Charlie Boy is a New Man

After all the craze and what have
you, Area fada Charles Oputa aka
Charly Boy is now a new man. He
said he has encountered
“positivity” and he has abandoned
all the razzmatazz associated with
the entertainment industry for the
gospel of our Lord and Saviour,
Jesus Christ.
In a chat with Encomium, Charly
Boy said his encounter with Jesus
was the freakiest moment of his
life:
What have you been up to lately?
I have been up to all sorts. It is
never a dull moment with me. My
whole life is about adding value to
people I am opportuned to meet.
Adding value to my environment
and just finding a way to be useful
not just to myself but my family
and my environment. So, I pretty
much stay busy all the time and if it
is a dull moment, I create things for
me to do.
You have been away from the music
industry for quite some time now,
what has been happening to your
music career?
Defining me just as a musician is
kind of belittling because I do a lot
more than just sing and dance. I
am a lot of things rolled into one. I
keep saying, we are a lot of people
in one body. So, I cut across so
many sections and segments, and
so it is with people I minister to
from the lowest of the lowest to the
highest of the highest.
So, defining me as an artiste is
really too cheap. I am more than all
of that. As a musician which I have
said so many times that I am not
but maybe an entertainer, I am
refreshed because of a sudden
change. I am also feeling that urge
to do a lot of things, music wise and
thank God you will soon start to
hear about it and the news will
soon be in the air. All the young
people that I am collaborating with,
I don’t want to mention names, are
people in vogue. I am doing a few
things with some of them and it is
exciting. For me, it is just to once
again prove myself. I have always
done that. Everything I set my mind
to do, I am just going to be good at
it and move on to other things that
grab my attention.
What should your fans expect from
you very soon?
They should expect pleasant
surprises. They should expect the
unexpected because in the Charly
Boy Show anything can happen.
You’ve been so controversial on social
media lately, what inspired it?
I think a lot, that is my job. I am a
journalist. I talk about all the things
that affect me, that affect my loved
one, things that affect other people.
So, I have always been talking since
I became Charly Boy. I have always
had opinions about somethings
happening. First, I am a journalist
and I keep telling you that before
anything else. So, I write a lot. I am
a social commentator of some sort.
My job is to call the attention to the
things that are awesome and to
react when I see the things that are
not good at all.
Can you tell us about your encounter
with Jesus?
My encounter with Jesus was the
freakiest moment, and if you read
the piece I wrote, it is just saying
that God really wants us to be real
but the Nigeria perception about
Jesus and how it works is just too
Nigerian for my liking. They look at
Jesus/God as babalawo or the
pastors make some sacrifices and
bring some money and goats and
all the problems will disappear. It
doesn’t happen like that and these
days people are not going to church
to nurture their spirituality.
Rather, it is either they are looking
for babies, wife or husband or
promotion. It is all about the wrong
reasons for being a Christian.
So, God was just telling me that in
most of these churches they don’t
have anything to do with Christ or
God. They are there for business. I
was wondering what does Jesus
want from me? Is it for me to
intensify my campaign for the
hopeless, the downtrodden, people
who have been consumed by this
wickedness in the country. There
are a lot of nice people who are
losing their niceties because they
don’t know what else to do. They
are just hopeless.
Hopelessness is hanging over their
head. They are frustrated, confused
and they want to stay good because
they were born good but they are
losing their goodness because of the
battle of survival. Like a young
lady, who has been brought up in a
humble and decent home but
because she is looking for a job that
is not there and her parents cannot
afford to take care of her anymore,
she is industrious and nobody to
help. Finally, she resorts to
prostitution, whereas under normal
circumstances, she wouldn’t go that
direction but it is just out of
desperation. So, those are the souls
I am hoping to capture before they
go completely bad. This is what the
environment has turned out to be.
Can you please tell us the things Jesus
told you to stop doing?
All those contrived stuff that Charly
Boy did and not me as Mr. Oputa,
they have been outgrown. So, I
have left them for other people who
want to continue the madness.
Looking at the rate of marriage
breakup generally in the
entertainment industry, what will you
say about it?
It is an unfortunate thing. I am
saddened about it, especially with
my son, the one in America. He is
39 and there is this Nigerian girl
that he is dating. As I was hoping
he will get married sooner or later
only for him to turn around and
ask me, must he be married, I was
like what are you talking about and
he started telling me that he does
not understand this marriage thing.
Why can’t he just have a contract
with the girl, maybe we stay for
four years, then if we want to
continue they would renew the
contract rather than for better for
worse. That he doesn’t understand
it.
That also gave me a cause of
concern. Marriage is not a bed of
roses. It is for people who have
major respect for each other and
want to stay in a marriage.
Marriage is a lot of work and I still
want all my children to get married
the traditional way, discipline
themselves to maintain that
commitment forever. I discovered
that the average youth marriage,
especially in Nigeria doesn’t last
more than two years. This is crazy
and terrible. I volunteered as usual,
not because I am an expert or
because I came with some
experience, I have been married
before my present one that is
working out. I have been married
thrice before but they didn’t work
out. Now, I think I was immature at
that time but now I am in a better
position to at least talk to younger
people and share my own
experience. Maybe there is
something they can learn from it or
something that I can learn from
what they are going through.
How did you discover the marriage
councellor part of you?
It has always been there but not for
the public. I am a teacher of some
sort. I have been teaching all of my
life, especially as Charly Boy. Many
of these big artistes passed through
the Charly Boy Show. Many of these
young people passed through the
Charly Boy university. I have
mentored thousands and thousands
of people. Because of me and the
way I live my life, they have been
emboldened to chase their own
dreams and never give up.
How have you been able to sustain
your marriage even with the tales of
controversies?
It’s because I really want to stay
married to that person and that
person wants to stay married to
me. So, it has to be two people who
want to stay marred. Controversy
is contrived. Charly Boy is Charly
Boy. Charly Boy doesn’t live in our
house, Charly Boy doesn’t come
home. My children know Charly
Boy but they know Mr. Oputa as
their father. That is the big
difference.
Charly Boy is an image, he is a
character, he is not who I am. I am
Mr. Oputa but yes it is not every
artiste that can strictly define and
separate their image from what
they really are. To some people, it
can get so confusing that they don’t
know if they are really that image
or they are somebody else. I am on
top of my game and that is the
difference between a character, an

image or a personality.