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��<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40" xmlns:v = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word"><HEAD><TITLE>Obasanjo bows to Dokubo</TITLE> <META content="Obasanjo bows to Dokubo" name=Title> <META content="" name=Keywords> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=unicode"> <META content=Word.Document name=ProgId> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1458" name=GENERATOR> <META content="Microsoft Word 9" name=Originator><LINK href="nnoct020405_files/filelist.xml" rel=File-List> <STYLE>  </STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY lang=EN-US style="tab-interval: .5in" bgColor=#ffffff leftMargin=0 topMargin=0> <DIV class=Section1> <TABLE width="100%" border=0> <TBODY> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left> <OBJECT height=80 width=673 classid=clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000><PARAM NAME="SCALE" VALUE="exactfit"><PARAM NAME="SRC" VALUE="../images/logoflash.swf"></OBJECT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> <TABLE borderColor=#ffffff width="100%" border=0> <TBODY> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="64%" height=22>Saturday, October 2nd 2004 </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="36%"><A href="../index.html">HOME</A> | <A class=header href="javascript:history.back(-1)">back to previous page</A> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> <HR> <TABLE width="100%" border=0> <TBODY> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left height=21> I dare any man to say he helped me get this far Funmi Iyanda<o:p></o:p> I see a lot of art works in your house, are you a collector or a chance admirer?<o:p></o:p> I like arts. I am an artist in my soul and some of the works are also valuable, so I collect them. But I am not a serious collector in the strict sense of the word. I think I just like arts generally.<o:p></o:p> How much have you invested in the few you have collected so far?<o:p></o:p> I have invested a bit. You know art appreciates and I think as women, most of us are brought up to only think of how to buy shoes, jewelry and all of that. But most of those things, once you take them out of the shops, they have no value anymore. And as I grow older as a person, I have found out that most of those things are irrelevant in our contest, so I don t want to do more of that because art is a lot better. And apart from loving the art, I am also supporting a field most people do not support in the country. And I am also investing because eventually they can be sold for more than the original value.<o:p></o:p> I also noticed that most of the works you collect are tilted towards the feminine gender?<o:p></o:p> I was waiting for that. You know, I collect women generally. I like the expression of women in different states and different settings. First I collect works that celebrate women and then I collect the works of young artists who have potentials and I collect from the older hands like Muraina Oyelami. I like the works. A few from Ben Enweonwu, they are expensive and are like investments, so I buy them in installments. I find the human form to be incredibly beautiful which is also why I like sports. And again, women play several roles and I collect works of art on them in these different roles, as mothers, wives, as people that have become aware of their femininity and so on. That is my interest.<o:p></o:p> Does that make you a feminist? <o:p></o:p> I am a feminist and I have always said it and I don t have any apologies for that. Of course, most people use a label to put you in a particular box. Being a feminist here, people do not understand that we are not where the rest of the world is in issues of women and their development. Being a feminist for me really means giving opportunities to women that normally are not given to them just because they are women. We take a lot of things for granted in the urban areas. In several parts of Nigeria people still do not educate girls; women still do not have a choice about whom they marry, their sexuality and whom they sleep with. That is why I say I am a feminist. I am not anti-men because I am not bra-burning, you know. <o:p></o:p> How do you feel anytime you see yourself on the cover of a news magazine? <o:p></o:p> Gosh! It is frightening. I was very glad that when the last one on Genevieve magazine came out, I was out of town so I did not have the trauma of driving down the road and seeing vendors sticking my own face in my face. But normally any time for good or for bad that I make the front cover of a magazine, I don t see it first, other people see it first and call me. And as a rule, I don t read bad news about myself. You see, the human mind is very funny.You read good things you don t assimilate but the bad ones are the ones that you assimilate. And my friends also know better before they come to tell me. They know that most of those things are lies, that people cook up the stories for whatever reasons, I don t mind but I just don t want them distracting me from my own goals. I also know that it is part of the job that I am doing. I am not a celebrity by choice. It is just because the job I do exposes me. If it didn t I would be much happier because unfortunately it confers a status on you and it does not confer on you automatically the privileges of that status unlike it does in other parts of the world.