Nigerian Movie Star Profile
Shan George
A lot has been written about popular actress, Shan George.
But for the first time ever, the lady tells her life story to
Daily Sun.
This is the story of a survivor, a woman that
took her destiny in her hands and, against all odds, rose to
fame and stardom.
During the interview, Shan George broke
down in tears, and the reporter could not stop the tears from
flowing from her own eyes. This is her life story in her own
words:
In the beginning
Life
started for me in the village, in a small village called Ediba
in Abi local government area of Cross-River State. My mum
worked as a nurse in one of the local hospitals. She is now
retired. My father was an expatriate from England with a
company called Turners Asbestos in Emene, Enugu State, before
he died. The company is now known as Emenite. It produces
roofing sheets and water pipes. After the death of my father,
my mother left Enugu to go back and live in my village where I
grew up.
My parents used to live at No. 2 Nwodo Close
inside the G.R.A. in Enugu, and I was getting close to my 5th
birthday when I lost my father.
My mother was so
heartbroken when she lost my father, my grand-mother then
insisted she comes back to my village to live. Back in the
village, my mother worked as a nurse in the local hospital
across the river in Etigidi.
My mother never got over
my father, I am my mother’s only child and she still lives in
the village, she only comes to Lagos now and then to visit me.
My mother put all her effort in taking care of me, and also
thought it was important for me to be educated. I had my
primary and secondary education in the village.
Village
life, when I was between the ages of 8 and 12 years old, was a
lot of fun for me. How I used to climb trees and mountains
with my school-mates on our way back from school. How we used
to swim in the stream, how you don’t get to eat lunch until
you get to the farm after school and lunch, for me then, was
roasted yam.
Sometimes when I look back at what my life
was as a young girl growing up in the village, sometimes I get
an image of a young girl who deserves better. But then it was
fun. I knew no other life. Here I was, half-caste, born by a
British expatriate, living in a village that had no
electricity. My mother worked very hard to send me to school,
provided me with the little comfort that she could, I remember
as a young girl I had my own bed. But all the other basic
amenities like having a generator, a television set were
luxuries that my mother could not afford. I remember how I
used to go to watch television in neighbour’s houses. And how
I used to dream of becoming somebody some day. I actually
wanted to become a lawyer as a young girl. And I wanted so
much to become somebody great in the society, and I used to
fantasize about how someday, I am going to marry a governor or
a president, so that I can become a first lady, just like the
wives of the presidents and governors that I sometimes see on
my neigbour’s television set.
I was an Oyibo girl, who knew
nothing about the Western world, and I had this big ambition
to be great someday. How to go about it then, I did not know.
But I just kept on dreaming, and hoped it
happens.
Early marriage
It is the
norm in my village then that young girls get married off
between the age of 15 to 17. If you don’t get a suitor by the
age of 17, you are like a leftover. And back then, in my
village, they didn’t see it as a wise investment to send girls
to school. After all, a girl changes her name to that of her
husband immediately she gets married and whatever she becomes
thereafter is to her husband’s name and glory. So why waste
your money educating a girl child? And I thank my mother who
insisted I pass through secondary school before I got married.
So, when I was getting close to my 16th birthday, I got
married. I was really excited about the marriage proposal
then, to me as a young girl growing up in a village without
electricity, getting married and going to live in "township"
then was very exciting. "Township" then as we used to call
places where there is electricity, cars, television, executive
sitting chairs, to us then in the village, was paradise. I
can’t say I was forced into marriage then, I was actually
excited at the prospect of leaving the village for paradise.
But I realised later that not all that glitters is gold. I
left the village for the so-called paradise, for me to find
out that it wasn’t a paradise after all. And things didn’t
work out the way I thought they would.
Maybe if I
didn’t get married that early in life, maybe things would have
been different. Because I now know everything has its time and
season. One needs to be mature and ready for marriage.
Although my ex-husband is older, there was no cordiality in
the marriage. We had a traditional marriage and I left the
village to live with him. As a young girl, I had high hopes of
going to the university to read Law.
