Aki & Pawpaw
By Dimgba Igwe [ dimgba@sunnewsonline.com ]
Tuesday, August 11, 2009

The message came at a short notice—that two of Nigeria’s famous midgets and comedy giants, Aki and Pawpaw, were on their way to The SUN Publishing Limited. I excused myself. I was not in the mood for interviews with the famous duo. I had other things on my mind. Others should talk to them. “But DMD, you’ll surely want to see them at least,” the weekend editor, Onuoha Uke persisted.

“No, thanks,” I said. “Instead, get Femi to join you. I am just not in the mood today.”

Call that executive indulgence, privilege, whatever. If a reporter had suggested he was not in the mood for a news story, I suppose I would have brought down fire on his head. Who cares for mood when it comes to news?

Later, I sensed a commotion outside. “We seem to have a security situation on hands,” declared Daily Editor, Steve Nwosu, who rushed into my office.
What happened?
The arrival of the two midgets had set the office agog. Workers have abandoned their duties to catch glimpse of the midgets. I can sense the office pulsating with excitement, workers of different hierarchy struggling to catch glimpse, shakes hands or exchange banters with the two tiny giants!
Amazing. Curiosity got the better of me. “Bring them up to say hello to me at least,” I said at last.
A crowd ultimately invaded my office—editors, reporters, a battery of photographers, securitymen, onlookers. This is not as funny as it seems. I am before real celebrities, if that word is defined by popularity and mass appeal.

Aki & Pawpaw, whose real names are Chinedu and Osita, are indeed, tiny giants. I used to be among the shortest of men but beside them, I look like a giant.
But, they may be small in stature, but they are brimming with the confidence of men of full stature and exceedingly courteous. Like they say, dynamite comes in small packages. Pictures over, I let them go for their interview. But, as they left, something snapped inside me. We have had different kinds of stars visit the Sun without causing pandemonium. We have had governors, presidential candidates and heavyweight politicians visit the Sun without causing pandemonium.

Then, these midgets come and the world is never the same again. And these are no rented crowd! So, what then is news, big news, if not two small men who turn the world upside down? I was later to be told that the duo causes commotion wherever they go in most parts of Africa where Nollywood is watched and other parts of the world, especially among the blacks in Diaspora. Why not join the interview briefly to find out how they manage that kind of popularity?
Even then, I only wanted to ask one or two questions and leave others to continue. But the duo are so funny and interesting with their answers that I ended up spending nearly 90 minutes of the interview’s duration with them.

For one, I found that Chinedu, one of the two, is from Uzuakoli, a town about 12 kilometers from my town, Igbere, Abia State. In Igbo cultural sense, that makes us brothers! Taking advantage of that, he appealed to me in Igbo to beg the governor to connect his parts of Uzuakoli to public power supply. I promised to try.

We want to know how they deal with their little stature, whether it is a constraint in any form in their dealings with others who are normal size, women and otherwise. Aki & Pawpaw tell you that there are just as normal as the next guy, only better. It is people with normal statures that are unique, not them.
Reality, in their view, should be defined in their own terms, from their own prism, not the other way round. To them, it is not them that should struggle to adjust to the paradigms of the normal people, it is the normal people that should adjust to their own world.

They came together to form a powerful Aki & Pawpaw brand when they discovered their unique physical stature and simply converted it into advantage. In the vital issues of life, size is not always an advantage. It is better to be unique than big or merely normal, they argued. Everywhere they go, they redefine the atmosphere, the environment, the issue. People always turn to look at them, to wonder at them.

That makes them the focus, the cynosure, the center of attraction. They don’t need adverts to be advertised. They are popular simply by being unique, being different. They are like a powerful platform waiting to be exploited, but too shrewd to be taken for granted. Does that say something to you about marketing? About exploring your own competitive advantage, about leveraging on your strength on things that make you unique?

