Kanyi Okeke
Popular Nigerian female comedian, Helen Paul (aka Tatafo) was at The Common Wealth of Zion Assembly Abuja (COZA) some days ago, where she poured out her heart to tell everybody her story.
Helen says nobody will understand her glory right now until they know her story; continue reading
“I was a young girl with no university degree and didn’t know how to raise the money I needed to go to school.
In a bid of trying to find a way then, someone told me that since I was very intelligent, I could write exams for people and get paid. I did it the first time and I was paid about 200k. I went to church that day and an elderly woman in church who knew me very well asked me where I got so much money from, I told her what I did to get the money and she sat me down to explain the dangers of what I was doing. I then decided to get a job.
I got a job as a receptionist earning 10k per month. One day a friend of mine gisted me about people in the UK running more than one job and earning more than one salary. I decided to do that here in Nigeria, so I went to a TV Station to beg them for a night job since my receptionist job was a day job. I was finally given a job as an assistant producer. That was how I started working two jobs(day and night) and my total salary became 40k per month.
It was during this period that I discovered the baby voice on my inside and used to play a lot with it. Especially during staff meetings in my day job, I would use the voice to make everybody laugh and my manager even banned me from attending staff meetings because of this (Lolz).
My big break finally came when someone met my manager one day and said they were in dire need of a baby’s voice to use for their radio program. They said they actually had a baby they were supposed to use but the baby couldn’t make it for the show due to some reasons and they needed a quick replacement. My manager told them he had one naughty girl in his office who he thinks could do it.
They came to me, I did and it and that was how it all started.
I also did the baby voice over of ‘Uncle Please Tell Us A Story’ for P-Square’s song; ‘I Got A Story’.
That was how the money started coming in and I could go to school. Today I am a graduate and am presently running my second Masters Programme. That was also how Comedy and other jobs like acting and presenting (Jara) found me.
If I say I know how i did it, i would be lying. All I can say is that it was all GOD. I didn’t have a family then except my mother. I remember there was a time when an aunt asked me if I had asked my mother where I got my name Helen Paul from? Indirectly trying to tell me that I was a bastard. I just told her that I was a woman and someday a man would marry me and give me his last name. God finally did it and gave me the best husband in the world that I could ever ask for.
I remember my husband said something to me, he said: ‘Helen keep your name (Helen Paul) because that name is going to go places, do lots of wonders and affect lots of people. And that is what is happening till date”.
Helen Paul says she wants people to know her story and be able to learn from it. She says no matter what anybody out there is going through, do not give up. Just discover that thing that you know without any reasonable doubt that you are good at, keep doing your best and though it may tarry, just be certain that if you do not give up, destiny will locate you just like it located her.
