Showbiz maverick and activist Charles Oputa, popularly known as Charly Boy, has disclosed that he considered becoming a priest as a lad due to the strong moral and spiritual parenting he received from his late father.
The 67-year-old stated this on Tuesday at the 2018 Justice Oputa Annual Conference (JOAC), a lecture series on leadership, in Abuja.
He said: “I was an altar boy trying to live up to our father’s expectations, and I was fed with so much religiosity that I romanced the idea of becoming a priest as a teenager.
“Almost every morning, we attended morning mass which was compulsory, and confession meetings and Bible studies were regular.
“My dear father ‘terrorised’ us with the burden of bearing the name, Oputa, and almost every day was a sermon and lecture in our household on why we must protect the Oputa name.
“It was pounded into our skulls that a good name is worth more than all the billions in the bank; values that have become extinct in today’s Nigeria,” he added.
Charly Boy, who is the national coordinator of the Our Mumu Don Do Movement, in an emotion-filled atmosphere, eulogised the late Supreme Court judge, popularly known as Socrates of the Nigerian Judiciary.
He recounted the rigorous discipline he received under his father’s watch, which shaped him into a better adult.
“As a teenager, I saw my father as overbearing, bullish, brash, cantankerous and outdated.
“His overdose of discipline, strong moral value and spirituality was suffocating, and I wondered why I was the most punished amongst my siblings.
“Discipline was enforced in our house as if we were in the army and any time we did something wrong my father never spared the rod,” he said.
The Area Fada, as he is fondly called by fans, explained that the annual Justice Oputa Conference was a platform to share leadership values and selfless service to humanity, which defined the life of the late legal icon.
He, however, lamented that some of the societal ills, especially in leadership, which the late Oputa addressed were still very much plaguing the society today.
