By  Ogbonna Amadi Entertainment Editor

At a little more than ten years of age, Sola Fajobi began his journey into the world of hardship, a world only he could tell the story.

The beautiful world his parents built for him and his sibling collapsed the day his mother walked away from the family without as much as a glance back or a goodbye.

A rebel of sort Sola, found the new freedom too tempting to resist and before one could say jack, he was living the streets and finally eloping to Ghana where he perhaps thought he could find replacement for his mother.

Providence would however not let him go astray and like the prodigal son, he returned home to continue a successful educational pursuit.

Today he is the managing director, Digital Interactive Media, producers of the Next Movie Star and Supermom reality television shows.

In this interview, he shares his secret and the pains of growing up without a mother’s love, the tough process that led to the creation of the Supermom show, which aims to celebrate mothers; Its impact and popularity within one year of creation and what the future holds for the show.

What was growing up like?

Growing up in the beginning was fun

How many of you were there in the family?

We were five children. My dad is Christian but my mother was Muslim who later became a christian after she married my dad. My father is a Quantity Survivor by profession, while my mother is a trader.

But my father resigned from his office and started his own company. When he did, he also gave my mother some money to boost her business.

But things didn’t work out for my father the way he planned it and so we had to move from a private school to a public school, Army Children’s School..

And coming from a private school where I was always taking the first position in class, I carried it on to my new school B always taking the first position.

It was about the same time that my parents started having issues with each other. Although we were young we sensed that things were going wrong. There was suspicion of infidelity here and there. But when I was about turning eleven years, my mother packed out of the house.

Did she tell any of you she was leaving?

No, she abandoned us and our last born, Akin was just eleven months old. My father was so devastated that he couldn’t attend the court proceedings where my mother divorced him. I represented him at the court and I was about 11 years old.

You must have asked her some questions then?

Yes, I did. When the magistrate asked her some fundamental questions like Are you sure you want to divorce this man? She said yes.

And I said mummy do you know that you’re not only divorcing dad, you’re also divorcing your children too. Are you sure you want to go through with this? And she said Yes. It shook me, and the magistrate was close to tears.

Then I told that she should have a rethink but she said her mind was already made up. So, the magistrate went on with the divorce process. My mother was asked whether she had the dowry paid on her by my father which was N20 then, she said yes:

She had it in an enveloped and when the court made to collect the money, I told her that we didn’t want it, and that the money couldn’t even be enough to take care of us. The magistrate cried before granting her the request.

Today when I think about about what happened then, I laugh because I’m sure she wasn’t in her right senses.

Whats the relationship like today?

She is my mother and I take care of her though my younger sister has refused to have anything to do with her. My father remarried eight years after she left.

How did the Supermom come about?

The show was created basically to celebrate mothers. It was a divine idea that came at a time when a whole lot of us needed to look back and ask ourselves some salient questions like >How did I get to where I am today? Who are the parties that contributed to where I am?

We want to celebrate people that have contributed selflessly to an individual’s growth. Though Supermom is for mothers but we want people to build a consciousness, a culture of celebrating people that have done so much for them.

Why do you think the Supermom concept works?

It sounds simple but it is not all that simple. I’m not sure I can provide all the answers to how it works. It=s a factor of different things put together. First and foremost, the fact that the idea is original, not a clone of any foreign show has earmarked it for success. Secondly, the fact that Supermom stories are everyday stories that you and I can connect with is another factor.

I remember that before I started, I shared the idea with a couple of people, we had brainstorming sessions where we talked about how it was going to work, we also got a lot of support from the media, stakeholders and all other people. All of those factors put together made it work.

I think also that one of the major factors that drew people to the show last year was the infusion of drama. Was that part of the concept from inception?

Drama was part of the content that was broadcast to make it real and entertaining. When we wanted to do Supermom, the format we adopted was drama because I didn=t want mothers, or their children to be telling a lot of stories; it is more believable when a story is dramatized.

I can tell you that people cry during each episode of Supermom. I also cried because when you hear some stories, you would wonder if they are truly happening but yes, they happen and someone has created an opportunity for people to share such stories not in a sarcastic manner but in a celebratory manner and that’s what we do in Supermom.

Is there an age limit for people who narrate their stories in the show?

There’s no age limit in Supermom, a 70-year old man as well as a 10-year old boy can tell stories. A 70-year old can enter if the mother is still alive because he=s still a child to his mother.

How do you handle people whose mothers went through suffering in raising them but are now rich and comfortable?

That is why we created a part of Supermom called Celebrity Supermom. Here, we want stories like, this is what my mother went through, now this is what I’ve become. This would cater for those people we look up to as successful but who also have poignant stories to tell, that=s why we created Celebrity Supermom. It features in every episode as well, so within the Supermom body, part of the content has been created to share a story of a Celebrity Supermom, a Supermom who is established or whose children are established.

Since it is a 13-week show, by the end of the 12th week, most viewers would have forgotten what they saw in the previous episodes, how do you refresh their memories?

It is a 13-week show. At the tenth week, we=ll have a 5-minute show of all mothers that have qualified; the 12th week episode is a summary of all the shows. In each show, the mother that wins will have a private broadcast; we will show you the two victorious mothers for the first episode that featured three mothers. In each of the week, you have 10 of those five minutes, so you are refreshed.