<o:p></o:p> How many of those covers have you graced? <o:p></o:p> I don t know. May be, like four and I am not going to talk about them. But the Genevieve one was fun to do because I like the magazine and also because I got my favourite designer, Deola Sagoe to create some designs. I know I am going to get into trouble with this because I have many designers. But I love Deola s works because she is an artist. You can tell that she dreams all these things in her head and she brings them to reality. Besides, she is very elusive, so getting her to give me clothes to wear was a big honour to me and we worked very hard for that cover because it took months of planning and a whole day to film as you can see in the pictures. I was a bit exhausted with Bayo who did the make-up. But a lot of people did not understand the make-up. The clothes were dramatic , so the make-up had to be dramatic as well, because in this environment, people don t understand the irony most of the time. But by and large we are getting there. I enjoyed doing the Genevieve story and the cover. <o:p></o:p> You don t like posing for photographs but you did it for the magazine. What was the attraction?  <o:p></o:p> Yes, I don t like posing for pictures but Genevieve is a good magazine. I also understand that the magazine would not misrepresent me. Many times when you grant interviews, when you see the interview later, you don t recognise what you have said. I know how it is to easily twist anybody s words because I am in the business . I have never done it, but it is done when you don t recognise yourself. I mean your picture would be there but you would not recognise it because they would cut bit and pieces of it. I knew the magazine would not do that to me, therefore I wanted to come out with the best that I could. Inside of me I am a girl and I still like girly things, so it was fun.<o:p></o:p> Isn t it amazing that somebody like you who is a media person is also afraid of the media?<o:p></o:p> I am not afraid of the media but I know the dangers. I know the advantages and the disadvantages of the media. In a way, I am a reluctant media person. You know, I didn t choose the media; I never ever wanted to be a TV presenter or TV personality. What I wanted to do when I was growing up was to write books. I wanted to be an author, from there become a journalist that would go to war zones and that kind of thing. But I found myself in front of the TV which is also why may be, I think it is an advantage because I feel relaxed and I am not bothered about the way I look in that context. I don t mean that I don t care about how I look, but I am not too concerned about sounding right, looking right or pleasing or conforming to a particular mode that somebody else has created for me. So, I have no fear of the camera because of that, because I don t take myself that seriously as a person or take my own looks that seriously.<o:p></o:p> Tell me about those bad media you have had that you don t like reading?<o:p></o:p> Since I don t read them, I don t know them. Most of them I am told by friends. Besides, I have spoken about them in the past and I don t want to go back to them because it would be giving life to something that is virtually dead. But why it bothers me is because in our society generally, we don t portray people in a good light. We like to portray our men as 419ners and fakes. In this same country, we have hard-working men who have achieved everything they have by dint of hard work and grace of God. We would not tell those stories. It is the same thing with our women; there are women who have achieved everything by dint of hard work and grace of God, but we portray them as prostitutes so that other people would use them as excuses for not doing anything with their lives. You would see a young person saying the reason I did not succeed is because I don t have opportunities; government hasn t given me opportunities, I don t have a godfather, I don t have a boyfriend. It is a lie. <o:p></o:p> There are many people who succeeded without any of those but people are not telling the stories. I know I am one of them and I have said it many times that if there is any man anywhere in Nigeria who has ever given me money to set me up, to buy me a car or to rent me a house, he should step up and speak so. If anybody insinuates so, it annoys me especially, not just because it is a lie, also because you are perpetuating a picture that you have painted by yourself and you want to make me fit into the picture. That is perpetuating a lie and making many more people who should think differently continue to think in the same way. So that really annoys me, you know because it is far from whom I am and I am unhappy about that and so anytime that happens, it makes me unhappy. <o:p></o:p> Again, the language they use is really insulting because when you see some of these people one on one, they can t even look you in the face to talk, but they insult you because deep down, they are jealous of whom you have become. That is really what is at the bottom of it and I will not make any apologies to anybody for how far I have come, which is still far from where, hopefully, God is taking me.