Like shrewd marketers, they are a bit slippery in some of their answers on personal issues, unwilling to be specific or even disclose their real age, encounters with women, marriage plans and actual wealth. You have the impression of people more keen to cultivate their mystique, their powerful brand equity.
Osita is from Imo and Chinedu is from Abia State and holds Higher National Diploma in Mass Communication, (upper credit) from IMT, Enugu. They are not from a family of midgets. It was more of a genetic freak. Their parents struggled to find solution to the issue of their stunted growth and soon realized that it was neither a medical nor spiritual issue.

It was a matter coded in genetic puzzle, beyond the realms of medical sciences. They just embraced their own reality, adjusted to it and accepted who they are, with no hang ups. This is much more than can be said of many people afflicted with different forms of insecurity that often manifests in acute inferiority or superiority complex, a deep-seated malaise that at times forces the victims into grotesque misconducts. Consider the acquisitive lunacy of our leaders who steal billions and billions they cannot use in a 100 lifetimes.

Once Osita and Chinedu discovered each other in a chance meeting at a cultural event, alliance became inevitable. They have since become a powerful brand now enjoying local and international endorsements. A South African handset manufacturer who met them on the streets of Johannesburg has signed them on to model a line of handsets that would bear their brand names and use their voice as the ring tones. They are local endorsements too.

In Nollywood, even with the dry spell the sector is experiencing, their phones have not stopped ringing. Their fees rose from a low of N6,000 per movie to a peak of over N1.5m at the good old days of Nollywood. You guessed right, they would not tell what the fee is now that there is lull in Nollywood.
They have political views too. From rebranding Nigeria to electoral reforms, to politics of defection, to President Yar’Adua’s current sparring with Governor Fashola over creation of local governments, etc. Their views are contained in a forthcoming interview in Saturday Sun.

For instance, I asked them, since popularity is an asset and they seem to command so much popularity, far more than many of the politicians who rigged themselves into power can ever dream of, why not convert their popularity to political power by contesting for any political office? They duo burst out laughing hysterically. “Contest for office and win election only to wait for three years at election tribunal waiting to reclaim my mandate while the loser is in the office enjoying himself?” Osita quizzed with grave sarcasm that captures our tragic-comical political conundrum. “We don’t understand politics o.”

“I hope they won’t come and carry us oh?” Chinedu started in response to another question, before delivering a blow on Yar’Adua whom he thinks is merely using the issue of new Local Council Development Area (LCDA) in Lagos to create a distraction from his non-performance in vital areas like power supply, roads and other infrastructure. In staccato of voices, the dynamic midgets enacted a full drama before us, lamenting the failings of governance, especially at the federal level.

The failure of the government to do anything about the Benin-Ore road in the past ten years of civil governance, the dangerous state of the Niger Bridge and failure to build a new one or repair the old one, the comatose power sector, the insecurity in the land, etc. In the midst of these glaring failures, they wonder why the issue of LCDA in Lagos State had suddenly become a national priority of the president.

The performance of Governor Fashola in Lagos, they said, has become a positive reference point for Nigeria globally, so why trouble such a man? “President Yar’Adua should leave Fashola alone and focus on his 7-point agenda!” the midgets slammed, proving the point that in matters of truth and reality, even the deaf can hear!

When I thought the interview was over and it was time to return to my office, Osita then took me on. “Let me interview you too,” he said. “Now that Governor Ohakim has joined PDP, I am beginning to notice something in The Sun. I read something about the new face of Brutus.”
Everyone went into prolonged laughter with me pointing to Femi Adesina as Ohakim’s nemesis. “It’s his opinion,” I said, “so ask him.”

“Do you like Ohakim’s defection?” Femi asked.
“I am not a politician.” Osita parried. “I only like Ohakim as a person, but I also like our Oga?”
“Who is that?”
“Ah, ah, Oga OUK now!”
“Well, the two men are our friends,” I said. “We’ll just do our jobs, we are not politicians. We won’t fight them.”