I started my career as an interviewer. I was doing interviews for Farafina and for Thisday. When I first did an interview with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about 20 years ago, my publisher, Muhtar Bakare said to me, ‘You are one of the best interviewers I’ve ever seen.’
I didn’t believe him. I thought he was just trying to encourage me. I didn’t believe him. So very soon I was looking for a more defined career path. I was looking for jobs that would take care of me, take care of my family, help me be proud of myself, have people be proud of me, and I left the thing that people had said I was incredibly good at.
Well, thanks to life that I got back here. But when Dr. Ayuba was speaking, that’s what I remembered.
Before I started this show in 2020, for many years I’ve had people especially young people who were going through tough times in their life and in their careers come to my house and unburden. And I used to have a particular chair in my house where they would seat and I would listen.
We were having these conversations when no cameras were there. It had nothing to do with television, it has nothing to do with ‘blowing’, it has nothing to do with achievement. It has everything to do with what comes naturally to me. A calling:
The reason why this show has achieved the kind of success it has is because I took the chance and took a risk to trust my calling.
In a country like Nigeria, it is extremely difficult to convince people that there is such a thing as a calling, because they’re like ‘I don’t have time to find my calling, poverty is chasing me’.
So I’m not trying to convince people. I am trying to talk to those whose hearts are already singing this song: there’s a still, small voice saying ‘take the chance, take the chance, take the risk, it is time’.
Anything that calls you into doing that thing that you do better than anyone else, that comes naturally to you – it can never be a mistake to follow.
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