Julius Agwu Hawked Akamu @ 6

Julius ‘D Genius’ Agwu, stand up comic, actor, filmmaker and proponent of the fast evolving musi-comedy, was born into a poverty-stricken family in Choba, then an obscure village in Rivers State.

Despite that background, the comedy fireball has evolved into one of Nigeria’s most successful entertainers. But a lot of people do not know how poor the Agwus were in those days. His mother, then a petty trader, has revealed how the popular comedian went through thick and thin to become what he is today.

She is telling her story to the world through the Supermom Celebrity Edition reality television show.

According to her, theirs was a strict Catholic family comprising two boys, three girls and a pikin as Julius describes himself. The head of the family was a bricklayer and the mother had to augment the meagre earning from her petty trading with fishing and farming. Survival was tough but the resilience and steadfastness of the mother helped to see that her kids, especially the very precocious Julius, went to school.

“Julius started hawking with his brothers when he was about six years old. I would wake him up around 5 a.m. to do his round which he would also repeat when he returned from school everyday. Things were very tough and Julius was very troublesome. I remember that I wanted him to be a carpenter then,” she said.

In those days, Julius’ punishment for always coming late to school, because he had to first hawk pap(akamu) for his mother, was to stand in front of the class on the orders of his class teacher and entertain. Though it was meant to be punishment, those early days of facing his classmates to entertain was a preparation for an art that would make him a reference point in the Nigerian entertainment industry.

The early sufferings, coupled with his mother’s sacrifices when it seemed he was going astray, are some of the factors that have combined to make Julius the successful entertainer that he is today.

This story, as told from the prism of the woman who bore him, would be re-enacted this weekend on the Supermom show which broadcasts on Saturdays on the prime time belt of AIT Networks, Galaxy Television Networks on Sundays, MITV, Kwara TV and BSES Ekiti, among other stations.

However, this episode, the second this season, will not be about Julius alone. Yahooze crooner, Mr. Olu Maintain’s rise from a middle class family to a superstar singer, the early days of denial and parental disinterest in his choice of career, would also be in focus. According to him, “I sold my mom’s gold set to buy studio equipment.” The mother concurs, saying that unlike other mothers that would have beaten the living daylights out of the recalcitrant kid, “I recognised, with the benefit of hindsight, the fact that he did that because of his passion and love for music. I had no choice but to encourage and support his career with the little I had.”

Conceptualised and produced by Digital Interactive Media headed by Sola Fajobi, a renowned name in the television and entertainment industry, the Supermom Celebrity edition aims to celebrate the super stories of the mothers of superstars with the payoff line, “I am a Superstar because of my Supermom.”