By Rita Okoye
You’ve transitioned from a career in Nollywood to politics. What inspired this significant shift?
My Nollywood journey and my political journey are two different things. None of them gets in the way of either. But I didn’t see myself being a leader, at least not this early. I knew there was something about me that had to do with service and serving people, but I didn’t know it was going to be this huge at this point. I have always been an advocate for good government. I’ve always wanted people to have a better living, to see equality, justice, and fairness. I’ve always wanted to see this even while I was chasing my career and all of that.
So, these two things have always been a part of me. Maybe not politics, but then, keeping my eyes on government, governance, and leaders to make sure that they were doing the right thing. But then I couldn’t say it was a particular role that I was going to be playing in leadership like I find myself doing today.
Why start with the Anambra State governorship?
I’m starting with being the number one person in Anambra State because I know that this is how I can affect the lives of Anambra’s indigenes in general. We must start fixing things from the very place that matters. We must start having better leaders in the highest position. If you are not in the highest position and you find yourself in one of those smaller parts, you might not be able to make as much impact as you would love to.
You might just find yourself being limited for reasons that mean you’re not dancing to the tune of the people at the top. So you could easily be harassed, intimidated, and made to dance to their tune or to do it their way. For me, never say never. Who says you can’t; Who says anyone can’t be at that very top position; Who puts these barriers? I think it’s in our minds and heads. Anyone can go for a counsellor, and anyone can go for governorship, as long as we meet the required standard to be able to run in terms of age and any other qualification. Once you have that, then you should go for it, and most importantly, if you have the heart and character to lead, if you have great ideas and plans, then anyone should go for it. It’s not designed for just any particular person or, as we always think, a set of influential, powerful, or popular people. No, it’s not. Even an ordinary person can take up the number one position if supported by the people.
Would you still have time for Nollywood if you assume the role of the governor?
I always have time for my career because I love doing it. When I become the governor, if there’s a good role, the only thing is I’ll probably be more selective than I used to be. Because then, I would like to do movies that make a lot of sense and have meaning. Movies that have messages that young people should learn from. Because I wouldn’t be governor forever. So when I’m done I go back to my work. My career is my first love. I love it so much, and I will keep doing it.
Marriage is another big step to gain political ground in Nigeria. What are your plans towards that?
Well, I don’t agree that marriage is a big step to gaining political ground. It has just been what we have allowed in our heads to play out. For me, I am not controlled by this. But do I have plans to get married? Absolutely. And am I going to do it under pressure because I am running for political office? No, absolutely not. But am I going to get married when I find the right person who aligns with my personal goals and objectives, whom I have come to fall in love with and decided to build my life with? Definitely.
If that person comes today, we are definitely getting married. If that person comes on the day of my campaign, we are getting married. If that person comes when I become governor, we are getting married.
I’m not going to get married because I am running for governor. I am going to get married because I have found the bone of my bone, and he has found me as well.
Your past involvement in a controversy with Prophet Suleiman Johnson has been widely publicised. Don’t you believe this may affect your political career?
The controversy about Suleiman is something that came out, and I talked about it. I talked about it because I needed to clear this and bring it out in the public space.
First, my life was taking a new trajectory, and also because I needed other young girls to understand that they could stand up for themselves and speak out whenever they felt like getting anything off their chest. They don’t have to live in silence because of public validation.
That was me doing what I thought could liberate me at that time and give me a sense of starting my life on a new note. Also, I am considering my walk with God and my Christian faith, which had taken a new turn around that period.
These are significant things in my life, but are they connected to my political career? No. The only people who would want to connect it are propagandists, people who know that I am going to give them a run for their money during these campaigns. They are probably going to try and use it to discourage me, to malign my persona, and put an idea of me that is false out in the public. But that does not take away the facts about who I am and the great plans I have to serve my people in Anambra State. Leadership is all about being able to have the capacity in terms of character, personality and conscience, having the right attitude towards governance, and having the need, desire and passion to give your people the leadership that they deserve.
I have seen leaders who didn’t have any sexual controversy like mine, but I have also seen that they were not very good leaders. So, if someone has had a past where they did something that they didn’t like, it wasn’t something that they are proud of or agree with and they come out to talk about it, I think that is strength, and that strength must be what we will look at and hold on to as an advantage. Because I am sure not everyone would want to come out and talk about their weaknesses.
What I did in 2021 was a courageous thing that every right-thinking person should be glad about – that a leader was able to live up to their truth, and not try to shift the blame, take responsibility for her actions, apologise and move on with her life. If you noticed, from the time of that confession till today, a lot of people didn’t think I was going to be able to survive all the backlash that came with it but look at me today, I am running for governor.
