I Wish I’d Lied about My Age – Uti Nwachukwu

As a 25-year-old, Uti Nwachukwu represented Nigeria in the Big Brother Africa Season 3. He became the third evictee of Big Brother Africa 3 house on the October 5, 2008 (Day 42).
During his stay, Uti was known for often teasing his fellow housemates (mostly Mimi and Thami).
Not allowing failure to defeat him, in 2010, Uti again contested in the Big Brother Africa 5: All-Stars, in which he lasted 91 days and ultimately won by defeating Munya in a final vote of 8 to 7.
Since his victory, Uti Nwachukwu has become a name to be reckoned with in Africa; Nigeria entertainment industry especially.
With ‘Star The Winner Is’ being one of his biggest jobs in the year, Uti speaks extensively on his experience, and more. Excerpts:

What’s your experience being the anchor of the new reality tv show, ‘Star The Winner Is’?
Oh, it’s been fantastic, especially with the kind of attention I get from the whole crew.
It makes everything seem like I’m in a fairy-tale. You know, like me being lodged into a good hotel in South Africa, where the recording took place and before I finished having my bath in the morning, my food is already set, my clothes ironed and the stylist and make-up artistes were on ground to see that I looked good, I’m walking on the stage and I’m hearing engineers from the control room asking whether I was okay or not and before I knew it, the audience were already loaded… everything made me feel like a prince, and, honestly, it’s the easiest production scene I’ve ever been on. I can do it over and over again and I won’t complain.

So how did you get the job?
I received a text message from a production company known as AMPN. The message was written casually and I didn’t take it serious. I thought it was a runof- the-mill message I used to receive when I would get there and discover they weren’t serious.
So, they gave me the same date as Tiwa Savage’s wedding for the auditioning and she’s a neighbor and a very close friend, who has been supportive of everything I do. So, I replied the message that I was going for a wedding but I would see what I would do about it.
I later got a call from Africa Magic that a company had called them that they had invited me for an audition, but I told them I was making for a wedding. I said it’s true. So, they told me that I should make sure I go for the audition. That’s how I burst Tiwa’s wedding and went for the audition. When I got there, I saw some other big faces in the industry and I was scared I wouldn’t get the job. Others took their turns and when it was my turn, I went and was original with my presentation…I was playful with it and that’s how I got it. It was a nice offer with a seven zero figure amount.

Were the jury Nigerians?
Yes, they were all Nigerians.

What about the audience?
About 80 percent were Nigerians and the rest, South Africans.

And they were all flown from Nigeria to South Africa?
Yes.

That’s one of the problems we are facing in this country. Why take our money to develop South Africa?
First of all, let me come from the human angle. If you have an opportunity to further your career and you have two options: to study in Nigeria or abroad, where will you study? Of course, I presume, you will prefer to study abroad!

Nigerian productions and their production in terms of human resources, electricity, studio quality, equipment quality and picture quality are obviously different. South Africans’ lighting, studio arrangement etc. are perfect. Most Nigerians need to learn to be hard-working, because most of them want to get paid without doing anything!
Everybody wants to be an oga (boss); nobody wants to serve.

Why?
Don’t you see me in a lot of movies? That’s because I’m very comfortable working with people like Desmond Elliot, Teco Benso, because they give you the best. When you work with a lot of producers, they waste your time and energy. You can sit for a long time and by the time they are ready to shoot, casts are already tired from sitting and waiting for too long hours, and when you now react, they say you have bad attitude. No, that’s because they aren’t being professional. I never had any issue with the South Africa set, because everything worked perfectly. So, if Nigerians want people to invest in their production, they have to first invest in themselves, be better and more disciplined.
Again, it was a partnership and the production they needed was in South Africa, because they wanted the show to have same quality as the U.S version. So, we couldn’t jeopardize that for anything.

You were a model before going into acting and presentation. What was your experience like there?
My experience in modelling wasn’t a very rosy one. That’s because modelling agencies don’t treat models well. In fact, they treated us like house-boys and house-girls. Companies pay modelling agencies good money for models, but at the end of the day, we get peanuts. A telecommunications company could budget as high as one million or even two million naira for each model but, at the end of the day, modelling agencies would pay us like 200,000, sometimes 50,000. I’ve once done a show for TVC and were paid 30,000. So, it was that ridiculous!

How old are you now?
I clocked 32 on August 10.

You mean that’s your official age?
No! That’s my real age.

You can’t be serious, because we know most entertainers lie about their ages
I wish I had lied about my age. When I was in Big Brother, I would have told people that I was 20 so that by now, I will still be between 24 and 25. So, my real age today is taken from August 10, 1982.

Many people say if not for Big Brother you wouldn’t have been known?
Well, if you say so. But, it’s a good platform for me and I’m glad I made good use of it. But I’m not ashamed of accepting that Big Brother was the one that drew people’s attention to me, but at the end of the day, I still hustled my way to make it and still be relevant after I won the show. It’s just like telling Davido that if not for his father’s money, he wouldn’t have been popular and rich. So what? Yes, his father is rich but he didn’t lie back as a result. He’s hustling and making his own money, and he’s well packaged. What would he have done when he found out that his father is a rich man? Would he have thrown away the money? No! That money was a platform he used to get to where he is today and he’s still not lazy!
So, everybody needs a platform, because it’s difficult to be a celebrity in Nigeria. People come to me and ask how they can be popular. They tell me that they can act well, they have good looks, but I tell them that being able to act and having a fine face wouldn’t make them popular…everybody needs a platform. So, were my father as rich as Davido’s father, then I would have used his wealth to get what I wanted, as long as I have the talent.

If you say because Davido’s father is rich, what about Naeto C- after all his parents are rich, too?
Naeto C had his time when his music became very popular. God uses different things to project people: it might be wealth, fame, anything…as long as you realize it and capitalize on it alongside your talent. I tell people that if they don’t have something to sell, they have no business being in the entertainment industry.

So, if you’re not into entertainment, what else would you have done?
I really don’t know, because from where I was in the JSS, I’ve always loved entertainment. I studied Computer Science and Education in UNN at diploma level, and same course in my degree, and graduated with a 3.9 GPA so, maybe telecommunications but, I noticed that even when I was much more younger, I used to have this attention deficiency disorder, because I day-dream a lot, even when a lecturer was in front of me teaching. I day-dream about seeing myself acting different movie roles…I used to zone-out from when I was 11 years old and I’m not kidding here. And that’s why God has been blessing me in this industry, because this is who he made me to be.

What’s happening between you and Seone. Everybody thinks you’re dating?
Everybody is asking this and we’ve said all that needs to be said about it. At the end of the day, whatever you guys say is what it is. So, no comment. Anything you see, take it!

After Big Brother, people started saying you did lips enlargement
Did you know that when I was younger, I didn’t like my lips at all, because they made me feel awkward? I used to tell my sisters that when I make money and reduce my lips. People used to call me Chinese eyes when I was young, and I was skinny with full lips. So, my lips were so obvious and it made me feel like an alien so, I hated my lips and my big ears. My sisters used to call me ‘creepeller’. But, when I turned 19, my big lips and eyes that I wanted to reduce became the toast of girls. So, the things I didn’t like about me became most celebrated