Kenny St. Best: A mix of music, politics & food

Weekend Magazine: After an eventful career in entertainment what nudged you towards politics?Kenny St. Best: A call to serve on a higher platform, seeing that I have been serving in entertainment, I have been serving partially and I have also helped in retaining to build myself in the entertainment industry stream and economic empowerment. Now […]

Weekend Magazine: After an eventful career in entertainment what nudged you towards politics?
Kenny St. Best: A call to serve on a higher platform, seeing that I have been serving in entertainment, I have been serving partially and I have also helped in retaining to build myself in the entertainment industry stream and economic empowerment. Now there is a higher calling, there is a gap between the government and the youth, and I understand that we the youth have contributed to the public sector. So I know there is more I can do in the public sector. The other reason why I want to enter politics is because the entertainment industry has to be re-sectionalised. Know that the government is looking at revenue making in a non-government revenue venture, with this the entertainment industry has contributed its own quota of increasing the gross domestic product of the nation. So there is so much that can be done, if the entertainment industry can contribute so much without budgetary allocation, so the entertainment industry should be re-sectionalised into the government sector, so that it can generate more revenue for the government.
WM: Did you ever think you would be a politician?
St. Best: I think it is in my genes, my mother was a politician, and my parents were at a point in time. The ability to serve others is in my genes. We all can’t stay away from politics but should see politics as an avenue to serve others, so we shouldn’t see it as a big deal because of the toughness of the terrain during elections but as an avenue to serve. One does not need to be born a politician, there is a call for change and we all can’t run from it, we can’t all take our hands off because we feel politics is dirty and so the country should continue to be as it is.
WM: Do you have what it takes to make it in the game of politics?
St. Best: I think it is the will, when there is the will there is a way. I have a passion for the people and I have tried to serve before, I have talked to people in public service, so I am not scared at all. There are women in politics that have been successful. I love tough terrains, I am not called into doing what everybody does, what attracts everybody is not what attracts me. It is the tougher it is, the riskier it is, the more exciting and attractive it is for me. I know I have the willpower and guts and the grace of God which is at work. I remember when we started music, there was nothing happening in it but we made it happen, we stuck through all the toughness and roughness, the uncertainty of return on investments in entertainment but we waded through the bad waters, and excelled. It wasn’t all about excelling, but making the youths of Nigeria excel and believe in themselves and know that they have the inner ability to succeed. So I have that inner ability to succeed because I have succeeded in places that were not thriving.
WM: Is going into politics  marking the end of music for you?
St. Best: Not at all. Onyeka Onwenu still sings and she is in politics. So for me I will still sing, perform and do my natural first calling and love, I will still take worship and praise in church. I still have my albums; I have over 60 songs and some that I have not even recorded, so I am still going to sing.
WM: How did your family take the news of you going into politics?
St. Best: They were very scared at the initial stage and they thought there was somebody who had promised to be my sponsor or a political godfather who would project me. So they felt it won’t be my money but I straightened it out with them and made them realise that it was nobody’s money but mine, and then later they started seeing the effort and impact I was putting into it, so they had to embrace it because they believed in me and know the impact I made in the entertainment industry where nothing was happening by talking to Keke Ogunbe to invest his money to start Kenny’s music which eventually became successful. So my family believe in me, they see that I have that intuition, they see I have the energy to make it work and saw it was not in their place to stop me but support me.
WM: You are in a different political party from your mentor and brother in-law, Chief Raymond Dokpesi, how will you merge this political difference?
 St. Best: I am not trying to merge any political differences, we have different ideologies, they stick to theirs and I stick with mine because I am mature enough to stick with what I believe in. I respect their ideologies and they are standing by me with the choice I have made today, and if you look at it, I am in the south-west and All Progressives’ Party is the ruling party there and that is where I want to be, so they respect my opinion. Dokpesi is still my mentor, I have consulted him, discussed with him and he supports me.
WM: When you get elected, what are the things you want to change?
St. Best: The first thing on my mind is youth social economic development; the youth in Nigeria need their own ministry that would attend to their needs and challenges. It is high time the youth ministry was not merged with sports any more, you can see how that has failed us; it is something that nobody has been looking at. The sports ministry is taking the entire funds that the youth ministry should have used for development and empowerment. So, if the youth ministry stands on its own from the local, state and federal government levels, you would see the challenges the youths are facing, restructure and redefine it and meet the needs of the Nigerian youth. They say the youths should go to school; they have gone but yet come out to face joblessness, if there are no jobs, then their challenges are still mounting and their needs and demands are not met.
WM: As a female politician, what have been your challenges so far?
St. Best: What would have been the challenge is the price of the forms but it was made free for women at every level. But personally, I really don’t have any challenge because I am already a public person, I know how to do public consultation and I was accepted. My job has also prepared me for politics, because there are times when meetings are done at night but that I am already used to from my job.
WM: Many people feel that entertainers are going into the 2015 elections for monetary gains, what is your view on that?
St. Best: That is a very wrong impression; it is blackmail and a cheap way to make us look bad like we are not intelligent or skilled. But if you look at it and how many of us are into it, we are not up to 20, we are just 16 out of the many entertainers. They shouldn’t think because we are entertainers that we are less eligible to serve in public office, all I know is that entertainers have the right to be voted for and to vote, so if we choose to exercise it, you shouldn’t blackmail us to make us go back because we will not and it is our obligation. Another thing they should consider is that if those people whom they have been voting have not been keeping up to their promises, we the entertainers have been sticking out our necks for them, so if we choose to go into public office, is it a bad thing?
WM: You are into food business and have your menus named after Nigerian celebrities, can you tell us a bit about that?
St. Best: It is my own way of making entertainment out of food. Outside Nigeria we have Chinese, Malaysian and Singaporean restaurants, but when you come to Nigeria, all you see is African restaurant, so I thought why not have ours? Nigerian celebrities are known outside Nigeria, why not name our foods after Nigerian celebrities, which I tagged ‘foodtainment.’ So, you have Don Jazzy, Jennifer, Genevieve, Alibaba and so many other Nigerian entertainers. So basically, it is just fun for food and entertainment in such a way that foreigners would know our food and not forget the name of our foods. All over the world we have Singaporean noodles and other meals, why should you just eat jollof rice and name it jollof rice?
WM: Do you get approval from these celebrities before using their names?
St. Best: Some of them I have spoken with, some of them I have not spoken with because I have not opened the restaurant full-scale.
WM: Is marriage still an option for you?
St. Best: Most definitely. It is something I will give a second chance.