Chude Jideonwo to speak alongside Mo Ibrahim, Hon. Chief Dr. Jewel Howard-Taylor, Abdul Samad Rabiu and others, at the Oxford Africa Conference.

Chude Jideonwo, the founder of Joy, Inc. and host of #WithChude, has been invited to speak at the 2023 Oxford Africa Conference, where he will be joined by other notable speakers such as Sir Mo Ibrahim, Vice President of Liberia Dr Jewel Howard-Taylor, and Abdul Samad Rabiu. He will be discussing “Leveraging Africa’s soft power.”
The Oxford Africa Conference is widely regarded as an influential platform and one of the largest Africa-focused conferences in Europe for the last ten years. It seeks to unravel the prosperity paradox and build a new framework for deriving prosperity from Africa’s multi-sectoral challenges.
Previous conferences have featured distinguished speakers such as Dr. Donald Kaberuka (7th President of the African Development Bank), Amina Mohammed (current Deputy Secretary-General of the UN), and His Excellency Nana Akufo-Addo (President of the Republic of Ghana).
The conference is organized by The Oxford University Africa Society (AfriSoc), a platform that enables students interested in Africa to engage critically on core issues impacting their collective lives.

The theme of the conference is “Africa’s Prosperity: A New Approach?” and it will take place from Friday, May 12th, to Saturday, May 13th, 2023.

For more information, see here

“It’s very hard to be vulnerable but there’s power, victory, and strength in it” Iyanya shares on comebacks, relationships, and reconciliation on #WithChude. 

Nigerian Artiste, Iyanya Onoyom Mbuk, widely known as Iyanya sits with Chude Jideonwo, host of #WithChude to discuss his career comeback, his reconciliation with Ubi Franklin and relationships on #WithChude. 

Iyanya shared further on the news that broke the internet last year on how he didn’t do anything professionally in 2021. “Don’t get it twisted here, let me break it down. When I said December came and there was no show, it is not that people do not reach out, but nobody is willing to give what you’re worth. They are bullying you. But because you know your worth and believe in yourself, Ubi will say, ‘No’ you can’t do that. Instead of taking it, you just let it go. That’s what I meant. It was crazy and depressing at that moment. You know, you are going to feel it and react to it one way or the other. You are going to transfer aggression. You will act like you are not mad, but you are really mad. But having people around to give the positive energy is all you need.  So, don’t go where there’s no love. Times like that, the difference between you and another guy is that where there’s love you will be assured of a comeback but where there’s no love they would say, “E don be for you na, go dey do farming now”.   

“So many times, the love won’t come wrapped in a fancy bag, it’s going to be tough. You will think these people don’t like you, but if you can manage your ego, over time you will see that they want the best for you”, he added. 

On relationships and marriage, he shared, “I like to say it has a joke to my friends that one day someone will come out and say you forgot your baby somewhere. To be real here, I pray to God for a beautiful home. It’s not easy because my experiences as a child have made it difficult for me to just settle for anything. It’s not that I don’t want to get married or be in a serious relationship, but marriage is scary for me. At the end of the day, you just have to do it, but I don’t stop praying for a beautiful marriage and a beautiful home. When I got into the industry, I still didn’t understand it. So, I was still being the same guy thinking it’s okay to show people your girl which is fun. After a while, you will realize it is not healthy especially when you guys have not sorted your foundation out or you don’t have a grip on each other. For example, you fall in love with a female celebrity, and you try to change her. She’s going to be a rebel because the first thing to her is that she’s the queen out there and you just want to make her a housewife. The same thing with the guys, when you have to sacrifice your shows and tours to focus. It’s a whole lot of things and all I just want to do is to sort out my life before I start bringing a woman into it. I’m just trying to make sure I’m okay.” 

He also shared on the reconciliation with Ubi Franklin, “Ubi and I had settled a long time ago, but you know how it is with social media, they like to blow things out of proportion. Then I linked up with Omini who always hangs out and encourages me that we need to work again. So, he was talking to Ubi and was also talking to me. Then we got back and decided to professionally announce that we were ready to work together again. It wasn’t a difficult reconciliation at all, and that’s the energy that flows from the top to all the branches and the angles. The manager loves the artiste, the artiste loves the manager, and the team loves each other. It’s a lot of positive energy”. 

