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Star Actor, OLUMIDE OWORU’s Mum, TITILOPE
Anyone who’s a big fan of Nigerian movies will definitely know star actor, Olumide Oworu. He is the charming young man who has dazzled in several movies including Toyin Abraham’s Monster hit movie, Ijakumo. He also shone liker a million stars in the popular Netflix Series, Far From Home. He is adored by his legion of fans. But not many people know the very young looking, pretty mother of Olumide Oworu. She also doubles as his manager. Meeting this very warm and affable lady for the first time, you can’t help but like her. She is not just pretty looking, she is also pretty intelligent as well. Always lively and forever young at heart. Her name is Titilope Odubanjo- Oworu, the amazing mother of Olumide Oworu, one of Naija’s most celebrated thespians right now. Unless someone told you, you could scarcely tell she is Olumide’s mum. She is so young looking you’d think she was his sister or lady friend. And both of them, understandably, are so incredibly close. They go to events together, they are always spotted dancing together at parties, they are gist partners and they make a fantastic team together as well. She is one of the reasons why Olumide has been attracting really great movie offers in the last couple of years.
There is no doubt that Olumide has been extremely busy lately. Having started from way back when he was less than five years old, Olumide literally grew up in the industry, featuring in one television drama or another. Not many remember him on the set of Tajudeen Adepetu’s popular television drama, Everyday People. He was also one of the stars of Naija’s most watched family show at a time, The Johnsons, where he played Tari. Olumide is almost 30 years old now, and a graduate of Babcock University. He will be the first to tell you he owes his success to his mum who saw his talents early enough and gave him the platforms to express himself.
His mother, Titilope, did not only support his acting career and manages him as well, she also encouraged him to go into politics when the opportunity came calling. She encouraged him to pitch tent with the Labour Party where he subsequently emerged as the party’s candidate challenging for Surulere constituency 1 seat at the Lagos House of Assembly. He went head to head with the current occupier of the seat, Hon. Desmond Elliot. It was a really messy affair. After the election results were announced, Desmond Elliot eventually retained his position as the Lawmaker representing Surulere Constituency 1 at the Lagos Assembly.
His mother, Titilope, also emerged as the Labour Party State women leader, Lagos State. And because of the remarkable job she did while holding that position, she has since been elevated to the post of Labour Party’s Deputy National Women Leader, (South/West) a position she occupies till date.
Two weeks ago, City People’s Senior Editor, WALE LAWAL (08037209290) had a very engaging interview session with the very beautiful Titilope Odubanjo-Oworu. She spoke about hers and her son’s sojourn into politics and the very chilling experience they were faced with. Right now, she has not completely made up her mind yet whether she would encourage her son to plunge fully into politics again like he did the last time. She says she is yet to fully recover from the trauma she suffered from that experience. And whats more, she is still settling debts incurred from the chaos and violence that broke out between the opposition camp and her son’s group. Here are excerpts from the interview.
Tell us about your experience during the last general elections in which your son, actor Olumide Oworu, contested against Hon. Desmond Elliot, for a seat at the House of Assembly, we heard things got really messy at some point?
Oh, well, we thank God. It was not a funny experience but we thank God for everyhing, it’s all about learning and experiencing things that you didn’t know existed before. Politics is a very serious thing in this part of the world. The whole idea was for us to go in and make our own meaningful contributions to the overall process and ultimately to the development of the nation. But with politics, I found that things can never be that straight forward. We were intimidated. My son and I were attacked. Our lives were threatened. It got to a point I had to leave the house. I had to go lodge in a hotel because things got to a stage we were scared we could be assasinated. This was a few days before the election. I just had to run away o. I needed to ensure my safety first and foremost. But the beauty of it is that Olumide became well known by seasoned politicans who were surprised that such a person existed in Surulere and they didn’t even hear of him.
But will any of this change anything? I mean, are you looking forward to having Olumide contest again in the 2027 elections?
