Showbiz and Marital Failure

How do you announce that you have become a celebrity in Nigeria especially if you are fortunate to have become a movie or a music star? I am sure many of my readers must be wondering what I am up to this time around. I have been following the spate of marital failure and relationship breakdown in our showbiz industry. To think that we have gotten to the level of Hollywood in jumping in and out of relationship and even doing it better than them is worrisome for me because I have always believed we are more cultured as Africans.
While the sense in some of our movies and songs has been severally flogged at different quarters, the rate at which the people who are meant to be role-models for the younger generation are sending wrong signals to the same generation is quite challenging for me. To now think that some of the actresses we recommend as role-models to the younger generation have now joined the group of ‘you don’t need your husband to succeed’ is heartbroken.
I have been thinking lately and I have tried to put myself in the position of a typical nine year old Nigerian child who wants to be a star or succeed.
Just like our definition of how to become a music star has now changed to someone with big chains and jewelries dangling all over his neck, in the same way his definition of a showbiz guy in Nigeria might be a guy cruising around town in a lovely machine with a lovely house and who has enough money to pick different actresses and use and dump them without actually getting married to them and in case four of them become pregnant at the same time, he has enough money to maintain them.
On the other hand the definition of a typical Nigerian girl right now for a showbiz lady might be something like one who hangs out with some of the top guys around and in case she has a husband that is godly she may not need him afterall because she makes more money than him so it may actually be better to live without any form of commitment to a man called my! husband and the benefit of that is the fact that she can be called by any of the top guys in town and she makes more money and has more influence.
How do you explain the fact that it is very hard to recommend any of our music and movie stars to our children as positive role-models?
The greatest challenge here is that a new generation of men might evolve very soon without any form of respect for women other than a hole that must be penetrated at all cost (even if it means making the lady your manager). We may also see a new generation of ladies who have no respect for the marital institution and who don’t believe you need to actually get married. As a matter of fact, that generation will only live for having a child or children (it wouldn’t matter for who)
The challenge with our movie industry is the need for our actors to stop acting once they leave location and get back to real life. If you have acted a cheating spouse in a movie, by the time you get back home you need to go back to being a faithful spouse (remember your home is not another location for Nollywood)
Same goes for our actresses. You need to respect and submit to your spouse irrespective of your celebrity status. That is what makes great celebrities thick. That it happens in Hollywood doesn’t mean we should import their vices to Nollywood.
My appeal goes to all the different industries that make up showbiz in Nigeria. It is time to be matured enough to keep our private matters private. We shouldn’t wash our dirty linen in public because younger people look up to us as role-models.
What it takes to be a celebrity is beyond jumping from one man to the other or changing babes as if you are changing your boxer short.
I have an in-depth understanding that many of our celebrities’ marriages crash because of foundational issues and ignorance of what it takes to sustain a marriage. And while I am not one to put up with a man that is a wife beater I will advice you look before they leap. Being a sta! r actres s doesn’t give you immunity against failed marriage. You need to learn the proper principles of staying married and that is what I expect some of us to do. The process of learning comes with a price which you must be willing to pay.
Nigeria is our country and we need to send the right signals to the younger generation and the outside world. I know our movie and music industries are both growing at the moment but let us be careful so that we don’t destroy the younger generation as a result of a personal weakness we haven’t been able to deal with.
I celebrate all of you and I expect successful marriages from you as well.

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