On why it is difficult for celebrities to be vulnerable, he said, “I’ve a big shout-out to Ubi for making me very vulnerable all the time. Sometimes it’s very annoying. It’s hard for celebrities to be vulnerable because they’ve shown their vulnerability and shared their experiences with some people, and they’ve been burnt. They got burnt and now they don’t have anybody to talk to. For example, you share a confidential matter with someone, and you get to another place to hear it from others. It is a big problem and I say to people, ‘don’t go to where there’s no love’. It’s very hard and tough to be vulnerable but guess what? That’s where the power, the victory, and strength is in.” 


Awaiting Trial nominated for AMVCA Best Documentary.

Chude Jideonwo’s debut film ‘Awaiting Trial’, has been nominated for Best Documentary at the 2023 Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards. 

Awaiting Trial is a documentary film that explores both the #EndSARS protests and the ‘deeper illness’ they point to – the phenomenon in Nigeria’s communal justice system called ‘awaiting trial’ where people are arrested and detained indefinitely without charge. 

The film’s director took to his Instagram to celebrate the nomination and the people who made it possible. He said, “This one is for Obianuju Iloanya whose courage and voice made me badly want to do this. And her mother, Hope whose strength inspired mine. And her stoic father. And her brave brother. And everyone who found the courage to open up and share the powerful stories they did with me over the one year of making this film. ‘If no one encourages you,’ Hope Iloanya said in one of the film’s most powerful lines, ‘encourage yourself.’ I spent months looking for a director for Awaiting Trial. I sat with some of the brightest talents. But it just wasn’t working out. Until the universe whispered to me ‘Do it yourself, Chude’. Do it, alarmed, afraid, and vulnerable. Do it, despite the voices that will question your bonafides as a director. Do it, because the only way to become brilliant is to begin. Do it, because this matters to you. So, I overcame the fright. I steeled myself for the judgement. I silenced the voices in my head.” 

Awaiting Trial since its limited online screening has won several awards and recognition one of which is being Official Selection and Nominee of the African International Film Festival (AFRIFF). 

Others on the AMVCA lists are 100 of Us, Way to the Top, Green: The Amazons, Truck Blind Spot, Nigeria-the Debut, and Baby Blues. 


‘Watching Oprah and Brene Brown inspired me to create #WithChude,’ Chude Jideonwo shares. 

Chude Jideonwo, the founder of Joy Incredible Limited and host of the viral TV show, #WithChude, took to his Instagram page on Tuesday, April 11, 2023, to share what led to the creation of the talk show. He said this while sharing what he learnt from his conversation with Pastor Bolaji Idowu of Harvesters International Christian Centre. 

In 2017, after suffering backlash and trending on Twitter for days because of his political choice, Chude stumbled upon Oprah and Brene’s conversation on courage. 

On the situation that led to that point, he shared, “I woke up one of those mornings and picked up my phone to find out ‘what are they saying this morning?’ It was horrendous. So I called a team member. I said, ‘Why do they hate me so much?’ He encouraged me, but he wasn’t really speaking to me. So I went to YouTube, and I searched for ‘what to do when people hate you’. The conversation that came up was a conversation between Oprah and Brene Brown on Super Soul Sunday. I listened to the conversation between Oprah and Brene, talking about courage, what to do when you’re in the arena, and people are attacking you. And I tell you, it healed me, it spoke to me, it just covered me. And I said to myself, ‘Wow!’ I said, ‘Wow, I want to have this same kind of conversation. I want somebody to wake up one day and watch my show and feel seen, heard, and covered.’ 

“And that’s where this show came from. It literally came from a place of deep, deep, deep alienation and pain. When I think of the many important things that have happened in my life, many of the most important things in my life have come out of pain,” he added.  

The talk show has been running for over 3 years and is currently ranked as one of the leading talk shows in the region. 

Watch the excerpt here

 


‘Next Level Prayers came out from a place of pain’, Bolaji Idowu shares on #WithChude. 

