Sola Sobowale also spoke about how she resorted to menial jobs such as cooking, sweeping and cleaning offices in London to make ends meet
By Kehinde Okeowo
Ace Nollywood actress, Sola Sobowale, has explained why she quit her illustrious career and relocated temporarily to the United Kingdom in 2011.
The 56-year-old thespian made the startling revelation about her decision to relocate in a recent episode of #WithChude, with the Co-founder of Joy, Inc., Chude Jideonwo.
Sola Sobowale said she left acting for the first time because of her desire to give her kids the best education after she took them to the UK and left them alone.
According to the mother-of-five, whose parents were in academia, every parent must make sacrifices and cater for their kids.
She said: “Children did not ask to be born. When you decide to have children, you must be ready to take full responsibility for those children
“They are beautiful creatures. You don’t bring them to this world to suffer. You don’t bring them to this world for anybody to take care of them. You brought them. Then stay with them and do the work.”
The veteran actress later said on her subsequent visit to her kids a month after, she noticed that things were different with them.
“They weren’t the kids that I took. That motherly touch was not there. So I said ‘to your tent o Israel’. I’m here with my children. So I left stardom.
“The reason I left Nigeria was to guide my children, to make them somebody in life, to give them the legacy I could give and to nurture and take care of them.
“So that was why I left. And to God be the glory, they are successful now,” she added.
She went on to compare her experiences while in Nigeria and when she sought greener pastures in the UK.
Going down memory lane, she recalls what she earned when she starred in a movie, ‘Christ in Me’ in Enugu, and her ordeal while trying to secure her kid’s future abroad.
ALSO READ: Bollywood role excites veteran actress, Sola Sobowale
She narrated, “I was earning (N)800,000 back in the year 2000. So when I came back to Lagos, I came back with about N5 million. And I left that for 7.50 pounds per hour job in England.
“And I’m proud. And there is nothing this woman cannot do because I know what is called dignity in labour.
“I will sweep from here to Kenya or Ghana as long as it puts food on my table and put clothes on my children and shelter on my head,”
She also spoke about how she resorted to menial jobs such as cooking, sweeping and cleaning offices in London to make ends meet.
“My life is colourful. On the train or the bus, I wear my uniform with the company’s name.
“Then I hear Nigerians talking, asking if I’m the one. When I say yes, they ask what I’m doing here. I then ask them, you, what are you doing here? I’m glad. I’m happy. Now it’s history,” she further said.
Sola Sobowale shot into the limelight after playing the now iconic role of Toyin Tomato in Wale Adenuga’s ‘Super Story’ series titled ‘Oh Father! Oh, Daughter’.
Upon her return to the movie industry in 2016, she starred in Nollywood’s box office hit, ‘The Wedding Party’, and in 2022, played the lead role in the movie ‘King of Boys’ and its follow-up series, ‘The Return of the King’.
Earlier in the month, she announced that she landed her first Bollywood role in director Hamisha Daryani Ahuja’s upcoming movie.
