For making a huge return to Nollywood with his role in ‘Shanty Town’ after years of absence, Nollywood actor Chidi Mokeme has been trending for days.
Apart from his terrific performance in ‘Shanty Town’, the actor’s recent revelation that he has been battling an intractable condition known as Bell’s palsy has made him trending non-stop.
Bell’s palsy is a condition that causes sudden weakness in the muscles on one side of the face. The defect causes half of the face to appear to droop.
The smiles are unilateral and the eye on the affected side refuses to close. In most cases, the weakness is temporary and improves significantly over weeks.
In an interview with Channels TV on ‘Rubbin Minds’, Mr Mokeme, who turned 50 in March 2022, announced that the disease struck him while he was on a promotional tour for the 2016 military film ’76’.
According to him, as the ’76 cast and crew were preparing to travel to the UK for the British International Film Festival, he contracted the condition.
“It was something that the doctors said was incurable because they didn’t know what caused it; they did not know how to treat it. So as an actor, if you have something affecting your face, you can imagine what I must have been going through at the time.
Chidi Mokeme in the shanty town
“I thought it was something I could move with, I tried to come for the Lagos 76 premiere at the time, but the attention was focused on the face instead of the premiere, and then I knew that it was not something I could. work with. I’ll take some time off to try to solve that problem that needs my face to be in top shape,” added the actor.
However, he said that as he searched for a solution to his condition, he turned his attention to his other businesses.
Surviving Bell’s Palsy
Despite being forced to stay away from his passion acting, Mokeme, who lost his sister and cousin in 2022, said he chose to stay strong and positive.
“Fortunately for me, I consider myself someone who has always been mentally strong. I am a self-proclaimed ‘wizard of life’. I am a student of life.
“I take life easy. So I knew that all I had to do was focus on God, who has been the one who has done everything. Even we are alive because God is with us and his hands are on us. So I kept my focus on God,” said the multilingual.
stay relevant
Mokeme, who returned to Nollywood in 2022 in ‘The Therapist’, also spoke about staying relevant and how she managed to do so.
In his words, acting is his job and it’s all he’s ever done. As a result, he takes it seriously.
“I think it’s just taking my job seriously, that’s all. I take this as a job. This is a job. This is all I’ve ever done my whole life. It’s the only thing I’ve done; I have never really gone out to work in the office or anyone’s office other than my own. So I take my job seriously. When I wake up, that’s it,” she added.
chidi mokeme
The actor, who is fluent in Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa languages, was the host of the Gulder Ultimate Search Reality show.
In 2012, he married his wife, Jean Olumba Mokeme, a Nigerian born and raised in the US.
Chidi Mokeme’s wife, Jean Olumba Mokeme
He played Scar, a fierce personality on the rave-of-the-moment TV series, ‘Shanty Town.’
