The Feeling Is Incredible – MTN Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Jackpot Winner
Last Thursday, MTN Nigeria staged a grand dinner event to celebrate the N10million winner in the MTN Who Wants To Be A Millionaire TV Show, Ufodike Chimuanya, at the Jade Gardens in Ikeja. Mr Ufodike, a 1997 Geography graduate of the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) lost his dad when he was 7 years old. As a young graduate, he had a stint with Diamond bank before venturing into entrepreneurship. Two weeks ago, he became the first winner of the N10 million jackpot in the MTN Who Wants To Be A Million. He paid M2 a visit and sat to take some questions, letting us into his life, his business and his dreams. Excerpts:
How does it feel to be a millionaire?
Feeling like a millionaire is something I have gotten used to; but winning on a game show is an incredible feeling. It’s not like when you do a transaction and then make money from it. Being on a game show, winning money that nobody has ever won is different. The feeling for me wasn’t about the money, it was about the fact I achieved something that is not common. It’s something that I can only do once in my lifetime. I mean, I can’t get on that show again. Having done that, I am like a woman giving birth. As it is with experiences, you can only know what it feels like if you’ve been through it. After all the questions, and the hot seat, you finally come out at the end and you realise you’ve won. You are sitting down, thinking to yourself, ‘is this for real?’ Then you walk outside and the reactions of people towards you change. Everyone wants to take a picture of you. And then you go home that night to sleep; you wake up the next morning, and you start pinching yourself, asking if you’ve been dreaming.
Did you ever think you were going to win?
I always knew I was going to win. It’s a show I have been following ever since it started in Nigeria, and, of course I am familiar with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire UK and United States. I watched the show every Friday, and now that it is Saturday and Sunday, I still watch it. So I always believed I was going to win. I knew the problem was going to be how to get on the hot seat. But once I got on the hot seat, I knew I was either going to go home with the 10 million naira or 20 thousand naira. For me, there was no in-between. And that was what I told Frank.
How did you get on the hot seat?
I got on the show through the online version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. On the online version, if you are first for a month, they pay you N50, 000 and then give you the chance to do the fastest fingers. Every time I played online, there were these two guys who always had the highest points on the weekly game. At some point, I played so fast, with the hope that they won’t be able to catch up with me, only to wake up in the morning and find out that the guys are 20 million points ahead of me, and every week this happens. So, I decided not to play weekly anymore. I focused more on finishing my games than accumulating points. Not quite long, I got the call for the fastest fingers. I actually prayed to God that we should be given the most difficult questions. I would have preferred that they gave us Roman numerals or that they asked us to arrange the LCM in ascending order. I actually wanted a difficult question; I didn’t want the question of arranging something in alphabetical order. Because everybody has a certain amount of brain power in which they accept information, and the chances that my own will be the fastest was slim. I mean, my brain could accept it, but my fingers won’t react to it. But with a difficult question, people will have to think. So when they asked us to arrange four Island countries from west to east, I was calm. I wasn’t expecting any other person to know where those islands were. Fortunately, a week before then, my family (my mother and cousins) had gone on a trip to one of the islands optioned. When I saw that question, I knew that I was going to get on the hot seat. It was tough, but at the end it was enjoyable.
Did you plan ahead for the questions that will be asked? What is responsible for your bank of knowledge?
What I tell people is that what you know is what you know. When I was in school, people start studying for their exams a week before the examination starts. But a week before my exams, I actually played. My dad was a Professor of Kinesiology. He was actually the first black Professor of Kinesiology. My grand-dad was a principal in the 1940’s. So I come from the family of teachers. My mum is a teacher; we’ve got three professors in my family. So we pride ourselves in reading, even though I didn’t read much in school. So I learnt early that what you know is what you know, if you don’t know you don’t know. So, you have to study early for you to pass any examination. What ever examination you study for today when the exam is tomorrow, you will probably come out with maybe a C or something. But if it is something you know, then you really know it, no matter the time. So, I really didn’t have to study or do any extra work before the show.
Did you know all the answers to the questions or you gambled at some point?