Bolaji Idowu, Lead Pastor of Harvesters International Christian Center sits with Chude Jideonwo, host of #WithChude to discuss how the viral prayer meeting – Next Level Prayers started, the beginning of his ministry and his near-death experience.  

Sometimes, the best comes out of pain, the gold or gift is in your mess. That’s why you sometimes go through seasons of pain. Next Level Prayer came out from a place of pain. I had just gone through a season where people that were close to me – from my perspective because stories have 2 or 3 sides – betrayed me. I felt disappointed, I felt hurt. There were things that they thought (maybe from their perspective), that was totally not true from my own perspective. And that drove me to a season of prayer. I literally spent maybe about 200 days in the year fasting because I was frustrated. I was broken. All of us are different, the way I was raised was that I depended on people emotionally. Some people don’t have that kind of background but that is the kind of background I have. And if the people you depend on for some reason betray, disappoint, lie, hurt, …I was being ripped apart. At some point, I could say I was suicidal. But the beauty is this, the truth is that the end of yourself has a beginning that is not that place. I began to pray. Of course, I’m a pastor and a lot of that situation had to do with the church. So, I gathered the leaders in the church for us to pray, in the morning. Then one of my pastors said, ‘Why are you only praying with the leaders of this particular church that you’re in, why not pray with all of us?’ and someone said, ‘Why not pray with all the members, after all, we’re home then I began to pray with everybody. It was becoming big, then someone says, ‘Why not put it on a social media platform?’ Then I said okay let’s put it on social media platforms and I remember the first time we were a thousand, I was like ‘Wow, we are a thousand!’ But now we have 500,000 people joining the prayer, we have hundreds of thousands of people that join the prayer right now.” 

“You know, the biggest thing is that while some things can come from a place of ‘God told me’, some other things come from the fact that you’ve gone through a lot. There’s a message in the mess”, he added. 

On focusing on ministering to people’s emotions, he said, “Deep down in my heart, I have a deep desire to help people. When I was going to become a pastor, one of the things I really told God was, ‘Lord, if this is what you want me to do, I don’t want to waste my life. There are many churches. Give me something that I will use to change the lives of people. At the time, there were great churches already. This came from a heart desire to see change. I saw people go to churches for 10 years, ladies in their 40s, they have prayed and yet they are not married. And I can see that it is not about prayer, it is something about their emotions”.   

Pastor Bolaji also shared his near-death experience last year on the show. “I was shot at. It was a huge story; government officials, everybody, reached out to me. Normally, I would wake up at about 3 am or 4 am. I will take a walk and pray for about 2 or 3 hours before I lead Next Level Prayers. I did that on the road because sometimes in the house, you can get tired, I may want to sit down or something. And I was just very close on this major street and this guy just said, ‘Give me your phone.’ And when he said, ‘give me your phone,’ you know, to be sincere I don’t know why I didn’t give him my phone because if I could think, I would give him my phone. But what I responded with was just saying, ‘In the name of Jesus’ and he just shot at me. ‘Kpoa!’ My ears tingled. As soon as he brought the gun, I just turned my back and started running. So, when I got to 2/3 buildings beside there, there was a security guy. So, I said ‘Did you hear the gunshot?’ Because I wanted to be sure I was not dreaming. He said ‘Oh! they heard the gunshot.’ Then I said, ‘Check my back, am I bleeding?’ Because I thought maybe it was the adrenaline that knocked out the pain. But he said I was not bleeding. I had to go to the hospital because my ears had this stretch, and they were like, well the bullets passed by my ears, and the vibration caused the stretch. It’s just another testimony of the faithfulness, the grace and the power of our Lord Jesus Christ at work” 

Watch the excerpt here

 


‘I still think about her every day’, Bovi shares about the loss of his mum, the rise of his career and his relationship with his father on #WithChude.

Nigerian comedian and actor, Bovi Ugboma sits with the host of #WithChude for a special episode to commemorate 15 years of his career in the entertainment industry. On this episode, he discusses his career, his relationship with his parents, and the alleged visa-ban last year.

