Sulaiman Adegbenro is a presenter of repute known to his audience as Consoligbadun. He tells Ademola Olonilua about his programme, marriage and fashion style
Your programme, Consoligbadun, was a hit in the 90s but now it is a shadow of its former self. What is going on?
At every point in a man’s life it is always necessary to do a self assessment and in this day and age, we all talk about rebranding. The best way forward is to rebrand the programme and we have begun the process. That is why we have rested the programme for about two months. We are also aware of the fact that broadcast generally all over the world is going through a phase called ‘digital switch over’, which should take effect from January 2015 in Nigeria. I felt we needed to use the opportunity to take a short break, rebrand and come back better.
Even before you suspended the programme, is it true that it was not as vibrant as it used to be because you could not manage the success that came with it?
It would depend on what people’s perception of success is. I have never been a troublemaker, night crawler or chronic womaniser and I have never had a single scandal to my name. If someone is above board in all these things, then what are you talking about? I am successfully married to only one woman, I have three children and we stopped having children about 13 years ago. I have a child in the tertiary institution and a set of twins who are in secondary school. I don’t know what else people expect me to do when it comes to managing success.
You stopped making kids 13 years ago, why?
It is in twofold and I would want the society to learn from this. We have the liberty to procreate as many times as we want but it is always advisable that we manage our resources in a way that everyone would be comfortable. I knew that I wasn’t into a job that was fetching me a lot of money. I love myself and although I am not stinkingly rich, I love to eat good food. I knew that with my income, there was no way we would be having babies and eating good food at the same time. There was no way I could be responsible for the welfare of a large family and still be able to eat good food; the two would not go together. That was the reason we made that decision. Personally, I think two children are enough and if you have three, it is extra. Even the very affluent people that have many children face challenges and you would find out that they are hardly close to their children. There will be no intimate relationship and what such children know about their parents is what the public knows. I wanted a closely knit family and I would recommend that to anybody.
Didn’t your family members pressure you to have more children?
It happened particularly in our own case, the pressure was much. Initially, my wife was an advocate of one more ‘match’ (baby) after our set of twins. Our first child came early in our marriage, we needed to put some logistics in place because I was not residing in Lagos and I wanted to be back in Lagos before we moved on. I knew it would not be easy leaving a young wife with children, so we decided to wait till I relocated. When I relocated, which was about the time I started Consoligbadun, we had a set twins, both sexes. I felt that was okay and we put a full stop.
Do you think without that programme you would have been anything in life?
I could have been so many things. I had no doubt about who I am. I am Consoligbadun because that was the side people got to know. I did not start my life as an entertainer or a television presenter, everything came at different times. What I really wanted in life was to become a renowned fine artist and that was my intention from secondary school. I was art crazy and could spend hours in the classroom, drawing. That was food for me and I would not remember that I was hungry. If I had not been what I am now, I would have been a very great fine artist. I have no doubt about it because I was doing very great things even at my young age.
You have the talent and the name, why have you not pursued that passion?
As long as there is life, we are all students in life; that has always been my philosophy. I have not stopped broadcasting; it is just that the fine art aspect of my life is on recess. By the time Consoligbadun comes back, it would be stronger.
You sound so sure of yourself but remember that the competition is a lot stiffer now than it was when your programme was a hit in the 90s…
For the things that I do in broadcasting, I don’t see any competition. What I see most times are replicas. I have seen many replications of my idea but I am not bragging or disturbed by it because those imitators might not have done so deliberately. I do not see any entertainment television programme that can compete with Consoligbadun, they will still see us (my team) as a hard nut to crack.
You studied music for your first and second degrees in school but ended up as a broadcaster. Don’t you feel you wasted your money and time in school?
That was why I said that even if Consoligbadun did not work out, it could have been anything else. That is me and the glory goes to God. The truth about it is that whatever I set out to do, God has a way of making me excel in it. It does not matter whether I had previous experience or not, God has a way of making me come out with grand success. I did not waste money studying music in school. In fact, I have the music and God to thank for all that I have done in broadcasting. If you remember, music took 60 per cent of the content in Consoligbadun. Before I relocated to Lagos, I was teaching music. When I was teaching, one could easily notice that I had a passion for music.
As the spokesman for Freelance and Independent Broadcasters’ Association of Nigeria, what does your job entail?
FIBAN was an initiative of the late Gbenga Adeboye. When he started, he noticed that there was a need for people like him to have a forum, even if it was for social purposes. He also foresaw the idea of forming a formidable association in case there was a need for appropriate steps to be taken towards improving our welfare. That was about 14 years ago and he was the one that invited me to join the association in Lagos. After his death, a lot of things have happened and various people have taken several leadership roles. But early this year, there was a general election, where Comrade Yemi Sonde emerged as the National President and I became the new National Publicity Relations Officer One. Since then, we have set out to rebrand the association because most people did not even know much about us. One of the things we did was to open a bank account for the association because we had none initially; we had to use our money to that. Coincidentally, one of our president’s clients gave us two plots of land in Ibadan, Oyo State and Abeokuta, Ogun State and we all agreed to erect our secretariat in Ibadan. Since we already have a bank account, it was easy for us to appeal to people and well- meaning individuals to support us. In the course of our stewardship over the past eight months, we have been able to send some of our members to the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria academy for training. That was the first time it would happen in the history of our association and eight of the participants graduated some weeks back. We are almost finished with the construction of our secretariat in Ibadan, and our next line of action is to start the one in Abeokuta. After that, we are moving to Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory. We are also working hard to facilitate insurance schemes for our members.
One would have thought that you would be wearing our native attire on your show but you mostly wore foreign clothes, why?
Sixty per cent of the appearances I made on my show were in our native wears. The nature of the programme was such that I wanted it to be difficult for anyone to tie it mainly to the Yoruba culture. Even from the name, you cannot imply that it is purely a Yoruba programme because there is a ‘C’ in the name of the programme and we don’t use the letter C in Yoruba language.
What influences your fashion sense?
I wear anything that suits me. I like wearing suits and shirts a lot.
Many people would find it difficult to believe that you wear suits…
I really love suits and if I was very rich, half of my wardrobe would be filled with suits. If I had my way, that is what would happen. If there is any designer that wants me to model for him, I would love for it to be with suits so that half of my wardrobes would be filled with suits.
What fashion item do you dislike?
I hate caps. Someone ones told me that he loved my appearance on a television show, but that he did not fully appreciate it because I was not wearing a cap. I feel wearing caps make me look old. Every time I wear a cap and look in the mirror, what I see is an old man. Everybody is not the same, some things would fit someone and look awkward on others. For me, it is caps. It does not really fit me; caps have a way of distorting my looks. Also, I am not an agbada freak, I can count the number of times I have worn agbada. Right now, I have only one which I will never wear again. I only kept it in my wardrobe for posterity sake. When I am ready, I will give it out. There is no way I am ever going to wear an agbada again, I won’t. It is physically demanding to wear and you have to keep folding it. It’s big so I prefer something simpler.
You are always clean-shaven, was there anytime you grew your beard?
I tried growing one when I was much younger but it was not forming well, I guess I’m not endowed in that area. When I leave it for two days, I usually hate myself because it does not grow well.
What kind of attire does your family love seeing you in?
My children love seeing me in jeans and T-shirt, while my wife prefers to see me in native attire. She feels that when I’m in native attire, other women would not bother me and that when I wear T-shirt and jeans, they would think I’m a young man and so, available. For me, anything I’m comfortable in is what I wear. I don’t wear expensive clothes.
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