Well, I honestly don’t know. Already, several youth groups are still insisting he is the one they want and that he is the only one that can do the job and all I have been saying to them is that you people should not kill me. Let’s even recover fully from all the losses we incured from the last one because at the end of the day, if anything happens, it’s all about the two of us. Everyone will move on. I said to them, you people that are calling us now, where were you when we were going through all that very dangerous campaign? I am still indebted to the tune of over N10 million that people are still calling me for till now for damages incurred during the fracas. There’s a restaurant that was damaged, the man put the cost at over N2.5million, and so many others like that. Where were you people then, I asked them? And now they are asking that Olumide continues with his political aspirations, that they are all behind him. I don’t know o, but we’ll see how it goes. God will direct us accordingly. When we get to that bridge, the Lord will direct us on how to cross it.
When did Olumide start nursing the idea of going into politics? Was it something you both sat down and talked about?
You know what, when he was like three to four years old, he used to call me mummy president. And when he was around five years old, one day he said to me, mummy, when I grow up, I’m going to be the president of Nigeria and everybody will want to be your friend because your son is the president. So, they’ll call you mummy President. If anybody needs anything, they will come and talk to you and you will now tell me what they want. He was about five years old when he was saying all this. But along the way, he outgrew that one. This time around, he was called from Abuja, that they needed someone who could come in and give the party a good representation. You know, we do a lot of motivational speeches. We go to schools, universities, primary schools, to talk to students about education and how to be focused and discover their talents. We say to them that while it is good and very necessaary that you go to school, God has also given everybody a talent and we teach them how to discover their talent. So, Olumide uses himself as an example. He is into acting, which is his God given talent, but still went to school. He’s also into Advertising. So, based on that, they figured that he already has that connection with the youths and that, if he comes on board, the first thing he will tackle is education in Surulere constituency 1. And we have been known for that. We have been going to schools to tell them the importance of education and how to discover their talents. They knew that that is what he’s known for and that it would be easy for him to incorporate it into his programme. So, before anything at all, he had to get all those boys in Shitta, Onilegogoro, Lawanson, Tejuoso, etc. I was amazed. I didn’t even know some of these boys had qualifications. I was surprised to see that some of them had six, seven credits. Some had eight. I thought most of them were dullards, for where? I was wrong about them. So, when I asked them, why are you living this area boys life? They said, ‘ah, Aunty, there’s no money to further our education now.’ We were looking forward to supporting them with scholarships and stuff and support those that want to learn other things because we believe that there should always be a Plan B so that, if educationally you can get a job, Plan B comes to the rescue.
So, the idea to go into politics was something both of you agreed on from the start?
Before I got in, I had never been involved in politics, this is my first time. I was called and was given the role of state women leader for Labour Party. I went to Abuja for something else actually. I went to Abuja to see if I could get a particular contract, I do corporate gift items, so I went hunting for a job that could fetch me possibly about five hundred million T-shirts, five hundred million fez caps, something like that because I was targeting campaign items for political rallies and ended up coming back as the state women leader for Labour Party.Then, Olimide had even paid for his own form before they called me. They didn’t even give us time to think about it, they were like you’re the best person for that place, that you have what it takes to defeat Desmond. They said, we know that you don’t joke with talent, you don’t joke with education, so even if you don’t do anything else, but every year you take away 30 boys from the streets and give them scholarships, that will go a long way, not to talk of those that want to go into other things and would need support to set them up. We had to beg him actually, he said he would like to do it but not right away, that it would affect his acting career but he eventually he agreed. But his own candidacy was met with a lot of attacks from the opposition.
How terrified were you when the whole thing got violent and his life was under threat?
I was scared o. He was even the one that was giving me strength. I told him, I said maybe we should just leave this thing for them, he would say, no, even if they attack us in the morning, we will come back home, rest for a few hours and return to the streets to campaign in the afternoon. He was doing more of one on one campaign with the rural people to know what their problems were and let them know he was coming in to proffer solutions to those problems and let them know what and what he was going to do. But along the line, things got messy to a point that there was a day he was almost burnt alive.They were calling him a thief, that he wants to take over Desmond’s post. They stoned the car, broke the glasses and wanted to burn them alive. They were targeting him in particular actually, so they had to run but they were still going after them. His team had to take a car to go and meet him around that Alaka area, he had to jump into a moving car. There was also another occasion in which they were attacking people that were with us. I was there that day, so many people got hurt, we had so many casualties. It was just by the grace of God that nobody got killed. Despite all of that, his followers too were adamant. They insisted that no matter what, they were going to stand by him through thick and thin and to be honest, they tried for him. They did the best they could. We just thank God for everything.