Sharing about his journey in the entertainment industry, “I always knew from a very young age what I wanted to do and whom I wanted to be. I want to be many things. When I made my first movie in 2015, I was like, ‘okay’. Also, in 2015. Oakfill cast me as a lead character. Along the line, I have gotten so many scripts for other movies, but it is what you call, ‘waka pass’. And I will be polite and say, I’m sorry, I can’t do this. Does that mean I can’t do cameo appearances, no, I just want to do what makes me happy. If my part in the film is not relevant to the story, I would rather that part go to someone who is building a career in acting. I am not oblivious to the fact that some of these guys want me in their movies to drive sales, then it becomes a case of if I must do it then you pay me like I am your lead”.
“There were times I shifted ground in my developmental years of the business. I gave concessions here and there, probably because of friendship or because of what I wanted to go and get from that person or company in the future. So, there is always room to do that. But at some point, in your life, you can tell who doesn’t have your best interest at heart,” he added.
On the allegations that he had a scuffle with a visa issuance officer, he shared, “I didn’t give the exact details of what happened but the long and short is I think the visa officer I met was very unfriendly. So, it blew out of proportion like the way everything went, it escalated in the news, they started to have different versions, ‘oh Bovi got in a scuffle with a visa issuing officer, Bovi is banned from the USA and all.’ How do you even have access to a visa-issuing officer? They’re protected by a glass wall, you know. I was really embarrassed when people started to spin the story. If I remember correctly, all I did was ask him, do you see how many visas I have gotten in the last 10 years? You know because in the last 10 years, I’ve always had 2 American visas, one for work, one for holiday, at the same time and his response was ‘there was a new sheriff in town’ and pushed my passport and my wife’s back and leaned back and picked his jug.”

Bovi also shared about his complicated relationship with his father, “I grew up in a home, but we were not pals. But overtime, I have had the ability to study and know that you can never make anybody responsible for your happiness, neither can you blame everybody for your misfortune. Everybody will answer for themselves. I have grown to point where I am like, my Oldman was doing according to what he knows, probably if he knew more, things would have been different. It’s not like we were always fighting but I don’t want to raise my kids the way I grew up under my old man, so, I am trying to be different”.

On his relationship with his mum before she passed, he shared, “I miss everything about my mum. It’s being 6 years now, but I still think about her every day. There is something that will happen in a day that I will remember, that’s how I know how much impact (she left). Everything I have become is because of her, she taught me how to read at a very young age, how to be compassionate, be very empathetic, she taught me to let go”.

Watch the excerpt here


‘I lost about 500 million opening a non-smoking club’, AY shares about business, love and loss #WithChude. 

Nigerian Comedian and Filmmaker Ayo Makun, widely known as AY sits with Chude Jideonwo, host of #WithChude to discuss how he found his way to Lagos and built a powerful multi-industry brand, why he shares a powerful bond with his wife and why he had spent 9 years in the university. 

On his journey to building a multi-industry brand, he shared, “I have always been an all-encompassing show-biz person. Right from when I was working at NNPC Junior Staff Club. While I was a student at Delta State University, I was always an organizer. I used to organize campus beauty pageants and campus awards night. As at the time, I was a student, the pageantry I was putting together was giving out a car. This is to let you know how authentic and how solid I have been as an organizer. My strong point has always been me being an organizer. I have been in that space for a long time. What really worked for me was when I invited Ali Baba to Delta State University to be a major part of my event. And then, he was very impressed by every arrangement. He looked at me and said, ‘Your sense of packaging is very solid, what are you doing after school?’, maybe you should come to Lagos’. That was how I found myself in Lagos. I was first his personal assistant, then under two years I was promoted to his event manager. We will run shows, and I brought my own vibe into the system, and I became his favorite. The solid point for the AY brand was my background as an organizer. It was easy to put my first show together and be able to steer up an apathetic audience.”   