Four years into the
marriage with two kids, and no talk about me going back to
school, to become that person that I wanted to be, I became an
unhappy persons. Suddenly, I realised that if I stayed on in
that marriage, I will never realise my dreams. And I was not
happy in that marriage. At a point, my marriage was like a
stumbling block to my success in life. So, I knew I had to do
something about it. After six years in that marriage, I woke
up one morning on the 6th of May 1991, with N2,400 in my bag.
I left my husband’s house in Ojodu.
I did not head for
the village this time around. I had left with my kids before
then for my village. But my mother asked me questions about
how my ex-husband was treating me, and my replies were
positive ones. Was I being maltreated by him? I replied no. So
my mother was not in support of me staying back in the village
with my kids, she insisted I had to go back to my husband. So,
I realised then that I just couldn’t go back to my mother in
the village this time around. I knew if I had to leave, I had
to go somewhere else, definitely not my village.
My
first son was born in November 1986, my second son was born
November 1988. In 1991, when I left my husband’s house, they
were so young, I never wanted to leave without them. But I
knew I couldn’t take the kids with me. I had nowhere to go, so
taking the children with me to an unknown destination will be
putting then through a lot of hardship. And I had no means of
taking care of them. So, I prayed that morning for God’s
forgiveness.
We had just moved to Ojodu then. I think
we moved to Ojodu in Lagos in 1990. So, I was very new in
Lagos, I had no friends or family I could go stay with. But I
was determined, so I was going round Lagos, looking for work
and hoping that I would come across anybody from my village
that could be of assistance. That night, I slept in a small
hotel. I can’t remember exactly how much I paid at the hotel
per night, but the N2,400 I had with me lasted just for four
days. As God will have it on that 4th day, I met somebody I
knew while in the village. Her name is Mrs. Betcy Ukoh. I ran
into her somewhere around Fola Agoro in Shomolu where her
fashion house was located. She now lives in Abidjan,
Cote’d’Ivoire with her family. It was amazing and I was so
excited and she was happy to see me. I explained my situation
to her, and she offered to take me in. When I left my
husband’s house in Ojodu, I did not leave with any of my
things. What I had was just the one dress I had on. And
throughout those four days I was going round Lagos, I had that
dress on. At night, I wash it in the hotel I was staying,
spread it under the fan to dry till the following morning. So,
when my aunty took me in, the first thing she did was to make
me a skirt and blouse from the leftover fabrics she had in her
shop. And that was what I wore for the first few days that I
stayed with her. I learned how to sew from her and she used to
send me to some of her customers in corporate offices that
can’t find the time to come to her shop to take their orders.
And she was always sending me to Tejuoso Market to buy fabrics
that she intends to sew for her customers. And that was how I
got into fashion. After some time, I started saving the little
money I was making towards buying G.C.E. forms. I got enough
money to sit for my G.C.E, I passed, and the following year I
sat for JAMB exams. I did not make my JAMB that year, but I
did the following year.
After two years of living with
my aunt, I left her place to get a one room accommodation
somewhere in Obanikoro. And that was how I started sewing on
my own. After some time, I was able to save enough to open a
boutique and up till date, I still run the boutique. My
boutique is called SHANDEL, it’s a combination of my name and
that of my first son. My boutique is located in Jibowu, my
shop by the special grace of God is stocked with the latest
fashion trend. Then I used to get goods from people that
travel abroad to put in my shop. I couldn’t afford to pay
outright, I used to take the goods on sales on return. And
when I get little money then, I used to travel to Cotonou to
buy things to put in the shop.
In 1996, I got a letter of
admission to University of Lagos to read Mass Communication.
It was the happiest day of my life. I was overwhelmed with
joy. I held the letter and tears of joy dropped from my
eyes.
Later, I realised I didn’t have enough to pay my
tuition fees. I had to pay N12,000 and all I had then was N8
in my account. While I was working with my aunt, I met a lot
of people from my village but I didn’t socialise with them,
because I was always busy working for my aunt. One of them was
my mother’s brother who is a customs officer. I went to see
him, and he offered to help. He gave me N5,000. And there was
this other man who is also from my village, his name is Mr.
Omini, he was working with N.N.P.C then. I don’t know if he
still does. I have made a lot of effort to reach him. I hope
he reads this. I really, really want to get in touch with him.
He gave me N2,000. (At this point, Shan’s voice quivers and
tears rolled down her face).
