Comedian Cyril Ugege professionally known as Osama Akpunonu, lost his wife and best friend Mildred Maurice, in March 26, 2022, just 10 months after they got married. Since then, he has not found love again. He shares this and many more life issues in this exclusive interview.
What are you up to now. I know this is a busy season for you people
Yes . This is a more lucrative season for us more than the other years. This is because more than other years, it falls within the campaign season. The politicians will be very liberal with their money.
This is the season that sometimes during morning devotions, politicians can come as special guests. They take advantage of any gathering now just to convince people to vote for them. That’s how selfish they can be. It’s only when it concerns them that they show interest. We are watching all that will be unfolding.
So, you are waiting for them to call you up for endorsement or campaign?
No.I have a platform called People ‘s Movement and the principal motive of that platform is to hold our leaders accountable and draw their attention to their civic responsibilities.
I am a great and strong supporter of Gov. Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau State, who is like a father to me. If you check my antecedent, I don’t support who I cannot criticised. I can’t be your friend if I can’t tell you the truth. If I see something, I will say something.
The programme you have, is it the same thing with voice of brain mouth piece.
This one, I am on radio on Jay 101.9 Fm, Jos, Plateau, State. . I have my Facebook platform which I call People ‘s Movement, where we hold leaders accountable. What I do is that I travel round Plateau State, all those rural areas. I tell them we are supervising our votes, getting to know how our votes are working.
So, I go round the projects the Governor has done, supervising and policing his projects across Plateau. When I go to any project maybe in the rural area, I will engage the locals there. I will tell him, “Your Excellency, I am your eyes and will not lie to you. They say work has not been going on in this project for sometime. You will not see everything, but if I see something, I will say something. Your excellency, tell the contractor to come back”. Most of the contractors and government officials are not politicians and they are not happy because I expose what’s happening.
How has government officials been taking it because you are spoiling business for them?
Yes, I have a personal relationship with the Governor. In December 2025, when I met with him, he told me that my platform is always on his notification. There’s a particular road called Farin Gada Road in Jos North. All the years I stayed in the University of Jos, they didn’t do that road and we suffered a lot during the rainy season.
I started this platform last year March and I started with that bad road. With the first video that gave birth to this platform, the Governor came to do the road. I videod the road and updated the people with what was happening. I gave it the name Project Report Tour, PRT. At each point, I moved round and gave the people update on the road. After the supervision, I laid down on the road.
When the Governor saw the video, he sent for me and told me that my page is on his phone notification, he sees everything I post. He said, “I will advise you as a father, this truth you are known for, don’t deviate from it”. He said, he gets to see a lot of things that his people are not telling him through my platform.
Some of the contractors and other government officials don’t like what I am doing. There was a time some nurses came to my platform to complain about their welfare and the way they were being treated. Two days later, the Commissioner of Health called me and said, he wants to explain his own side of the story. I told him why don’t you send someone to come and explain, which is ‘Right of Reply. He said he will do that .
The next day, he said; he will come himself and I was happy. When he came, he told me it was the Governor that sent my video to him and asked him to reach out to me. Any video I do, I always see the impact. I have correspondents all across the local governments feeding me with information. We are their watchdogs.
Have you received any death threat in the course of doing this work?
I have received several death threats and I am used to it because it has been like that since the last administration. I was bringing out the weak points of the former Governor Solomon Lalung. It was the people in Governor Lalung’s cabinet that were giving me the information.
These politicians don’t like themselves.
When Gov. Mutfwang wanted to cross over to APC, a lot of people protested against that. I said, this APC in Plateau is by force marriage. They feed with long spoons because they suspect themselves. I told them on my platform that I suspect serious anti party moves in Plateau APC next year.
Is this why they call you the servant of the North?
They used to call me king of the North, but I changed it because King has a palace, but I don’t have one. I changed it to servant of the North. It’s not everyone that can do this kind of work that we are doing today. It’s only someone that has the mind and the passion. Two years from now I will be 50, I am 48 this year. I am 28 years in the stand up comedy industry.
It gets to a point where the question will be, how will your brand give back to the society? At the level I am, I am not looking for validation or engagement. I am not a content creator. How do my platform affect positively the people that helped build the brand. We are voice of the voiceless.
Tell us about your journey from Ibadan to Edo state to NIger state and Plateau State
I was born in Ibadan, my parents relocated to Ibadan in 1976 after they got married because that’s where my father used to work. From there, they transferred him to Kainji New Bussa in Niger State. I did my primary school there.