He also shared his bid to start a non-smoking nightclub and how it failed, “I am passion driven, when I set aside to achieve certain set goals, I go all the way. All of these come from researching that particular work, it comes from dedicating my time towards that (goal). I am one of those people that do not want to fail for any reason. I know that the minute I make that decision, a lot of people are also looking forward to what the outcome will be. I woke up one day and I said to myself, ‘it’s time to open a nightclub’, ‘AY, if you can gather 6,000 people at Eko Hotel, what’s in a club that you can’t just gather 100 to 200 people buying drinks?’. I think God just wanted me to know that ‘this one is not your calling’, ‘you are the one calling yourself’. It is good to have the right partner, my wife was strongly against it. I said, ‘No, it is good for networking and PR‘. Shout out to all the guys who are doing it and getting it right. But I thought then that when I come, I am just going take all of them out of the market. It was a huge investment running to about 500 million naira. We put everything in place, the staff strength was solid, the interior was crazy and I will go there every Friday, I will look at the door and I am not seeing people coming. The opening was grand and massive. I started with a non-smoking club; I didn’t know that all these things go together. The wise ones will call me, and I will tell them that sometimes when I take my wife to the club, when we get back her hair will be smelling of smoke, and women should have their wigs neat’. Long story short, I saw my ‘period’, it was very bad. 

AY also shared why he spent 9 years in university, “I gained admission into Delta State University to study Music. After I put in for JAMB, I went to Mass Communication Department, I didn’t see my name. Someone said, ‘we saw your name in music’, I was like I didn’t put in for music. There was the gist back then, that if you accept the course, you were offered and you take electives in your course of choice, once you are in two hundred level, they will let you go. I was a complete idiot from year one. I hated the department, and the department hated me because I kept saying I was not supposed to be there. When it was time to let me go, they said we were just 8 in the department that ‘if we start changing everybody, it means we will not have anybody’. Then, in my final year, I just woke up and said I wasn’t doing this anymore. This time, I chose theatre arts.  Then, calamity struck again. I was in love with this lady at that time, she was the cynosure of all eyes. It wasn’t even interesting to fellow students that I was dating her. One lecturer will say, “I will not pass you till you do this or that, and then I had the boldness to go to a lecturer’s office to bang the table. All of a sudden, I didn’t know where the trouble was coming from.” He narrated how his studentship was rendered invalid, and how he had to restart the courses before he could graduate.   

On the bond he shares with his wife, he said, “She connected with my story from the very beginning. When you have that type of connection and there is a vacuum somewhere, you see yourself as the person who can fill the void. You come with your own grace, coupled with the existing grace, when you have that merger, it is fire. The bond is there, and it is something we need to thank God for”. Addressing the comments from bloggers and commenters that his marriage is not going turn out beautiful, he said, “the people who do that do not even know the story of ‘these people’, they don’t know that woman has had series of miscarriages, was supposed to have the opportunity to have her baby in her hands but the baby passed. They don’t know the families were crying and waiting upon the Lord, you just wake up, and you just say to yourself, ‘who will I attack today, who will I depress today’. Then you begin to choose people because their lives are out there”.  

Watch the full interview here


‘I see a new Nigeria rising’, Bishop Feyi Daniels shares on #WithChude.

Nigerian Pastor, Bishop Feyi Daniels, the lead pastor of iReign Christian Family, sits with the host of #WithChude, Chude Jideonwo to discuss his graphic prophecy on the recently concluded elections and the sexual abuse allegations made against him last year. 

On the prophecy that broke the internet, he shared, “The prophecy is way more than what I put on the internet. The vision and visitations were about 7 hours. When I detailed it in the church it took about 1 hour. That Sunday, I couldn’t preach, I was just on prophecy. The way the internet is, nobody is ready to watch when something is long. So, we had to bring about 9/10 minutes of that prophecy to the public as the Lord led me. I see a New Nigeria rising and I believe strongly that Peter Obi will make that possible for Nigeria, God will use him to make it possible for Nigeria. I know that is the goal of the prophecy, that was why God revealed it and that is why we are speaking it. Because when something is revealed and not said it doesn’t carry the same weight in the realm of the spirit until it is spoken because there is power in sound”.  

“There is a part of the prophecy that is kept for a time in the future, even though my congregation heard it. Already I have received all kinds of life-threatening messages; I have not been to church in two weeks, my location is private because of the sensitivity of the message that was delivered. Imagine that I released everything, maybe I will not be in Nigeria at all”, he added.   

