Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has explained why he developed an admiration for entertainer Charles Oputa, popularly known as Charlie Boy, despite initially being put off by his unconventional style of dress, which he described as \u201cjaga-jaga.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Obasanjo spoke in an interview on the Before Tomorrow Comes Podcast, which was\u00a0posted on YouTube on Thursday.\n<\/p>\n
He reflected on his long-standing acquaintance with Charlie Boy\u2019s family, his relationship with his father, late Supreme Court Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, and how his perception of the entertainer changed over time.\n<\/p>\n
The former military head of state wrote the foreword for Charlie Boy\u2019s memoir, 999.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was close to Charlie Boy\u2019s father, Justice Oputa. I don\u2019t have many friends or many people that I would say I admire, but late Justice Oputa was one Nigerian I could call a friend and one Nigerian I admired.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThen I started seeing Charlie Boy, and they say Charlie Boy is the son of Justice Oputa. Justice Oputa is decent, well-groomed, well-dressed, immaculate, and proud. And then I saw this man called Charlie Boy, Oputa\u2019s son.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was dressed jaga jaga. I said, \u201d Look, how can an adult dress like this? So I didn\u2019t think much of Charlie Boy,\u201d Obasanjo recounted.<\/p>\n
He said he deliberately scorned the entertainer because he expected the son of a respected Supreme Court judge to mirror his father\u2019s polished appearance and demeanour.\n<\/p>\n
The turning point, he said, came when he visited the late justice and found him at Charlie Boy\u2019s house.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cOn one occasion, I wanted to pay him a visit. And where did I find him? I found him in Charlie Boy\u2019s house.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, going into Charlie Boy\u2019s house, you see him jaga jaga, living in his own house, on motorcycle, dressed like in war. But what struck me was Charlie Boy\u2019s way of taking care of his father.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Charlie Boy had been ten times immaculately dressed, he would not have taken care of his father better than I saw him taking care of him.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I got drawn to Charlie Boy. And then I realised that Charlie Boy\u2019s jaga jaga tricks, his mediated acts of being a comedian and making money out of the way he dressed, his manner of behaviour, it\u2019s all part of comedy, amusement. So, I got drawn to Charlie Boy,\u201d Obasanjo said. <\/p>\n
This admiration, he said, grew stronger after the death of Justice Oputa.<\/p>\n
Obasanjo also became close to Charlie Boy\u2019s mother, describing her as a \u201cmoral woman.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
He noted that Charlie Boy cared for his mother even better than he did for his father, and gave her a \u201cdecent goodbye that any child could give\u201d when she died.\n<\/p>\n
Obasanjo said he has since learned to look beyond the entertainer\u2019s eccentric style and \u201cjaga-jaga dresses,\u201d viewing them as part of his comedic identity.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI became close to Charlie Boy. So his jaga jaga dressing didn\u2019t matter to me anymore. I saw it as part of making life.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then Charlie Boy approached me. And I realised that there are a lot of lessons to learn from Charlie Boy\u2019s life, particularly from his parents, and particularly his father.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHow did his father tolerate him when he wasn\u2019t going the way the father wanted him to go? If he would not be a lawyer, but definitely be a singer or a comedian, it would not what the father would want. But he decided to choose a path for his life. He maintained it.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he got his father to learn to live with it. And as I said, to the extent that the later part of the father\u2019s life, Charlie Boy became a favourite of his father. I know that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former military leader, who is often seen in friendly interaction with the entertainer, said the relationship between Charlie Boy and his father is a lesson for parents, urging that they should guide their children but allow them to pursue non-criminal paths that reflect their true selves.\n<\/p>\n
Obasanjo described the memoir as \u201cfairly well written, fairly well produced\u201d and \u201ca masterpiece\u201d filled with lessons about family, resilience, and philanthropy.\n<\/p>\n
The public presentation of 999 is scheduled for July in Lagos.\n<\/p>\n
Obasanjo also used the interview to advocate tolerance and national unity, warning against generalising negative traits to entire ethnic groups.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you say the Yorubas are bad because of probably what one Yoruba man had done, or the Fulanis are bad because of what one Fulani man had done, then who\u2019s good?\u201d he asked.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has explained why he developed an admiration for entertainer Charles Oputa, popularly known as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[195905,195906,6491,195907,195908,96,195909,195910,655,18436,195911,159421,159422,145369,195912,67647,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-572701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-admiration","tag-before-tomorrow-comes-podcast","tag-celebrities","tag-charles-oputa","tag-charlie-boy","tag-entertainment","tag-jaga-jaga","tag-justice-chukwudifu-oputa","tag-lifestyle","tag-memoir","tag-memoir-999","tag-nigerian-entertainers","tag-nigerian-entertainment","tag-nigerian-politics","tag-olusegun-obasanjo","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}