So, if this is not a motivation to you and every other girl or every other person out there, then I don’t know what would be. This is a motivation to Anambra State to say that no matter what mistakes you have made in the past, you can get your life running at a higher frequency or speed.
How do you plan to address concerns from voters who may have reservations about your past?
Everything that needed to be out of my life for me to take on this leadership journey has been taken out through that very situation or event that happened in 2021. Coming out to speak about that very incident between myself, Suleiman, and Linda Clems, people need to look at it and see that there is a reason God, in his infinite grace and mercy, pulled me out of that circle, that decay, cleansed me, purged me and set me on this path of leadership, and Ndi Anambra must take advantage of it.
In what way has this experience shaped you as a person, and how will it influence your approach to governance?
This past experience has shaped me totally. Like I said, I have always been a child of God. I was created to be great, I am a woman of purpose. I am not just any woman, I am a great woman right from when I was knitted in my mother’s womb. I was created for great things.
But in the course of life, a lot of things happen. That is to tell you the situation we face in our country. Sometimes, economically, if you look around you today, we have a lot of our young girls prostituting openly. In my case, I went to meet someone whom a friend introduced me to, to meet as another friend, and then everything took its turn, and I took responsibility for it. Even though I was naive. But that is all about it. By the way, why am I saying this? I have had so much to learn, and not just to learn; I have come to understand that we need to fix our country so our daughters don’t become things that will be used to be set as bait. If we have a running economy, if we don’t have this level of hardship and poverty, we will not find girls and boys in situations where they might not help but compromise.
It is important to me that I go in now as a leader and fix our economy and our society in a way that young girls don’t make the kind of mistakes that I made, or the kind of mistakes that my counterparts are still making. Girls don’t have to sell their bodies or allow themselves to be manipulated.
Girls need to be empowered by education, employment, and skill acquisition. These are the many ways that I am going to use this experience to transform the lives of young people and reshape them. This is how it is also going to influence my approach to governance because I will be making sure that our young girls are duly and properly educated, empowered, employed, and given the capacity to be self-reliant.
How do you intend to maintain your integrity while holding such a high political office, especially given the past controversy?
I never lost my integrity. My integrity has always been intact. Yes, I slipped a bit, but then I got myself back. Yes, I’ve seen even worse; I’ve seen people in power who do worse things, and they hide it. The only difference with me is that I didn’t hide mine, which I think is the reason why I feel any person should trust me. The fact that I came out publicly to talk about what most people would never talk about, they would go to their grave with it. This should tell the people of Anambra that I am a woman that they can trust. This is a woman that I can give the chance to lead.
If somebody made a mistake and they came out to say, “Oh I made a mistake” that is integrity, and if she is able to do that, she can also lead a transparent government, so what happened with coming out to talk about that situation is to tell you that I can say, ‘Hey, these are the resources available and this is what we have been able to do about it’.
How would you address the topic of morality and how it relates to holding a governmental position?
Morality is critical. It is key and a priority. It is imperative when it comes to leadership and holding a government position, and as I said, I hold morality in high places because these are the reasons or things that have made me who I am today. Because I looked at some of the things that happened in my past, and I came out to say,’I don’t think this was right. I don’t think I should have done this’ and I had a rethink.
And I think this is what a leader should be. A leader should not be about perfection. If you are perfect, great. But a leader should be a person who admits their faults, accepts their mistakes, and is ready to keep working on themselves.
So yes, morality is important based on your beliefs and your standards. But we must all understand that there is always going to be a place where you hold yourself to account. You would check and recheck yourself. We should always be people who check their morality. We need to say no at every point. Is this right what I have done? How can I make it better, and how can I correct this? It is not about falling, it is about picking yourself back up and using your experience to ensure you don’t fall into the same mistakes and you make your steps firm and make sure you don’t fall the same way you did previously.
When you are a leader that people look up to, you need to uphold your morality; you need to uphold self-discipline, and you need to uphold principles. These are things that will guide you and make sure that you shine brighter and brighter.
When people have worked on themselves in these areas, they become a shining light and a monument of example to younger people, and that is what a leader must be to young people – a role model to others. Not a perfect person.
Most people who put out a perfect image have the worst skeletons. They are only good at covering things up. Assuming I had kept it a secret, who knew who would come out tomorrow to blackmail me? And I would be paying for not being courageous enough or humble enough to admit my errors or mistakes, which wasn’t even a life I was used to. It was an instant of wrong decisions, and I would not live a life of lies or suffer in silence because I want to live a life of perfection.
How do you plan to ensure transparency and accountability in your administration if elected?
Yes, we plan to have a transparent and accountable government by making annual reports of our budget and expenditures. There will be checks and balances. The very people who have elected us will be part of it. The media, every body or institution that has to be part of the process of checking these accounts will do everything possible to foster a transparent and accountable system when we get into government. This is what we will do.
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