Charlyboy: The Unsung Heroes of our Time

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The world is ruled by unique and breathtaking ideas; these ideas have ruled the world till date. Late last night I sat in my living room thinking where we are in this country and what would or should have been done to take us to where we ought to be, and I realized that we need revolutionary, ground-breaking, world shattering men and women who will rise without fear of failure or of any king of confrontation. We need People with the conviction and passion for what they believe in. We need people who can make where there is none, people who fit tightly to our slippery world of dissuasion and selfishly motivated unconstructive criticism, people who can forge a path in the middle of our thick, congested and relentlessly flowing water like Nigerian. We need people who can start a movement and see to its successful attainment. We need People who are spurred by aspiration, doggedness, and possess willpower against what is capable of befalling them in the horizon. We need people who will in the loud silence of their wits defile the original plans of the enemies who have dug a pit for the entire nation to fall into.

There is a lot of work to be done. One of our greatest activists and writers, Wole Soyinka once deduced that “Looking at faces of people, one gets the feeling there’s a lot of work to be done.” He further said, “Let’s say there are prospects for a new Nigeria, but I don’t think we have a new Nigeria yet.”

Deducing further from Soynka’s words, self-motivated Nigerians like him, the late Fella, a host of others, have proved beyond reasonable doubt that they are motivated, creative and poise in their works and art of ingenuity, but they have not passed without derogatory criticisms. However, I know we need people like them to change the country. Around the world, we have seen innovativeness, creativity, and foresight that have changed the face of the world, irrespective of criticisms and neglect. We have seen people, movements that rose with hope for the future  and eyes on the future that changed the history of the world but the beginning, is usually not so good, never understood, misinterpreted, misrepresented but victorious at the end, we need that fire in this country, we need those who believe that change is attainable.

Public relations, one of the most celebrated ideas that rules communication today began with so much criticism, misunderstanding and disagreements when Bernays introduced it his own way, he found a way to imprint on public opinion ,and this worked effectively till date but not without criticisms. He created the concept that there are many publics and each public needs to be appealed to. He advised public relations professionals to watch out for group leaders and other key communicators (opinion leaders), who would be able to pass along ideas to other members of the public.  Before Barneys reshaped the rules of public relations Benjamin Franklin made it a rule to forbear all contradiction to others, and all positive assertions of his own. He would say, “I conceive or I apprehend or I imagine a thing to be so, or it appears to be so. Franklin pioneered the rules for “personal relations” in an era before mass media was made possible, a profession called “public relations.” This, Barneys saw in the future and tried to avert the happening by introducing something special but more difficult that people would find unreasonable and difficult but this was the birth of public relations and “social responsibility” that we enjoy even today in Nigeria.

Again, movements like gay rights began very long before now and the fight for the revolution was fierce at all times. Gay people were discriminated everywhere including the United States for what they believe in but the good thing about the movement is about their resilience, they saw the future just as Barneys did, although we still frown at the gay or same sex marriage thing but it is not what it was many years ago. On February 7 this year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California ruled 2–1 that Proposition 8, the 2008 referendum that banned same-sex marriage in state was unconstitutional because it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment

To this day revolutionists have been criticized, it is however, the intent of this article to inform and educate Nigerians on the involuntary longings that have trailed and still drives the ordinary man to criticize, ignore and condemn the innovativeness of inventors and pioneers that we need in this country to take us forward. Wole Soyinka has been criticized on the introduction of fraternities in this country but I know that when we are ripe, we shall derive the benefits of fraternities in our institutions in a more positive way.  I have been criticized for my piercings and tattoos a long time before now but today emphasis has been shifted from the tattoos and piercings to my new innovative entertainment patterns. People now say that I’m weird in the extreme, forgetting that I’m only living ahead of time. I put a trained Python around my neck, and they said I was fetish.  I’m very sure the Idol organizers saw it themselves. It was for the idols, not for you.

Today tattoos are even a source of income for Nigerians; tattoos are now giving jobs as well as piercings. it is not for me to explain, but I know that the Charlyboy brand is a movement from the future, a future that we cannot see now, the same way we could not see what Barneys, Wole Soyinka, and many Movements set out to do before the picture became clear to us.

When Wole Soyinka once captured my essence in his writeup, “…So strange was his persona that the most negative imaginations were rife about him, gossip was unending, and the media could not have enough of speculations about what he might do, in what manner and for how long. Eventually, he was, I recall, pretty much left alone to go his own way or – to re-phrase that he himself might have done- to do his own thing! “This is what I call a peep into the future which you don’t know, or the future you are clueless about.

My father in one of the editions of THE TIME newspaper had said something close to what Wole Soyinka said  “my son Charles Oputa came before his time”. Charlyboy is a character, a creation that is always in motion, moving ahead of our thoughts and imaginations, leaving us to our amazement, trailing the events of the future presented today in his creative powers. The question is how fast are we willing to move, can we keep up with the speed to which the world is moving? My brand has captured the world in the most imaginative way. The freedom, you seek, I already enjoy. I’m playing a game on the stage, just like visionaries do ahead of their time looking far beyond the present but the future which we must constantly work overly hard to keep up with.

This is what we need.  We need leaders who will stand with us here but capture the future with their imaginative and creative powers like the unsung heroes of our time. The unsung heroes could be you or me; it could be those of us who are still living, or those who have left us remarkably.

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