He also reacted to sexual abuse allegations made against him last year, ‘If you notice, there are no public statements from me on that issue and the reason is that I was trained to respond to controversies with silence. The issue didn’t start now, it started way back. I was invited to preach somewhere, after being hosted, by the time I got into my room, I met a lady. I thought I had gotten into the wrong room; I look to my right and I saw my things.  As I turned back, I saw a camera behind me. I am athletic, so I turned immediately and went after the guy holding the camera. The guy fell down, I punched him (it’s not good to punch people) and broke the camera. So, the person that was used for that, later went to the media and the case got to the police station but till today the case is without merit, I just moved on with my life. If the case was with merit, I should be in jail.”   

Watch the excerpts from the interview here

 


‘I do not have anything against Bobrisky’ Tosin Silverdam, Daniel Regha sit #WithChude

Chude Jideonwo, host of #WithChude sits with social media commentator, Daniel Regha and popular gossip blogger, Tosin Silverdam.

On how he got into gossip blogging, Tosin shared, ‘I was into blogging online back then, but then I stopped. I got a job at a pharmacy as a social media manager, and things weren’t going so well like that. Then I got a job at Dufil Prima, the makers of Indomie and I was transferred to Kano. I didn’t know anybody in Kano, so I had to go to Kano to start my life over. During the pandemic, people were doing TikTok, so I said, ‘let me try TikTok’. I didn’t know how to dance, but I was doing the normal challenge. One day I decided to do something different that will shake the internet, I just said, ‘5 celebrities that I don’t like’, and just like that it went viral.

Speaking about why he thinks he doesn’t contribute to the toxicity on the internet, Daniel Regha said, “I air honest opinion. Even the haters know that what I am doing is right, otherwise, they should use the block button. Personally, I do not care if my followers drop to 100,000 today. If I can put brands that I work with on blast, why will I care about ordinary following? I would rather have 4,000 legit followers than have people who are stalking me looking for what I am going to wear next to call me and just insult me.”

He also shared how he developed a thick skin to what people think of him, ‘I think I just grew into it. There was a time I was looking for people’s approval on certain things, especially when I was in school. But at one time, I was like, ‘you can’t please people and at the same time, while trying to please people I will end up displeasing myself’.

On his persistent quarrel with the popular cross-dresser, Bobrisky, Tosin said, “I do not have anything against them (Bobrisky). Bobrisky is content. I met Bobrisky in Khloe’s place. Bobrisky came late, so Khloe was like I should wait for Bobrisky, I should see him and we must settle. I was like how many celebrities will I settle with because even if I settle with them today, I will still talk about them. He came in late, he was supposed to sit beside me but he said ‘I can’t sit down beside that guy, he always talks about me’. So, Khloe said I should talk to him. I met with him, and he wasn’t upset by some things I said about him. He said, I called him a liar that he doesn’t lie, and I was comparing him with Papaya and all that, that was the only thing he said, but I can go ahead and talk about him, but I shouldn’t say he or she is a liar”.

On the business of gossip, he shared, “I don’t care what people say, as long as I am making my money. This is just for a period of time, then I will delve into something else”.

Watch the excerpts from the interview here

 


Chude Jideonwo Presents: The Factual Film & Series Studio releases A Lagos Election Special titled: Eko l’ on pe bi (This is Lagos).

As the gubernatorial elections in Lagos State draw near, Chude Jideonwo Presents, producers of ‘Awaiting Trial’ and ‘Gen Z goes to vote’ releases Eko l’o npe bi, a Lagos Election special. The series feature interviews with the candidates running for governor, providing an in-depth look into their backgrounds, political parties, and plans for the state.

“On 11th of March, 2023, voters in Lagos including myself, will be coming out to select the next governor of Lagos, the person who will lead this state from 2023 to 2027. In this special series we are calling ‘Eko l’o npe bi’, we are supposed to be interviewing the 4 leading candidates. We have Abdul-Azeez Olajide Adediran “Jandor”, the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, the candidate of the Labour Party, Olufunso Doherty the candidate of the African Democratic Congress”, said Chude Jideonwo who is executive producer and director.

“The incumbent governor of Lagos State, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Babajide Sanwo-Olu made a commitment to me to make this interview, unfortunately, there were scheduling conflicts before we had to publish”, he added.

The interview series is available on withchude.com

Watch the excerpts from the interview here:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CpW2XQLjAgK/?hl=en


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