Spotlight  

Chukwudi Ezugwu: The Political Analyst With The Comic Swag

By Chinelo Eze

04 September 2022   |   9:00 am

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Popularly known by his comic name ‘Husband Material’, Ezugwu Chukwudi is an inspiring broadcast journalist, political enthusiast, ideas inventor, and content developer. Wearing a comic mask, he seamlessly merges comic renditions with his political analyst skills. He speaks to Guardian Life about his life, politics, and love. Fill us in on who Chukwudi Ezugwu is…

Chukwudi Ezugwu: Husband Material

Popularly known by his comic name ‘Husband Material’, Ezugwu Chukwudi is an inspiring broadcast journalist, political enthusiast, ideas inventor, and content developer. Wearing a comic mask, he seamlessly merges comic renditions with his political analyst skills.

He speaks to Guardian Life about his life, politics, and love.

Fill us in on who Chukwudi Ezugwu is away from the mic and camera.
Away from my day job, I am a regular guy, who believes so much in adding value to others. I’m very particular about self-development and like to spend my private time imbibing new ideas.

Between comedy and you, who found who?
I’ll say that my passion for comedy is innate. Several factors over the years also contributed to helping me hone my skills.

My dad was a master storyteller, and it was always a delight listening to him regal us with tales of the tortoise who was always up to some mischief or the cunning fox.

This emboldened me to tell the stories to classmates at school or my peers in Junior Secondary school and compelled me to expose myself to even more literature.

By the time I was in Senior Secondary School, I began to tell my own stories. While these were often stories that already existed, I was very good at embellishing them and introducing other fictional characters.

Interestingly, asides from telling the stories for the fun of it, stories with moral/life lessons, in the end, were usually considered the best type. In other to make my stories acceptable, I’d weave the plot to contain instances that I could refer to in the end as the moral lessons embedded in the story. I have carried on with such practice ever since, with the content I create, relying heavily on humour to drive home important life lessons.

You have been able to successfully merge politics and humour together. How do you do that?
Most people hold the erroneous view that politics or news that centre on current affairs is boring. While one cannot entirely invalidate this claim, it’s most likely owing to how such information is disseminated. What I do is create real-life scenarios to which the viewer can relate to. The goal is to ensure that viewers consider such content very relatable, are attracted by the humour deployed in the delivery style and most importantly can comprehend the intending message.

As “Husband Material”, a term you are especially known for, what are the top five ways to treat a woman right?
It’s important to point out that beyond gender assignment, we are human. Respect and empathy, for example, are qualities which feature prominently in human interaction, thus every human will like to be accorded RESPECT and treated with EMPATHY. For the purpose of this conversation, however, I’ll say alongside the aforementioned qualities, one cannot do wrong if you are a GOOD LISTENER and PAY ATTENTION to details.
In addition, a woman will also like to feel LOVED & APPRECIATED always!!!

Tell us five things people do not know about “Husband Material”.
I don’t indulge in the intake of alcoholic beverages or smoke. I’m a voracious reader. I love to listen more than I speak. I’m a proud Jesus boy!

What advice would you give to your 20-year-old self?
Sadly, I’ll never be 20 again. But given Nigeria’s population demography, there are so many people who fall within that age bracket, and so my advice would suffice. A recent report by the World Bank put Nigeria’s population demography under the age of 17 at nearly 100 million people. It would be disastrous to have a young population bursting with so much enthusiasm and then fail to invest in human capital development. The government must pay special attention to this reality.

For people who fall within the under 20 age bracket, I’ll advise that they learn a skill. In this age, most often than not, skill acquisition hands an individual a comparative advantage. Be open to learning new ideas and strive to take advantage of any opportunity that will aid personal development.

If you had superpowers, what would they be and why?
If I had superpowers, I’ll be dubbed Mr Food Man or Belleful. It’s disheartening that even though more than enough food is produced to feed the global population, as many as 829 million people still go hungry.

After steadily declining for a decade, world hunger is on the rise, affecting nearly 10% per cent of people globally. If we rid the world of hunger, there will be a lot fewer people who are angry.

Just maybe, this will provide an opportunity for more people to expend their energy on holding their representatives accountable to address the issue of poverty.