<o:p></o:p> Each time I watch your programme, New Dawn on NTA, you come across to me as somebody that believes so much in Nigeria<o:p></o:p>  Yes, very much. I don t have a choice because I am a Nigerian. If you travel wide and far, you realise that you cannot be anything but your root. Even if you get British citizenship today, you are not English. If you get American citizenship it does not make you an American. Your accent, your root would give you away and you would never be truly and completely accepted. Because I have such a strong sense of value as a person, it matters to me that where I come from succeeds because when it does, I would have a better stature outside of Nigeria. At the Athens Olympics, people did not understand why sometimes I felt depressed in the stadium, but I kept trying to explain to some of my colleagues that; look at the young people of the world, healthy, happy and backpacking but where are the Nigerian youths? You know that pains, and it is that pain that drives me to tell people, let s do it differently. It is not just the leadership. Even in the follower ship because the average Nigerian does not want to think, the average person does not want to work and find a way out of our quagmire. <o:p></o:p> Speaking of being creative, you never wanted to be in the media but you are up here today. How did it happen?<o:p></o:p> I was thinking. As usual, I have always written. Growing up, I was a bit of a loner. The things that hurt me and the things that gave me joy as a young girl I would write them down because I could not communicate them to people. I was a very shy child, so writing had always been my own escape in life. By the time I finished from the university, I had written a lot of stories and ideas for television. And you know when I got the first opportunity was when Tunde Kelani and Segun Odegbami  saw the first thing that I had written and they were very impressed by it and asked whether I could bring it to life. Because, apart from writing these things, I had a clear picture in my mind, which is what the television is for me. You think of something in your mind, dream it up and work very hard to bring it to reality. There is nothing as satisfying, which is why presenting on television is all right, but it is not really my soul. That is not really what I like to do. What I like are documentaries or films, where you can come up with a great script. When I read a story or watch films, it is the script that gets me, you know the power of the script. So, you write a great story and then work to bring it to reality. There is no better satisfaction. When you finish in the editing studio and you play back all that you have done and it works, it has a magic that you can t imagine. That s my romance with the media.<o:p></o:p> If you like scripting and films that much, why are you not in the fledging home video industry?<o:p></o:p> I am lazy and I cannot do everything at the same time. If I say I am lazy, people would say but you are a very hard-working person. But what I mean is to find time to sit down and write the scripts. In this environment, you have to be your own lord and master. Sometimes, you are your own local government chairman, your own NEPA, your own NITEL. <o:p></o:p> And by the time you run around to do all these things, you won t have the time to sit down to think and write, which would be a terrible shame. I have always said that if I have my way, I would just pack my bag and go to somewhere and just sit down and write. But I can t do that because I have to support myself to be able to meet my responsibility, that is why I have not done that. <o:p></o:p> When I see people who are wealthy and all they want to do is buy lace and go to party every Saturday, I think, what a terrible waste. <o:p></o:p> We have got great stories in the country. Lagos for instance has an amazing energy. It is like a pot that is always cooking which is what the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti s music is all about. Fela managed to capture the power and the energy of Lagos and no matter where you hear that music anywhere in the world, you would feel it. If one could do that, it would be fun. Can you imagine we can do sitcoms; we can do comedy, films and so on. There is so much we can do, but the media is not sacrosanct. Like every industry in Nigeria, it suffered neglect and abuse and only with the economy improving gradually, if we are serious-minded about it, would these things begin to change including the media.