Ever since she graced the set of Kaakaki, the popular breakfast show on the African Independent Television, Adaora Onyechere, has wooed many audience with her mode of presentation and incisive analysis of the issues. In her late 20s, she says her foray into television was not without its drama as she had to risk parental admonition to pursue a course in English and Broadcasting in England. In this encounter with YOMI ODUNUGA and GRACE OBIKE, she speaks on love, life and work, including the challenge of raising a son in a society that is ethically biased against single parenthood. Excerpts:
How and when did the journey into journalism start?
First, I didn’t think that I would ever be on TV because for me, I had a speech defect growing up. I preferred to be at the back stage—production direction, script writer you know. I was more about making the packages that happened or that people see on TV. Back in school, when I started my A levels, I had a stint in Psychology and Law and I went on to major in English and Broadcasting and while I was in school, even my teachers worried about my presentation; so I even had to do my own presentation via recording before I came into class. So, one those days, my teacher back in England said to me: ‘Adaora, today you will face the class and do your presentation, you are not giving us audio rehearsals.’ I was in jitters because I didn’t know how to really speak without stammering before a crowd.
I did a project on the Caribbean culture and the use of Cannabis. To enable me to be able to speak, my classmates said they would all turn their backs to me and I could talk to their backs. I started the presentation and it took some time before I realised that nobody was looking at me. There was no interaction, I thought I had already failed and so, without knowing it, I started moving to see their facial expressions. There was pin drop silence and my initial reaction was that I had failed.
Second, I thought it was really horrible and when I wanted to walk out of the class room, I started hearing people clap. They stood up clapping; my friends were clapping, people were crying you know, it was more like conquering, a victim or sort of a disability. Sometimes the West has this euphoria around trying to make people come out of their shell and so for me, it was a breakthrough for most of my teachers because while growing up in Nigeria, I was very sheltered by my parents. I didn’t go for a lot of children’s parties and didn’t hang out a lot.
That experience was a breakthrough for me and, having conquered that I saw the possibility of having to use my voice for the first time and then I started voice coaching. I did internship with Channel 4, did internship with BBC Online, did a lot of auxiliary training and then I decided to just go freelancing.
Would you describe yourself as some sort of a rebel since you never really studied what your parents sent to England to read?
I’m the first daughter of six children, I’m the Ada; there are certain things you can’t do as an Igbo first child. You have to set the example. My father insisted that I must be a lawyer and my mother insisted that I must read law and I did not want to do law. At least, I gave my parents their wish, I did a diploma in law but I just made up my mind one day and my tutors understood. We sat down and we had a conversation. I’m like we are in 2006, so it bored me stiff and I knew that I would always rebel.
So when I changed courses, it was something else. My dad already made a threat that if I dare not read law, they would not pay my school fees neither would they visit. I had already finished the first year and going to the second year studying English when my dad paid a surprise visit. First, I was in dreadlocks because the number one rule in my house was not to perm our hair. The way you go abroad is the way you will come back. So when I had a surprise visit from my dad, it was interesting that he went straight to the law department to look for me. In fact, I had moved from the university and town because I went to Coventry and I moved to London. So my dad had to do another two hours train journey to find me. When he finally found me, it was a case of ‘pack your bags let’s go back, you’re not serious.
I politely said no and that that was what I love to do. He didn’t even want to hear about it and he said I was going to be responsible for my school fees. I was a bit afraid because when I just thought that I had just found my victory and I didn’t believe that it would be short-lived. My father was very military in training us. I explained to him and showed him the analysis from my tutors and all how well I was doing. He understood but said however a rule is a rule and I had broken a rule and so for the first six months, I didn’t get any allowance. But what my dad didn’t know was that, at that time, I was also a part-time singer at an old people’s club. So, I was making some good money and I was okay. I totally sensed a withdrawal. I felt like I had broken the camel’s back and withdrawn my father’s love from me but it started giving me the opening to do other things and at that point, that was when I began to realise that I was growing into an adult and I needed to shape myself my way without necessarily breaking all the cultural codes but most importantly trying to find my own voice. For me, that was very important.
What is the issue with law, is it that your father or mother studied law?
My mother said when she was growing up, she wanted to study law but then the civil war broke out and all hell was let loose. So, when she came out of school with a degree in English, she said since she didn’t do the law in her time, one of her daughters or children must read law. So even as she started having kids, she already said to herself that I would be the one to read law. If I fail to read law, then my sister, who is actually a pharmacist, would do law. Inevitably, the first two children, in fact three children, none of us did law. The person that actually fulfilled her life desire is my fourth sister who read law at the University of Abuja and she is now a lawyer. So I think, for parents, it’s more about living out their dreams and living out their needs from their children. But sometimes they forget that every child has their calling. Children have their own desire. Looking back now, I cannot really blame them. For example, I am a mother of one and I have already in my head pictured what I want my son to be. I am thinking that I am spending so much money paying school fees, why will I not want him to be something important like a surgeon, an astrologist, something very important?
But the reality is that the lad might just wake up tomorrow and say ‘I want to play football’ or ‘I want to be an instrumentalist.’It is actually hard to be a parent and not want to be overbearing because that is when children rebel. I remember growing up, I was very rebellious because I felt that my mind and my parents’ were always clashing. What they wanted to do, I didn’t want to do it. We would be woken up by 4am to do devotion, who does that? We would be singing praise and worship from four to six and then from six, you would be sweeping around the house and then from six to seven, everybody must have a bath and sit down at the table for meals for everybody to eat together and then, you must say the prayers and after that you must all come together to wash plates. But, looking back, I am so grateful for all the training.
