had a lot of Islamic clerics who came to pray for me and when they left, I would still go to my room to read the Bible. “I think my conviction was in the Bible. It got to a stage that my children would be laughing. They would say, ‘Daddy, choose one’. But I did not want to pick like you said, because of Fuji. It has Islamic origin, my background, how would my family feel? “I didn’t want to offend this; I didn’t want to offend that but I discovered that religion or belief has nothing to do with your musical life and no one says we are listening to your music because of your personal life or so.” On the significance of his golden jubilee, he said life now has a different meaning to him, as he now takes each day as it comes, focuses on God and takes things easy. “I thank God because it’s a big opportunity. It’s only God that can make one get to that age. I thank God for His mercy over my life and I am grateful to God for the door of understanding that He opened to me. I am always conscious of the fact that we did not come to this world with anything and we are not going with anything,” he said. “I see life as a very simple thing now; I am not in a haste or say I must have this, I must have that. The important thing to me is that I need to enjoy myself. That is key. If care is not taken, you will just keep on looking for this, you want to become that, till you get to your old age and just die or you begin to regret when you get to 70 or 80 that I have never been to Dubai for holiday, I only go there to perform or I have never been to London for two weeks holiday, I only go there to perform. When you go to a place to perform, it’s your work, so you must arrange a date that oh, I am going to London for holiday. I take my children on holiday and it’s not work, work, and work. Now that I am 50, I will do more of that.” He also spoke on the choice of his wife, a south-easterner whom he met in the United States, and how his parents accepted her without prejudice to her ethnic origin. “God connected me with my wife. I saw my wife in New York at my school’s Cafeteria, and I told my friend who was beside me, that is my wife,” he said. “We returned to eating our food and by the time we raised our heads, it was the lady who was standing in front of us. She asked if we were Nigerians, and we answered in the affirmative. Then she asked us to go to room 202 that we were trying to gather and all that. Eventually, we introduced ourselves and I discovered she lived two buildings from my house and that was how God did it. “I thank God because, my parents didn’t care [that she is Igbo]. When I took her to my mother, she greeted her but she could not respond, then I told my mum that my wife did not understand Yoruba. She held her head and prayed for her. That was all.” On managing advances from female fans, he said: “Let me tell you, it takes two to tango. Everything comes with a compliment. Things that will take you down start with a compliment and things that will take you up come with a compliment; it’s for you to decide which one you want to do. “Okay, you see a lady telling you Mr. Johnson, I love the way you dress and so on. You say ‘thank you’ and you did not even wait. I have not seen a man that was raped. If you don’t take a woman to a corner, nothing can happen. Some people would say because I am a public figure, they want to date me and there is nothing I can do. It’s a pure lie. It takes two to tango.”
