I’m neither impotent nor gay— Saint Obi

He is one of the most handsome studs in Nollywood and every woman’s dream man. All his several affairs were celebrated on the pages of newspapers putting him under pressure to settle down with anyone.

Then he travelled to the United States and came back to report that he is now married and Nollywood was agog to see who the lucky woman could be. Then about a year later, Saint Obi is celebrating the arrival of his son.

Here, he tells you he is keeping this affair out of public eye so that it does not go the way of the others which were celebrated but never worked out. He also says all those who called him a gay and impotent man could now go and eat their words


How does it feel to be a father?

It feels good to be a father as God is faithful and I feel so much fulfilled, it is not because I am a strongman or I have done what any other person hasn’t done.

There are a lot of people who are married and many years later, they are still trying and hoping for a baby. God is faithful and I am blessed. I can’t quantify what God has done for me.

The mother of your son, your wife, is not known to the public, no one could say he attended your wedding and all...

People who know me very well know I am a very quiet person and I do my things very privately. Even though most of us in our industry seem to be loud, I still want to keep my privacy and I let my work speak for me. Besides, before now, I used to talk about my relationships and a lot of them didn’t work out at the end of the day.

So I decided to keep this one to myself. I have heard a lot of rumour peddled about me but I can’t say it all. Being in public glare has its own stress so I don’t want my family to be involved.

What did they say about you?

As if you didn’t hear it yourself. Some said I may be gay. Others say I may be impotent and the stories are endless and I don’t want to recall them. All I can say now is God is the ever living God and those people may have been eating their words with shame as I am now a proud father.

What made you choose this particular woman and not the others?

You are dragging this into what I do not want to talk about. I honestly do not want to drag my family into public glare because it has failed me in the past.

As a matter of principle, I do not want people to read my intimate secrets in the papers any more. The main story is that it works and very fine too. Most celebrity relationships rarely make it because a lot of time they live their lives in the eyes of people.

The most important thing here is that I have a home, a beautiful and happy home. If I keep that home indoors and not in the eyes of the public, then I would have achieved so much. Several people are enjoying beautiful homes and not in the public eye.

What in your opinion may have failed your other relationships?

I do not know, may be because it was so much in the eye of people. Again, it wasn’t God’s time, it wasn’t my destiny. When you work into God’s destiny, things work effortlessly. You can see it is working and the evidence is overwhelming.

How do you know....?

When you see the hands of God, you know. I am not going into the nitty gritty but I know that the past year and half has shown me the hands of God in action.
She has great qualities others didn’t possess...

I do not think I could go beyond that for an answer no matter how you prod.... but mother and child are okay.

Where was baby born?

Well, he was born in the State of Texas in the United States of America. But he is in Nigeria now.

But you kept the wedding a secret?

I keep telling you that what is important to me is not celebrating my marriage on the pages of newspapers; what people want to know is that I have a home, a happy home.

For me keeping quite about it and it is working is important to me rather than telling people what they want to hear and it fails. I will be very careful now, what is important is that the relationship is God edifying.

You once told me that you wanted a God-fearing woman as a wife. Did you get this kind of woman?

Absolutely. However, there is no way I would love to talk more than this about my family please, Fred.

You have a movie which is yet unreleased, why?

Oh yes, it is called True Colour, it is my second movie as a producer/director. It came after Take me to Mama. I do not believe in filling the market with several movies. I believe in quality and not how many movies one has made.

I am somebody who love challenges and taking it a notch higher, I told myself ‘hey, I am not going to make an average movie.’ I hope to take my movie to a higher level. So

I went to make True Colour in Texas, United States. I also did the rest in Nigeria.

What is the inspiration for True Colour?

I have looked at Nigeria’s image and how messed up it has been and decided to shoot this movie. I give you this story. I had travelled to Slovenia to do a movie. One Nigerian young man lives there and wanted me to feature in the movie.

He already got me a work permit, when I got to Ljubjiana, the way I was searched left much to be desired. I was almost stripped, I guess it was because of the green passport I had. Indeed, I had a valid U.S. visa, Schengen and British visa. Now, as bad as Nigerian economy is, I think Nigeria is better than Slovenia.

I told him I am an actor who had come to make a movie. That was a bad experience for me.

Secondly, I was in the U.S. and someone had given me a cheque of $1000 and when I got to the bank, I felt that a valid travel passport could identify me and the cashier tells me no, we have a standing policy that any Nigerian passport shouldn’t be honoured.

I was ashamed of myself. It was then it dawned on me that the image thing has gone so bad. Now how do you make the difference? Is it by just keeping quiet?

