With the current rate of unemployment in Nigeria, skit-making has helped serve as a source of income for many young Nigerians, with skit makers getting paid handsomely by brands to advertise their product as well as earning from streams.
One of those Nigerians who have benefited immensely from this new source of revenue is popular content creator Chinonso Ukah better known in entertainment circles as Ada Jesus or Nonso Miraj.
The content creator who spent millions of naira in acquiring for herself a new Range Rover SUV and also once declared that skit making is better being an actress in Nollywood however revealed that her father’s ultimatum drove her to success.
Nons Miraj who opened up during an interview with media personality Chude Jideonwo however said that her father unfortunately didn’t live to see her succeed in her chosen career.
While speaking on the loss of her father, she said; “It did shake me. I thought I had cried for like two months but I just saw myself creating content the next day. Some weeks back, I was scrolling through Instagram and I realized that my dad died on the 31st of December and I posted a skit on the first of January. I think he would have wanted me to do that, instead of just sulking and crying. I started skit-making in 2018, but he gave me a year. He said, ‘if you don’t blow within a year, you will go and look for white collar job to do’. So, I started. Opportunities were coming but it wasn’t bringing in money. So, he was just seeing me go to auditions, struggling. But he didn’t stay to see the end of it”.
Nons Miraj who once took part in the Next Movie Star, Nigerian TV reality show where she emerged as first runner-up also elaborately discussed why she left Nollywood due to the increasing scourge of s3x-for-movie roles syndrome by film producers which is threatening to tear the movie industry apart.
She said, ‘It’s not just one person, so everybody has their tactics. The one that will start telling people, ‘this is my girlfriend oh!’. You’ll be shocked, thinking ‘when did I enter a relationship that I don’t even know about?’ He wants to connect you to somebody, but will tell them ‘My girlfriend is coming to meet you’. I don’t know if it’s like a code. So, when that one (the person you are going to meet) hears ‘my girlfriend’, he feels like you’re easily accessible. Then you go there and then he starts making advances. In some worse cases, they will even ask you to pay money. Sometimes, they will collect your money to feature you in their film. I didn’t do that one. I saw my friends go through shit in that one. You give maybe 30k, 50k, and they’ll give you the role. That’s how you see some Nollywood films, the person is acting rubbish, you’ll be wondering how they cast this person, they just paid for it.” Nons Miraj also added that she had to keep all that was happening to her from parents, as they would have insisted that she considered alternative sources of income.
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“So, when I saw that it was a consistent thing that they were doing in Nollywood, I just washed my hand like this and said I’m not doing it again and that’s why I left”, she added.
The content creator who studied at Babcock University where she earned an MBA in Public Administration also talked about the threesome non-scandal, she was involved in with Kogi politician Dino Melaye and her fellow skitmaker Amarachi Amusi aka Ashmusy.
“People were advising me not to comment on that blog but because I know I am so innocent, I went to their DM and told them ‘God will punish you for this thing, you will die’. Later on, I summoned courage, “Nonso, you didn’t do this thing”. I don’t know the blogger, but whoever is behind it, ‘bring proof!’. Maybe the blog was already dying, and they had to now bring something that would make it trend again. I didn’t like the idea of that, but then again good or bad publicity, it’s all publicity”. Chinonso also shared that she hasn’t met the politician in question yet. “If I see him, I’ll go and hold his leg. I have never met this man before, that is the honest truth”.