<o:p></o:p> In other words, you are building up?<o:p></o:p> I am taking one step at a time. In fact, this morning I was a bit upset. I was talking to my friend, Jide Bello, who is also my lawyer and I said I am so tired and he said, why do you forget last year when we spoke; you have been able to do so and so as regards your work, continue to do it one step at a time. That is what I am doing for now, one step at a time towards where I am going because there is no other way. It is either you lie down and die, join the crowd of people groaning and complaining every day or you just put your nose in the sand and work bit by bit. The last is the one I have chosen to do.<o:p></o:p> You come across like a free-minded person, what is your definition of freedom? <o:p></o:p> Freedom for me is the ability to be the best that you can be as a human being for nobody and nothing would stop you. You are completely, as Jude, different from Funmi. But in as much as we are all responsible to each other and to our society at large, we are also unique human beings. My own definition of freedom is an environment that allows Jude to be Jude and allows Funmi to be Funmi within the context of responsibility to an environment. Freedom for me should allow people to choose their religion, sect, clothes and food as long as they conform and are appropriate for the society. That is freedom for me.<o:p></o:p>  You seem like evolution in your own world; you are a TV presenter; a model and some people have found you as a good compere. What is the driving force?<o:p></o:p> I have never modeled. That bit, I don t think I have the mentality to be a model. But one thing leads to the other. First and foremost I do TV, I write and as a person, you want to develop yourself. You want to speak better and if you do, you would get jobs as a compere because you have a known face and then you can earn money to keep yourself. As you know, I don t get government contract and stuffs like that. Everything I do is interrelated because they are within the same sphere. If tomorrow I try to carry out an operation then, there would be a problem because I am not a doctor.<o:p></o:p> Are you sure you don t get government contracts because I have seen some personalities who could give contracts as guests in your show? <o:p></o:p> That is the thing I am saying. There is a way the show works. There is a wonderful young man called Chude Jideonwo. I found him when he was a little boy. The same thing with Gbolahan Faleye whom I found when he was just 17 and I am proud of my workers. What we do is have production meetings and decide what the topics are and come up with the names of the personalities we want on the programme and Chude is the one who writes the letters and harasses the living daylight out of those people and they come on the show. <o:p></o:p> What I do is a brilliant interview because that is my job and I do all my research and I have been doing it for a very long time. And for a lot of the people you see on the show, I don t ever see them again, except at public functions. What do I want to go to their offices for? <o:p></o:p> Also I am a woman; I know how it is in this environment. If I go, what am I looking for? Am I going to ask for something in tangent with what I do? If I am asking for something in tangent outside of what I do, what then am I trying to say? It is like when you tell people,  you are broke, and they  say, but you are a fine girl, what are they trying to say? <o:p></o:p> When you go to a bank and say I am a fine girl, will they give you money for being a fine girl? They are indirectly telling the women to be prostitutes. So, a lot of the people that come on the programme, I don t get to see after. They are not friends. This is a job, they come, say their piece and go away. Which is why a lot of them respect me and we keep it at that.<o:p></o:p> A lot of men go crazy for a woman with your kind of figure. How do you ward them off? <o:p></o:p> They don t. May be the younger men, but they don t. You have not heard that Charly Boy song: some men like their women with big bottom and plenty hips. That is what Nigerian men like generally. In fact, they like to hold something so I don t think I meet the ideal of the average Nigerian man. Also, I think maybe I come across a bit strongly. When I was in London, I went to visit the BBC correspondent with Yinka Ijabiyi.It was actually a party to welcome Greg Obong-Oshotse, the Daily Independent correspondent in London. I remember that your correspondent said to me that, you are a woman with strong opinions and you put them across strongly. It is difficult to argue with you. Tell me how that kind of person would be toasting me? Really I should change my ways because I don t get a lot of male attention. If people admire me, perhaps they do it from a distance. A lot of people don t walk up to me and say any of such things to me.