What do you think about your son Charlyboy today?

Point of correction, Charlyboy is not my Son. I think Charlyboy is a character. I don’t have any child as Charlyboy, I have Charles Oputa. I don’t allow Charlyboy into my house, but I have a caring son called Charles. Maybe, you will need to rephrase your question again.

What do you think of Charles today, what kind of child is he?

He has his own will, he has been doing what he likes, he has been happy with what he is doing and that is the aim of life. If you are satisfied, contented with the day to day existence, then you are considered a happy man. You may be very rich and happy but not satisfied, but if you are in an atmosphere you like and you have a wife who agrees with you like Charles, then you are lucky. My son is very understanding, loving and shows so much concern and respect for me and her mother. That’s all we need from him at this age.

He has lofty visions seemingly impossible to actualize. He pursues those visions with a single-minded doggedness, exhibiting an amazing capacity to build a team and drive them relentlessly toward the realization of his dreams. His advice to the youths to never let anybody kill their dreams is his personal mantra which rules him. I salute that.

What is it that you respect about your son?

He has his own will and if you try to bend him and discover that it is not easy, then all you need to check is to see whether what he wants is for good or not. If you do, you will see the sense in it, and then you will probably join him. Most importantly, I respect him for who he is today. Having told me that he was going to get me to like his own kind of profession, and he did it, is what everybody must emulate.

Will you say he has accomplished more than you have?

Life is an ongoing struggle and you don’t judge until the end of the struggle, obituary usually portrays what we have been while we were alive and then says whether you have succeeded or not. Normally, you don’t have an obituary of the living, so it is at the end of the journey that you can assess what and what have being his contribution, input. We are all expected to contribute something to life. If you have contributed nothing to life then it is too bad. Charles has tried, but you can only assess our achievement when you read our obituaries.

Do you think he is living before his time?

Every revolutionist lives before his time; otherwise you are not a revolutionist. If you want a change from what used to be to what you think will be, you are a revolutionist. Life is not stationary. Life is moving and if you don’t move with time, time won’t wait for you; it will move on and leave you behind. So in this dynamics of change, our part is to see if we can interpreted the course of events, see if we can tread safely on this or that or that part to see if we can reach the goal which we all want to achieve. He is a revolutionist, hence he sees past now. He is ahead of many of us. I think I know where he is going.

What was he like as a child?

Well as a child he had his own will, as I said every father wants a son to be like him, but he did not want to be anybody, he wanted to be himself, and he showed that early in life. You choose a school for him; he will go to the school he wanted to go to and not the one you wanted him to go to. You choose a career for him but no, he wanted what he wanted for himself, otherwise a son of a lawyer now a musician is not something to easily comprehend, but that is what he wanted because of his will power. Truly, he is living up to it.

What are the similarities between you both?

Well, every child takes part of the father and part of the mother. It is difficult to see a child who is just himself, what he does will be part and part of what he learnt from his father or what he inherited from the father. Blood is very precious; you can’t beat blood once you have the same blood running in people. Part of me is in him, that may or may not be the dominating part, what people see is the dominating part, they see him as a musician but he is playing a role like a character in a field, when he comes home he is different. It is no longer the Charly boy you used to see, he becomes Charles Oputa not Charly boy. So we are all playing roles on the world stage, Shakespeare said, “the entire world is a stage and all the men and women are players, we are all playing a role. All we ask is that you play an honorable role so that when you exit, when you have ended playing your role, you will be remembered. Charles is so hard working, and that was a big concern for me until I recalled what I used to do in my younger days and even until I retired from active professional life and service. Hard work and tremendous focus are certainly our common traits. He is also just like me; a man with a strong attachment to his family. He just does not joke with that. I am also very proud to note that like me, he has zero tolerance for injustice of any kind. That is again related to a deep compassion for the less privileged and down trodden.

Why do you live with him?

I live with him because I relax better with him. I rest better here. I think my house is his house, and his house, mine.

lilvonz: FU..CK YOU VERY MUCH

coolegbo: This 'charley boy' issue is getting out of hand on Nairaland. Nice quotes from his father, he detests 'charlyboy' not 'charles'. I do not see why anybody should be making a derogatory comment about a 'father' who sees the bright side of his 'son' irrespective of the 'charlyboism' in him

Ile-Ife:


i feel your pain, felt the same way.

ebamma: imagine a married man with kids who is over 50 years old calling himself charlyboy,wonders shall never end

Niseamaka:


Feeling Pain?. About what?, about an immensely fulfilled 92 years old retired supreme court justice and his son, both of whom excelled academically, professionally and in their respective family lives as husbands and fathers. What pain are you feeling about charleyboy, a man who have been tremendously successful since he came back from the States after his studies with his American spouse and established his entertainment business, creating many jobs. In what way or ways is your own family better off than the Oputas. Compare your father`s life and career with justice Oputa`s, and your own life and career or any of your sibling`s with charles Oputa,then tell yourself the bitter truth.

Ile-Ife:


Ooi, you be PUMA (Oya), you dey be. the mods edited the post. i posted the interview the way other news portals presented it. You are meant to think he disowned his son before reading the article. if you had gone through the article, your slow brain would have known i was referring to a previous post insulting when i said "i feel your pain" because i like everyone else almost had an heart attack [/i]when i saw the title of the article. [i]Arindin trying to sound intelligent, ode oshi.

Niseamaka:


Feeling Pain?. About what?, about an immensely fulfilled 92 years old retired supreme court justice and his son, both of whom excelled academically, professionally and in their respective family lives as husbands and fathers. What pain are you feeling about charleyboy, a man who have been tremendously successful since he came back from the States after his studies with his American spouse and established his entertainment business, creating many jobs. In what way or ways is your own family better off than the Oputas. Compare your father`s life and career with justice Oputa`s, and your own life and career or any of your sibling`s with charles Oputa,then tell yourself the bitter truth.