I was very sure of all the answers until I got to N5 million. When I got to N5 million, I looked at the question and I was ashamed I didn’t know were the mountain was located, because I studied Geography as my first degree. I was horrified. I was like, “Oh Chimuanya! What have you done to yourself?” But having seen the options, I figured that it wasn’t in Spain. I knew that Lebanon didn’t have any mountain not to talk of a volcano, and I knew that all volcanoes and mountains in Japan had Japanese names. So I made up my mind that what ever happened I was going to choose Columbia. So when I asked the audience and 52% went for Columbia, I was good to go. But taking Frank’s advice, I still used the fifty-fifty and there was Lebanon and Colombia, so I choose Columbia.
For the N10 million question, I wasn’t afraid of it, because my cousin whom I called is a lawyer and he is a very intelligent man. If you heard him answer the question you would have been confident too. Once the options had come out, he just gave me a one-word answer. He didn’t guess. So my confidence in answering that final question was the fact that I knew he would not deceive me and he won’t tell me something he is not sure of, coupled with the fact that he is not a gambler.
What are your plans for the prize money?
I own my business. Let me tell you a little tale so that you will know what I am going to do with the money. In 2005 I started a company called Mobcom Technology Nigeria Limited. I had partners in Egypt, Indian and South Africa. When I set up the company, everything cost me about N12 million. By early 2007, the company had folded up and I had lost the entire N12 million. It folded up maybe because I actually got one or two wrong acquisitions back then. You know, it’s like when you have money in the bank, and decided to start a business and you want to start big, when you’ve not learnt to start small. Now I realise that if I had started a little bit smaller and then grow into what I wanted to do, it would have been a success. But I put that money into that business and I lost it. I run a new company now. It is called T. Golie Limited, and we deal in steel. We’ve started business for the past two and half years and it’s still growing. So the money will go straight into that, so that I can stock my warehouse. But if you are looking at an invitation for a party, then it will be probably if MTN decided to host a party for me as their millionaire man. Then I can invite my friends. But if they are not doing that (Laughs), then there is no party.
When you win money, people think you don’t have problems. The amount of calls I receive is alarming. I have at least 100 people who want at least N1 million and 50 people who want N2 million. I sat down and wrote down their names and the amount of money they want. I am that meticulous. When I did the calculation, the entire money I am meant to give out is N220 million. Some of them are relations and some of them I haven’t seen in 10 years. So, if I win 10 million and I’m meant to dash people N220 million, how much is left for me? So now it seems I’m owing people N220 million for winning N10 million. It’s amazing!
How are you managing your fame?
The fame is crazy. But I want to have an organisation which can help to bring up brighter children by making books available in schools. In Nigeria of today, it is difficult for schools to arrange debates. I can remember when I was at the Federal Government College. We used to have all the Federal Government Colleges in that location grouped into four. The four schools will debate among themselves and the winner goes for the finals. But they don’t do this anymore. Schools don’t do this because they don’t have the amount of money required to arrange such debates. What they would need is to get an organisation that could help them arrange those things, and enable kids read better. I have always wanted to do that, so I want to start an organisation that will do this. Take for instance, if you are popular, and you say to certain people, “come, I am your star, help me out in this.” There is a possibility that people will contribute money to that course, especially when they see it’s for a worthy cause. I don’t have the final details yet. But it’s something I want to look into. I am working on it right now. So in a month or two we can launch. But the most important thing anyway is to know a lot more people who are stars I don’t consider myself a star, there are people who are a lot wealthier than I am. I could get them to pick up a kid, a public kid actually, nurture and assist the kid.
What do you think about the show and the sponsors?
It’s massive. When the show came to Nigeria, it changed the perception that we had towards studying. I can tell you that many people know abut the show. A friend who I haven’t seen in 12 years called me from Maiduguri, and he said that even the locals and the uneducated were excited. I am sure that maybe some day they will want to win N1 million and the only way to win million on the show is to study. And I can boast that the programme has a viewership of more than 50 million people. The show comes up before the network news. I had gotten calls from girls I don’t know – one Ghanaian girl and one Tanzanian girl. They got my number from my brother. These are Ghanaian and Tanzanian girls who have never even been to Nigeria. So you can imagine the impact the show has on people. So, Ultima did a great job of bringing the show to Nigeria. And MTN is the shoot on a tie. Why do I say that? It’s because initially when the show jackpot was 2 million or something it wasn’t interesting. Then, MTN came on board and they shot the jackpot to 10 million, which got people thinking. That got people excited. The show adds value to people. It encourages people to read and has made me a millionaire. I really appreciate it, not just for myself but for every other person who has won.