<o:p></o:p> But what special things do you do to keep fit?<o:p></o:p>  Okay so I am slim, I don t exercise to be slim because I am slim already. But I exercise to have energy. Ask my friends and they would tell you. In Athens, they were shocked at the amount of work I could do. I don t get tired easily, because I am very strong, I exercise and I eat right. Although I eat a lot of chocolates and ice creams, which is my weakness, but I eat a lot of vegetables, fruits and I exercise three times a week.<o:p></o:p> How rich Funmi is?<o:p></o:p> It is very hard to be rich in this environment. I have challenges like everybody else. I am not in a position to buy whatever I want to buy because if I want something I have to plan it. If you are rich when you want anything you just get it. But in the context of our environment, I am doing well enough, I could do a lot better considering how much I have achieved.<o:p></o:p> I understand you swore never to drive a tokunbo car again. Is that a measure of your riches?<o:p></o:p> Yes, because you can t guarantee them, and second hand cars are like that all over the world. Besides, I am a woman and I cannot be driving at night and my car breaks down. But Nigeria is changing, it is easier to buy a brand new car these days. You don t need to be rich to buy a new car; you just need to prove that you have a job that brings in money regularly, then you can get a car for hire purchase. That was how I bought my car. It is better, it lasts longer and it makes your life easier.<o:p></o:p> You are not rich but I understand you have over 50 pairs of expensive shoes?<o:p></o:p> So we are coming to that eh? Well, it is easy to buy shoes and girls love shoes and I have always loved shoes. What I used to do, which I don t do any longer is to buy shoes at full price. Because the kind of shoes I like to buy are very expensive. I buy them only when they are on sale. In fact, I have friends abroad who know my taste. And when Harrods, or any of the major shops go on sale, they would help me buy the shoes because that time, the shoes would go for quarter of the price.<o:p></o:p> What is the actual number of your shoes?<o:p></o:p> I have not counted recently and I am not telling you any more.<o:p></o:p> What is the  price of the least expensive of them?<o:p></o:p> I said I am not talking again, this is Nigeria, people would start having all kinds of funny ideas. If most men, you included, know how much their girlfriends or wives spend on such things, they would kill them. As women, we don t tell our partners the truth about the things we buy. If he says ah, your shoe is fine how much did you buy it? If you want peace to reign, you tell him half of the price. If he knows, he would send you back to your father. Men are also like that too because that is how they spend money on gadgets. Genders have their idiosyncrasies, may be that is my own. But I won t tell you exactly how much because I don t want you looking at me strangely.<o:p></o:p> What about jewelry? <o:p></o:p> I buy a lot because I thought they were good investment and that you could sell them if you are broke until one day I bought one that is frightfully expensive and I took it back the same day because I didn t want it anymore but they offered me half the price. I knew then that it was a bloody waste of time. Also, as I was growing, I have realised that a lot of things we value in this environment are useless. These days, I don t buy much because if most of us dispose half of the jewelry we have, we would build a house.<o:p></o:p> When is Morenike going to have a companion in this house? <o:p></o:p> I have no idea. That is the farthest thing on my mind right now. Although that is a bit selfish because they say children need partners, but she has got a gorgeous girlfriend and they are together all the time. I am not in a relationship, so I cannot have a child now. You can t have a child with just anybody. So that is a different ball game altogether. She is just a wonderful gift. I don t want a lot of children. I don t think they give people medals for having plenty of children, and you don t have to have them all on your own. You can adopt children. There are so many children who need homes. What I would like to do in the future is take in as many children as possible.<o:p></o:p> I am sure she would ask you very soon? <o:p></o:p> She won t. Your family is what you make of it. Your reality is your reality and children have problems when you tell them that their own reality is wrong. She is lucky and happy because she has a mother who loves her and a father who loves her. She has loads of cousins as well as brothers and sisters already. What more could she ask for?<o:p></o:p> <DIV></DIV></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> <TABLE width="100%" border=0> <TBODY> <TR> <TD> <HR> Copyright� 2004. 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