While I was running
around looking for money to pay my tuition fees into the
university, I was also looking out for any job opportunity. My
boutique was not doing well then, so I decided I needed to get
a paid job to support whatever I was making from the
boutique.
Luckily for me, I got a job working behind the
camera at N.T.A. on Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island. And
later, Sadiq Daba gave me a role to play in Winds of Destiny,
and I was paid N1,000 per episode. That was in
1997.
While acting in Winds of Destiny, I got my first
home movie role in the late Jennifer Ossai’s movie titled,
Thorns of Rose. My sister, Blessing Eremi, who played Wakanga
in NTA’s rested soap, Fortune, introduced me to Jennifer. I
had to stop my behind the camera work at NTA because of my
studies, and later, I got a major role in After The Storm, a
television drama which ran on N.T.A. Tunde Adesina gave me a
big role, so I got a better fee.
After the Storm was
rested after a while, so, I just concentrated on school. And
that was how I started writing my own script while in
school.
In my final year at the university, I produced my
own movie titled, All For Winnie. Later, I was able to raise
enough money to travel abroad on business trips. And the first
country I travelled to in Europe was
Paris.
British citizen
My father
was a British expatriate and because my mother was too
devastated after his death, when she left Enugu, she didn’t
even think of keeping any document for future references as
regards my father.
All she had was his photograph. So, at a
point in my life, out of curiosity of wanting to know who my
father was, I went in search of the company he worked with in
Enugu. And that was how I got to know that the company’s name
had been changed from Turners Asbestos to Eminite. I found my
father’s name in what was left as the ‘company’s record. And I
was able to get the company’s address in Manchester, United
Kingdom. I sent a lot of letters to the company, but I never
got a responce. And the telephone number I got from the
company’s record was also no longer in service.
My
father’s name, Gordon Walker George, was on the company’s
record. I have reached out to a lot of organisations that
could help trace my father’s relatives. I also tried Red Cross
because I heard they are good at uniting lost families, but no
positive response came from them. I didn’t inform my mother
before I went to Enugu in search of the company my father
worked with. But I later told her what I found out. And she
was not pleased that I was going around trying to gather
information about a dead man.
She sees no point in the
search, especially now that I am famous and am doing so well
for myself. A lot of websites that I tried on the internet
could not help because I don’t know my father’s date of birth
and place of birth. There was a time that I logged onto a
website called something ancestral and called all the Gordon
Walker George listed, but nothing came up.
Someday, I
intend to go to the company’s address that I had written to in
Manchester, and find out why I didn’t get a reply to my
letters. So, right now, I don’t know how to go about the
British citizenship.
Okey Basassi
I
met Okey Bakassi at a public function in 1998, then I was
still in school. We started out as friends, I was very new in
the movie industry then and Okey was the only friend I
had.
We were friends before we became lovers and he put me
through a lot of things. He had been in the movie industry
before me. And he had produced several movies, so I learnt a
lot from him.
The relationship came to an end because
at that time, I was not so keen on marriage. I had just come
out of one marriage and I wasn’t ready to get into another one
so soon. Coupled with the fact that we were both struggling
artists. So we were not talking marriage. At a point, the
affair just faded away naturally, no quarrel.
But what
we had was a good, honourable relationship that lasted for
three years, and in an industry like ours that a relationship
that lasts for two months is a big deal.
My new
husband
I met my present husband Anthony Nwosisi
in England in 2002 and we met through a friend.
For me, it
was love at first sight. In fact, I fell in love with him on
the phone before we met physically. He called my friend I was
with while in London, and she told him on the phone that I was
in London and with her. He asked to speak with me, and
immediately he said hi on the phone, my heart just skipped a
beat. And we went on chatting like we’ve known each other for
long, and that was how we exchanged numbers. And when we met
physically, it was like magic. Well, the rest is history. I
know there has been so much negative things written about us
not being together in some soft sell magazines.
And I
will like to set the record straight. We are together and we
intend to be together till kingdom come. Or like my husband
used to say, till eternity. My husband lives in England and
that’s why I shuttle between Lagos and England a lot. But he
is planning on re-locating back to Nigeria very soon. Yes, he
was once married with two kids, a boy and a girl. I love and
respect him a lot as my husband and he has always been there
for me. We got married traditionally, and he means the world
to me.
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