Followers of the Nigerian movie industry in the 90s and early 2000s will remember Hilda Dokubo for her role as a television sweetheart. After a few years’ hiatus, the thespian says that she has returned to the movie scene with her role in the advocacy movie, Stigma. Standing elegant as she advances in age, she talks about the negative effects of stigmatisation. She also encourages young people who have had to deal with one setback or the other, while she talks about family, career and her beauty routine in this interview with OVWE MEDEME.
WHAT is so unique about Stigma? The issue of HIV has been discussed over and over again but not stigmatisation. People have done movies about how we can contract HIV and living with the ailment, but we have hardly done anything on what happens after people have contracted the virus and how to deal with living with it and how people deal with living with it. Stigmatisation is a killer. It just means rejection as a result of it. And when people reject you, it is the same as showing you hate.
So when people show you hate, you can’t grow. Hate is a negative energy. You can’t tap any kind of strength from rejection or from hate. But you can tap a lot of strength from love and that is what is special about this. We have two characters in the film script, a mother and a child. One dies as a result of rejection. The other lives and even achieves more as a result of love.
In your own view, what is rejection?
Rejection is when somebody says to you, you have this ailment, this disease or this defect and the first thing that comes to their mind is that you are going to die. Then you begin to feel sorry for yourself, you feel sorry about the life that you have lived, about the life you are going to live and the people that you will leave behind when you go. That self-pity stage is a stage that can destroy anyone. At that point, you condemn yourself. It doesn’t matter whether people are condemning you, as long as you don’t condemn yourself. It is a difficult thing to deal with when you have so much hate around you. It is difficult for you not to condemn yourself. It is difficult for you not to hate yourself.
Is this movie your own way of coming back to the industry?
Yes, it is a comeback.
Are you working on any project now?
I am actually working on two projects. I’m working on my talk show right now and I’m working on another movie. As a matter of fact, I’m working on two scripts back-to-back. When I’m done with one, I’ll move on to the next one. Everybody knows that you must wait for me to finish one and move on to the second one.
At some point, you left the movie industry for politics. Why did you make that move?
I didn’t go into politics, I held a political office.
But a lot of people were expecting you to run for a political office…
Maybe at some point, I might. When I left the industry, it wasn’t to go into politics. When I left, it was that I wanted to give back to the society. When I left, it was to work with young people, and that is what I did. It was in working with young people that I got appointed as a Special Assistant. I held that political office, I did my work and I’m grateful that by the example that I left, entertainers are today being given political offices to run. If I had messed up that role, nobody would call any entertainer to hold any assignment because I was the first person to be given that role. I thank God that I left a good example and now when governors speak they say give them, they know how to do this.
How seriously are you considering contesting?
Right now, I’m not. But I’m not God. I don’t know what tomorrow would bring.
Do you think it is right for artistes to openly support political parties?
It is their conviction. If you are convinced about something, you can do it openly or closely. If I can publicly say that I am a born again Christian, the same way, I can publicly say I am a pagan. It is my conviction. If there is a political figure that you love and trust and you agree with his or her ideology, yes, you can do that.
Have you had any negative experience that you think people can learn from?
I’ve been through several hells and I’ve been out of all the hells. When you lose your father as a child, then you would understand what it means to live with pain, especially if you grew up like me who was a daddy’s girl, whose major source of strength is your father. I grew up being a daddy’s girl. Until my father died, my mum and I were in the house as mother and daughter.
My relationship was with my father. So, if you are out there and you suddenly wake up one morning and that source of everything that you have is removed from you, be strong. I was only nine at the time. Be strong because there is strength inside of you. If you give up, you may never find out why that happened. You may never know how strong you are. You may never know the quality of your character because you are who you are by what you do when no one expects.
Does the experience in any way affect the way you relate with your children?
Oh yes, it affects the way that I look at young people. When I’m dealing with my children, I prepare them for eventualities. When I’m dealing with young people, I prepare them for eventualities because anything can happen. You don’t let what has happened stop you. Keep moving. You will get there.
Aside acting, what else do you do?
I run an organisation called Create. It encourages people to create something. It is called the Centre for Creative Arts Education. We use creative arts to empower young people and women. We teach them how to think creatively, how to create their own work, how to create the businesses that they want, create the situation that they want and how to use every single talent that they have to create their own world.
What activities have you carried out so far?
We are running a school. If you go online, we have the fourth best innovative training institution in Nigeria out of 298 institutions. That is not a joke. We are rated as the best creativity education centre in West Africa and we are still pushing on. We empower 60 women every year and we do it religiously. We find them and we empower them. Our best criterion is your willingness to survive. Once you show us that you are willing to survive, we will give you a lifeline.
After all these years, you still look radiant. What is the secret?
I think it has been God. It is all about grace. I drink plenty of water and I live very healthy, I must confess. I don’t drink alcohol, I don’t keep late nights and I don’t worry at all. I never do that. I rest well when I need to rest. I play. I’m a very happy person. I don’t brood over anything. If you annoy me, I tell you on the spot. I forgive you on the spot and I move on.
In fact, I have a lot that I take for myself. It is a personal principle. I forgive everybody in advance. So before you annoy me, I have forgiven you. The reason I do that is; I’m not forgiving you because of you. I’m forgiving you because of me. I need to be happy. If I don’t forgive you, I will keep battling with anger inside of me. So, for my sake, I forgive in advance. When you annoy me, I look at you and walk away. I deal with a lot of children and I hear when you play with children, you stay happy.
How does your family cope when you are away on set?
I am very grateful to God for what I have and I pray that God will give a lot of people the kind of family that I have. I have a very supportive family. They know that part of what is keeping me alive and makes me very happy is my work.
So they are very encouraging about my work. We have also created for ourselves what we call our time. At our time, we are off. Meaning off without our phones, meaning off without distractions. It is my family quality time. When it is my family quality time, it is my family quality time and I use it to the fullest.
It has been two years since you reconciled with your husband. How has it been?
We thank God. It is fine. God is doing what only God can do. There were no regrets in the beginning, there can’t be any regrets now.
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