I felt like matching words with action. That was what led to my producing True Colour. The MTV and Channel O show the good side of their places.

Youngsters begin to wallow in the euphoria that you pick money in the streets. People do not know that a lot of people here in Nigeria live far better lives than those in the U.S.

So I tried to use the movie to show a realistic picture of the U.S. so that people learn that living in the U.S. is not a bed of roses.

When you watch Rambo, you see Sylvester Stallone take a helicopter, clear all the enemy and set a hostage free. This is how America is spreading their might across the world.

My movie is not about sermonising but a love story which tells you how Nigeria truly is. You and I know that the Nigerians who do the wrong which causes us to get the bad tag are just a few. And there are millions of Nigerians who are legit and do clean business.

There are several fraudulent people in the U.S. and Europe but they show you the beauty of the society. I think it is high time we began to show the world that there are honest and hardworking Nigerians. Everywhere in the world, movies are perfect ways of redressing these kinds of issues. My movie, True Colour, was well done.

We paid our taxes to the U.S. Government and paid our taxes to the Nigeria Government, we were not hiding to shoot the scenes. We copyrighted the story in the U.S. like we did in Nigeria. If you are coming to equity, of course you must come with clean hands.

I can’t be shooting a movie to redress wrong issues, and go through the back door, I am very passionate about this movie because I am passionate about Nigeria.

A lot of people outside this country do not feel proud to be Nigerians and it is a shame. They claim other nationalities. If we do not speak up as honest people, the bad guy will continue to represent us.

When are you releasing the movie?

We are working out a possibility to see it out in the next few months. I am grateful to Heart of Africa Project, the Federal Ministry of Information and National Orientation, and Nigeria Film Corporation for their support.

The story is getting commendation for it is all encompassing. It is a mixture of comedy, romance, seriousness etc. We had my humble self, Jide Kosoko, George Davidson, the late Joe Adekwagh, great guy, may his soul rest in peace.

I believe in discovering new people. If someone didn’t give me a chance, I don’t think I would be where I am today. So I also had new faces like Nina Davids.

So how did it start?

I started as a model. Chief Tunde Oloyede of Media International gave me my first chance as a model.

They were to promote Peugeot 306 when it was to be introduced into the market. I was among the cast and I was the lead model and it was on network TV for a couple of months. Then, I came Opa Williams who gave me a part in his movie, Without Love.

I was the antagonist in the movie. Based on that, Zeb Ejiro gave me another chance to play in Goodbye Tomorrow after I was auditioned. Since then, the Lord has been faithful and I have risen to the top echelon of Nollywood. But as you know, to whom much is given, much is expected.

You stopped featuring in movies, why?

So many reasons. If the story is not good enough, I do not want to touch it. These days, several of our screen writers are lazy and some of them recycle some other stories that I do not want to get involved in.

Another reason is that I do not want to waste my energy when the money is not right. One has gone past the stage of acting for anything and then go home to drink gari. If you know you are Ronaldo, you’re not playing because you only need to score goals but because you are going to attract people to the stadium and viewership as well on television.

Some of us have reached that level by the special grace of God and would never wish to be exploited as a lot of the producers want to get you for free. I don’t want to be exploited. When people did not sow in your life, I don’t know what they expect.

For someone like Zeb Ejiro, I could work free of charge. There are several people I have also worked for next to nothing in terms of fee but I don’t like being exploited. Again, sometimes some people gang up against you when they see they can’t bend you.

I have always advised anyone who wished to be in acting to have a plan B. If plan A fails, you make a switch ahead.

What was your plan B Em em, I leave that for another interview.

Challenge?

I see my own movies as more challenging than others I have done for different people. In my movies, I take on three tasks, arranging and organising it as the producer, directing it and of course, acting in it. So one is before and behind the camera. With all sense of modesty, I am passionate about what I do.

I strive for perfection. And it is a lifetime issue for me, I always tell people Hollywod evolved like Bollywood. But Nollywood is lucky to be matching into an already established system. All we need to do is strive to tap into the perfection already existing. There is a lot of work when you strive for perfection.

Every movie I have done has been challenging in their different ways. I have played armed robber but it was different from the other.

Any instances of playing the bad role?

I am lucky to have played the good, the bad and the ugly characters. I have played Reverend father, nice guy, defender of the law, wife batterer. In Amadas, wanted Alive etc, I played the armed robber and even the bad cop in Check Point. One good fortune I have had is that when you see my movie, you do not know what to expect.

I am fortunate and blessed to have this good fortune. What defines an actor is playing different roles in different productions and not playing the cantanckerous old man or the armed robber in all your movies. That way, you are assessed positively.