You may remember him for grabbing the headlines after naming his twins ‘Nollywood’ and ‘Hollywood’ in 2014 — but nowadays, actor, Femi Ogedengbe, is making waves for another reason.
Ogedengbe now resides in the US alongside his family whom he supports through his full-time job as a security guard.
According to the one-time Nollywood star, it’s a job he is proud to have, especially as he has achieved more in over a year than he did in the 20 years he served as an actor, director and movie producer.
Reacting to the recent online interest over his new choice of career, Ogedengbe said in a YouTube post: “Oh yes! I am now a security guard in the USA and so what? Well, I have only been doing this for a little more than one year now and I can boldly say without any shame that what I have achieved in my father’s land being an actor/director/producer for over (20+) twenty-something years.
“In fact, the stories about most pan-Africa Leaders like Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Robert Mugabe and a host of the generation after them were all involved in one menial job or the other across western countries to support their education. But today, we can only remember them for being great African leaders and not for the dirty jobs they had to do on their road to greatness. Indeed the end justifies the means.
“A truly hungry man is not in the position to score the quality or sweetness of a meal since near every meal will be delicious in his mouth, so also I may not be in the best position to tell the world the perfect meaning of success.
“So kindly indulge me when I make a declaration that, I have been blessed by God and have been extremely successful in my own definition of that word, if only you all can see things from my point.
“Yes! If only you know where I am coming from then you will agree that I have truly been blessed, if only you know the odds against me growing up then you will appreciate where I am today, if only you know what I have had to pull through, you will bless God on my behalf, if only you know half of my story you will celebrate me even as a gardener today.”
Ogedengbe has started a YouTube video-series to air his two-cents on Nigeria’s challenges.