Thereafter my father said I can’t speak our local language, he brought me back to Edo State. I then schooled at Annunciation Catholic College, Edo State, where I stayed with my father’s immediate elder brother. I did JSS 1-3 and about to do SS1, but he advised my father that I should be moved from the school because it’s an all boys school.
My uncle is a pastor of Church of God Mission, Edo State. My uncle advised my father to take me away from the school because it’s an all boys school. He said, he wasn’t really comfortable with me being there . It was a minor missionary school and my father wanted me to be a reverend father. My father removed me from there and sent me to Mount Camel College, Kwara State, where I did my SS1- SS3. I am from a core Catholic family.
My Dad was a lay reader and a church warden. I finished secondary school went back to Kainji, I got admission at Federal Polytechnic Bida, Niger State in 1997.
I finished Secondary school 1996. So my first encounter with comedians Baskethmouth, Julius Agwu and DJ Jimmy Jatt was when they came for Condom campus tour in Bida, Niger state. I participated and I won because they were giving out packs of condom.
It was then I discovered I had this comedy talent. I was studying business administration at Polytechnic. Before your HND, you will do your one year IT. It was at that time that our neighbour in the same Kainji was doing Theatre Arts at University of Jos .
Anything he comes back for holiday, he will be giving us gist and I became interested. I asked him how do I study theatre arts because my passion is in entertainment.
When my father found out I wanted to pursue a course in theatre arts , he was angry because he believes his son cannot do such course. Thank God for my mother. She agreed to help because she was a tailor. And my friend also agreed to pay for my transport fare to Jos. During the first session, I was not able to gain admission and that was how I became a non academic student because I was waiting for the supplementary list.
So while waiting, I joined the schools orchestra and was part of th drummers and I gradually became popular. From there, I started mounting the stage to crack jokes and that was how they named me Osama Bin UJ. That was how I got the name. The admission didn’t come out but I have become popular. So anytime they want to write exam, I will leave the school and after the exam, I will come back.
The following academic session, my name came out. I was so happy and I ran back home to tell my mother. But the problem was how to pay the school fees because my father said, he has no hand in it. My mother had to take her cooperative contribution. Though it was not her turn to collect, she pleaded with the next person that was supposed to collect and explained the circumstances to her and also promised to give her interest. The person accepted since it has to do with a child’s school fees and she won’t want to defer my admission .
I told my mother that this was going to be the first and last time she will pay my school fees. So, during holiday, I will do promo. I used to dance very well and crack jokes for NBL and even Guinness brewery events then. I was saving the money and that time school fees was about ₦28,000. That was how I continued to sustain myself until my mother passed away.
I was in NYSC camp when she died. At that time Celtel was doing NYSC campus tour and I was part of the comedian’s on the train and they were paying us ₦15,000 for each campus appearance. The person that brought the job for me I used to give him ₦5000 and I go home with ₦10,000, that was in 2004/05. It was a great money then. It was when I left school, that I started bearing Osama Akpunonu. I got that name from a role I played in the theatre as practical.
I played one of the nuisance in the village setting and his name was Akpunonu. Our lecture was an Igbo man. I asked what’s the meaning of that name and he said, ‘something in the mouth that people cannot do without talking about’. That was how I changed the name from Osama UJ to Osama Akpunonu. Most people now think thats my real surname Akpunonu.
Your mother didn’t enjoy what she sacrificed for but your father did.
My father did not really enjoy it because we didn’t have that strong relationship. After my mother’s death, my father felt sorry because he initially saw me as the rebel in the house, but with my talent I was doing well. I didn’t blame him because it happens in every family.
Those days, parents don’t see entertainers and footballers as serious minded people. Before he died, sometimes when he asked me for money, I will tell him assuming I didn’t disobey you and chose my own path, I would not have been here. Yes, he passed on last year.
Your wife passed away four years ago Have you been able to move on. Have you found love again?
Till now I have not been able to love again. I don’t have a girlfriend as I am talking to you, neither am I involved in any relationship. I dated my late wife for seven to eight years, that bond was too tight. I was not seeing her as my wife but as my ‘guy’.
The way the death came, we couldn’t celebrate our one year wedding anniversary. We were only married for 10 months before she passed away. I got married on 15 May 2021 and she died 26th March 2022. Married without any anniversary. Till now, I have not found love. Is four years already.
