Till date, people still talk about the role veteran actor Jibola
Dabo played in a soft-porn movie, “Dirty Secret” that starred
himself, Tonto Dikeh, late Muna Obiekwe, Geraldine Ejiogu,
Ejine Okerefor, among other acts.
In the movie, Tonto Dikeh acted the role of a spoilt child, who
sleeps with her father and her boyfriend. Her father, played by
Jibola Dabo, was a gynandrous, who also sleeps with his
daughter’s boyfriend played by Muna Obiekwe.
When the movie was released, fans tongue-lashed the three
major acts who played their roles like a smut movie. And
now, in a new interview, Jibola has confessed
that he regrets playing that role.
Q: Which movie would you say has been your most
challenging?
A: I hate to advertise for any movie and I believe every movie I
have been a part of has been challenging in several ways.
However, the movie that I had to put extra effort is also the
movie I hate the most, ‘Dirty Secrets.’ I played a role that is
totally different from who I am in reality. I hate the character
I played and for me to do it well, I had to become the
character. I had to hate myself while doing so. It was bad.
After the movie, I had to keep telling myself that the
character I portrayed was not who I am.
Q:Have you watched the movie?
A: I don’t want to see it. I have been asked if I could play such
a role again and I told them ‘yes’ but only if I have access to
the post-production stage. There are some things that should
have been edited in the movie that were not removed. There
are some things an actor would do to make his acting real
that should be edited but they released the movie like that. It
was so raw and it was terrible for them to put everything out
there.
Q: You acted alongside the late Muna Obiekwe in the
movie you’re talking about…
A: I felt sad about it. But the young man had been sad for a
while because he had been careless about his health. He
drank too much alcohol and he didn’t remember that he had
a liver. He was also a chain smoker, but of course, there are
also people that do it and live longer. I was saddened that we
had lost another star because he was a great actor.
Q: How come you openly support polygamy; is it
because your father was one?
A: No. It is because I am not a hypocrite. A lot of Nigerians are
hypocrites, especially the educated ones. When you have a
wife and several concubines, it is worse than being a
polygamist. When polygamy was accepted in our society, we
did not have as many diseases as we do have because you
would bring the wife home. What I said was that I do not
have anything against polygamy; however, do not confuse
fornication and adultery with polygamy.
Q: Why are you not a polygamist then?
A: People actually think I am a polygamist. I am not one
because I love deeply. When I fall in love, I like to show off
my woman. People think I am a polygamist because I have
children from different women.
Q: How come you have children from different
women?
A: Growing up, I was notorious with ladies and they were
notorious with me as well. During that time, girls had this
perception that they could tie you down if they got pregnant
for you. It happened to me with different girls because I was
very popular and good looking. The girls kept coming to me.
Also, there was the lack of knowledge of protection. When I
grew up, I met kids that I fathered and did not know because
their mothers did not tell me that they were pregnant.
Q: Which means that some women came to you only
with the interest of having a child?
A: Yes, it is very true. People misjudge me now because of that.
If a girl went through what I faced as a child, the experience
would be tagged as child abuse. I had older ladies come to
me for sex as a young man. It was child abuse, but nobody
was focusing on child abuse for boys back then. Instead,
people prefer to judge me. I would not be talking about this
now if I am not grown and have more understanding.
But you could have turned down their advances.
I could not have turned them down, because my feeding
depended on that ‘aunty.’ It happened when I stayed with
relatives. Some of their female friends liked me and made me
do things a young boy should not indulge in.
Q: You dated popular actress, Ayo Mogaji, at some
point in your life. What went wrong with the
relationship?
A: I would say that the media made a pool out of a tea cup. She
was my girlfriend in the 80s and when I returned to Nigeria,
she was still unmarried. I funded a movie for her and we
started dating again. She got pregnant for me and that was
it. The media began to say that her husband abroad had
come back home. I never got married to her; neither did I go
to her parents to ask for her hand in marriage. She was my
girlfriend and she got pregnant and I could not ask her to
abort the baby. I was old enough to have a child, so I had no
objections. I love my son a lot and now she has her husband.
Q: But why did you not get married to her?
A: Our lifestyles were not the same.
Q: Some believe you did not get married to her
because it was reported that she normally got
drunk at home.
A: No, it is not true. She was like that even before I came back
to Nigeria. I had known her for about three decades and she
had always been like that. That is her style. I read in the
papers after she left me where she said, ‘I drink, get drunk
and smoke, so what?’ It was on the front page. So if I could
not take that, I would let her go.
Q: But as her lover, don’t you think you could have
helped change her lifestyle?
A: I could not change her because I am not God, but I tried to
convince her to stop.