s handmaidens. Hummmmmm! Big
deal. I have always known that insecure people put up boundaries but
confident ones tear them down. Spiritual people have church picnics.
The kind of ass-licking and
shit-eating that goes on in Imo State is for lack of a better word,
infuriating and obnoxious. Chai there is Godooooo.
How did the Day of Tributes organised
by the Imo State Government on behalf of the great Justice Oputa turn
into a political campaign front and a seminar in ass-kissing? Why would
anyone expect me to sit down and listen to politicians begging for
goodwill from the governor while using the memory of my late father as
an opportunity? What an insult on his name! God punish them die. The Imo
State government has no shame anymore, the sycophants and
megalomaniacs calling themselves leaders whose pictures litter every
street corner and roundabout in Owerri begging for a second try at doing
nothing who exchange naira for loyalty. Claps in the Church of God is
not what would get you re-elected, my brother Rochas, bear that in
mind.
The interesting thing about all this
is that the people, the ordinary men and women that Imo government is
supposed to, yet refuses to serve, are the ones hailing the AreaFada,
why? Could it be that the poverty-stricken Imolites are hailing The
AreaFada because they feel battered by the mental rape committed against
them by their leaders and yet, are afraid and feel powerless to defend
themselves, to fight back? I am especially referring to the men and
women of Oguta who are not just powerless, timid and foolishly arrogant
but refuse to seek any control of their lives from the government. They
just sit there and survive, suffering and smiling sheepishly.
How can an entire town, the Blue Lake
city, go without electricity for good six years and not do or say
anything about it? Not six days or six months, but SIX YEARS!! After all
the promises that Rochas gave of giving Oguta electricity for a few
days for the Justice Oputa funeral, we did not see even a flash of
electricity.
These my home-town people, in my
opinion, are polluted and disillusioned by their false arrogance from
being well positioned in the 1930s and 40s when they traded with the
white man, when they had UAC and John Holt and did good business better
than the people in the hinterland. Those were the good old days, gone
with the wind. Even as an oil producing community, what do they have to
show for it? Politically, they are wanting, socially they are timid;
many of them inundated by fear and poverty. They may have thought
themselves to be something six decades ago, but are nowhere politically
in this decade, not even one Imo State cabinet member is from Oguta.
Tufiakwa!
I am sure that this was one of the
reasons some cousins of mine decided to go looking for Rochas Okorocha
to beg for forgiveness on my behalf. Who send them? That's how they got
to Imo State government house without seeing the governor. After the
governor's aids sized them up, they concluded that they were only a
hungry bunch of PIRATED Oputas. Shebi, they came back with their tail
between their legs, shameless souls! Desperate mongrels looking for a
piece of leftover rotten flesh wherever they could hound. Their plans
failed, woefully. People who swallow pain killer for someone else'
headache! Can you imagine, apologise for what?
Truth be told, I come from a good
pedigree, trained by a great man. I know the law and can't be caught
dead breaking it. Upon all my ruggedness, there was no way, I, Charles
Oputa, would have snatched a microphone from someone speaking no matter
how much I hate what the person does. I get sense, am cultured and I
went to one of the best universities in the world. I am not a riffraff,
neither am I a gutter ass like some of these so called leaders.
At the very least I’m honest about my
identity (CharlyBoy), proud about my upbringing and courageous in the
face of crippling doubt about my brand. I am however confident in the
fact that I’m doing one thing many will never accomplish in their short
time on earth: leaving a legacy, just like my father did. So park well.
There is a method to my madness only
understood by deep thinkers, not sycophants and bootlickers. The
difference between my darkness and yours is that I can stare my own
badness in the face and accept its existence while you are busy covering
your mirror with white linen sheet. The difference between my sins and
yours is that when I sin I know I'm sinning while you have actually
fallen prey to your own fabricated illusions.
If it makes people feel good calling
me a devil worshipper and a thug, when the very great Justice Oputa
trained me and finally doffed his hat for me and decided to preach the
gospel of Charlyboyisim before he died, mere mortals can go hug a
transformer. I have a name that is knock on wood. Anything you say, for
your pocket.
I am free, no matter what rules
surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them
otherwise, I break them. I am free because I know that I, alone, am
morally responsible for everything I do. It's discouraging to think how
many people are shocked by honesty and a few by deceit.
Instead of wallowing in the bile of
hypocrisy and envy, why don’t we search ourselves and consider the
deeper actions beneath all the pomp and pageantry twisted and
manipulated by the media? Is that prickly sensation in your heart
righteous indignation over the Oputa Funeral, or just mere heartburn?
Check yourself – hypocrisy doesn't just wound, it kills permanently.
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