Nollywood film actor and award winning director, Aremu Afolayan, revealed he was born in a wooden makeshift house, also known as ‘face me I face you’ and he had to help is mother after school to sell pepper soup daily.
One would have assumed that being the son of the late popular filmmaker, Adeyemi Afolayan fondly referred to as Ade Love would mean Aremu Afolayan grew up in a wealthy home.
In an interview with Saturday Beats, the actor opened up on his grass to grace story, read what he wrote below:
“I was born poor but I don’t know if my other brothers would say otherwise but I know that I was born poor in a makeshift wooden face-me-I-face-you house in a very poor area. Rich people never affiliated themselves with us or allowed their children to play with us. In fact, we did not see them because there were no rich people in the area I grew up, everyone was poor.
There was no life for me basically while I was growing up. I got to know where the airport is in 2006. That was the year I would say I started to enjoy life a bit. I did not know anything about how to enjoy life while I was growing up and there was no one to enlighten me.
That is why I never took school seriously because I had to sell pepper soup for my mother. We would go to her shop by 3:30 pm when I returned from school. Then, we would get home at about 5 pm. This happened all through my formative years, it happened from 1991 till 2002.
When asked why his famous father whom many believed was wealthy could not help out, he simply said, “People assume a lot in Nigeria. My father was never a rich man; he only made money but never had money. Whenever he made money, he spent it almost immediately. He was supposed to have money but he did not because he did not have investments.
He did not leave anything for me to live on but he made me work and earn a living for myself. If he had left something, maybe I would have grown better than this but it has taught me that I would not do the same for my children. My father was only famous but he was never wealthy.”