For someone who was trained in England, did you in anyway find it difficult to work in the broadcast industry back home?
When I got back to Nigeria in 2009, I first did a stint with CCTV Network in Kogi State. You know Senator Tunde Ogbeha’s TV station and I worked on radio. I was a radio presenter, a trainer and I was also a script writer for radio programmes. I did quite a few things and from there, we started to do news broadcasting and it was amazing how I felt very regal when I was clad in African attire to read the news. What you get on normal TV is the formal, strict kind of posterior. Just after that, I left came back to Abuja. I was at the point in my life when I just needed something to break me out of the state of mind. When I came back to Abuja, I had a stint with FRCN and we did a lot of entertainment stuff. I was also at Vision FM even though we didn’t have quite a very savoury relationship while I was there.
Just after that, I was about to leave the country for China when I ran into an old friend, Pedro Obaseki and he recognised me from a TV show we did back in England. It was a reality TV show that showcased the best of presentations in East and South London and I happened to have been amongst those that came tops. Obaseki convinced me to come to AIT for one day to see some people. I came to AIT and I ran into Chief Raymond Dokpesi, the chairman, and a few other people standing. I didn’t even know who the chairman was at that time, we argued about the fuel subsidy and before I knew what was happening, he asked them to put me on stage for a little chit chat and that was how it began and I was on TV. We had to learn the job from Imoni Amarere and Madam Tosin Dokpesi. Then I had this fear of the hassle of having to call Nigerian names and murder people’s names. I was a bit jittery so to speak. I wanted to just be in the background but when we now started, I was put on the hot seat and they said you are the lead of the show.
I said to myself,’how can that be? ‘But here we are today. AIT, I think, is the greatest pinnacle in my life because without AIT, I wouldn’t have been the face Adaora, the brand that everybody can recognise. Regardless of whatever talent one has, it is nothing without a medium. You need a medium to express yourselves. if you don’t have a medium, you are as good as buried. I believe AIT offered me that platform.
Your England story will not be complete without telling us why a young lady would be wearing dreadlocks and writing about cannabis. Did you smoke cannabis?
My dad actually said he did not send me abroad to wear dreadlocks. He said,’you must be smoking weed ‘and I said to him that I was actually wearing the hair because of his no perming of hair order. There was nothing else to do to my hair because it was afro natural. I left for England wearing native. My mother clad me in wrapper and blouse with virgin hair. I got to the class and the first few months, I was called a Naija girl. It was, for me, embarrassing. But as I started to scale all my grades in school, they thought there was something voodooish about my look. While I was scaling and passing, they were busy concentrating on how I looked. But it gave me a uniqueness and made people want to know what my background was and those few years I struggled with how to maintain my hair because of the cold. So, I met a very good friend Selina from Trinidad and Tobego and she put my hair in nuts, I never untied it and so it grew. By the way, the style that you wear is not necessarily what you are. That I wear dreadlocks does not make me a cannabis smoker or ganja as you call it. I see a lot of Nigerian men and women that wear natural hair but it could be that you prefer to wear a less time consuming style, a less money consuming hairstyle and you do your hair once a month, it is easy for you to maintain than perming my hair, fixing weave.
But when I came back to this country, my dad told me, ‘you know you cannot wear this hair and go on air and then with your accent, people will ask where they got the crazy girl from’. For me, I had to do a lot of redefining of how I look and speak because I talked a lot faster and my accent was more defined when I started. I had a very off standish position when I started, not that I was a snub but I didn’t give room for people to try to analyse me. With time, I broke down the shell little by little.
How has it been like being a single mother, is it by choice?
I wish I could say no comment to that. My son is five; he is going to be six in July. I met my son’s dad in England; he is a doctor and a clergyman. Ideally, we were engaged to be married, things happened but he was not one to come home to Africa if I may put it that way. My parents will not have anything as having a long distance marriage and secondly was the fact that I was very young and this was supposed to be my first love. To me, he was like the god that I can see on earth, he has been there for a long time but originally from Akwa Ibom.
I did everything I could within my power to go back, not just because I felt that I was in love but because I felt that there was no other place to be than with the father of your son and it didn’t quite happen. I stayed with my parents the first few years and it was horrible because I felt that they had gotten what they wanted but inevitably, I think I was a bit happy over the months that followed because I had family around me and that would have been something that I wouldn’t have been able to get everyday had I been back in London.
So, yes it wasn’t by choice, I was supposed to get married at some point but it didn’t happen and it has been six years and my son has grown to be so strong. I actually marvelled at how he has worked his way into being a matured boy. I think what has helped is that my dad is a very besotted granddad. He grew a lot with my parents when I was doing a lot of reshuffling and my dad mothered and fathered him and I’m thankful for that because I wonder what I would have done without my family and I wonder what I would have done if I had gone back without their consent.
But, it has been tough because at the back of my mind, I feel that every journey is challenging me to be an inspiration to my kid. I have found it very tough establishing a stronghold emotionally outside the sense of being a mother, relationships have never totally occurred to me a haven. I just worry about falling apart and having to do that all over again and I have a kid to worry about, he has given me a sense of direction. I have had to look at certain relationships and say, ‘no, this will not fly with David growing in this environment.’ I have gone through depression thinking did I make the right decision? Do I have to pack my bags and go look for his dad? Did I put myself first? But he has helped me grow into the woman that I am.
So, me being a single mom? I don’t think of myself as that in the sense of the word. I think that I am a mother to a lot of children. I say to myself that my goal if I never get married, I tend to look at myself as the other Theresa of Nigeria, having so many children that are not even born to you but living your life for others and making sure that you create value for those you will leave behind to be able to carry on the work.
