I keep asking myself if these foreign-based Nigerian celebrities were here what would have been the outcome. These men and women are actually great people but would their orientation have been different if they were raised here? Would they have gotten to where they are now?
Anyway, these are questons for another day, today we are gonna look at the people who make us proud abroad. Here are eleven foreign-based Nigerian celebrities;
HELEN FOLASADE ADU
Helen Folasade Adu, OBE, better known as Sade Adu was born on 16 January 1959. She is a Nigerian-born British singer-songwriter, composer, and record producer. She first achieved success in the 1980s as the frontwoman and lead vocalist of the Brit and Grammy Award-winning English group Sade. In 2002, she received an OBE from Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace for services to music, and she dedicated her award to “all black women in England”. In 2012, Sade was listed at number 30 on VH1’s 100 Greatest Women In Music. Sade has a contralto vocal range.
CHIWETELU UMEADI “CHIWETEL” EJIOFOR
Chiwetelu Umeadi “Chiwetel” Ejiofor, OBE (born 10 July 1977) is a British actor. He has received numerous acting awards and nominations, including the 2006 BAFTA Awards Rising Star, 3 Golden Globe Awards’ nominations, and the 2008 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in Othello.
Ejiofor was born in London’s Forest Gate, to Nigerian parents who belonged to the Igbo ethnic group. His father, Arinze, was a doctor, and his mother, Obiajulu, was a pharmacist.
He has starred in popular films like Dirty Pretty Things (2002), Tsunami: The Aftermath (2006), 2012 (2009), Salt (2010), 12 Years a Slave (2013), and also Half of a Yellow Sun (2013), among many others.
ADEWALE AKINNUOYE-AGBAJE
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (born 22 August 1967) is a British actor and former fashion model, best known for his roles as Lock-Nah in ‘The Mummy Returns’, Nykwana Wombosi in ‘The Bourne Identity’, Mr. Eko in ‘Lost’ and Simon Adebisi on ‘Oz’.
Akinnuoye-Agbaje was born in Islington, London. His parents are Nigerian, of Yoruba origin. He has a law degree from King’s College London and a Masters in Law from the University of London.
DAVID OYELOWO
David Oyelowo is an English actor, born in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, 1 April 1976, to Nigerian parents. He is best known for playing MI5 officer Danny Hunter in the British TV drama series ‘Spooks’ from 2002 to 2004. He had before that appeared in ‘Tomorrow La Scala’ (2002), ‘Maisie Raine’ (1998) and ‘Brothers and Sisters’ (1998).
In December 2009 he played the leading role of Gilbert in the BBC TV adaptation of Andrea Levy’s novel ‘Small Island’. In March 2010 he played the part of Keme Tobodo in the BBC’s drama series ‘Blood and Oil’ (a film about Niger-Delta area of Nigeria).
JACOB TAIO CRUZ
Jacob Taio Cruz (born 23 April 1985), known professionally as Taio Cruz, is a British singer-songwriter, record producer, occasional rapper, and entrepreneur. In 2008, he released his debut album ‘Departure’, which he wrote, arranged and produced himself. It achieved initial success in the United Kingdom and earned him a MOBO Award nomination. Cruz was born in London, to a Nigerian father and a Brazilian mother. He attended Bilton Grange, a private prep school in Rugby, Warwickshire. One of his single, “Dynamite,” topped the charts in a half-dozen different countries.
SOPHIE OKONEDO
Sophie Okonedo, OBE (born 1968) is a British actress, who has starred in successful British and American productions. In 1991, she made her acting debut in the British critically acclaimed coming-of-age drama, Young Soul Rebels. She has received an Academy Award nomination for her critically acclaimed role in Hotel Rwanda, a Golden Globe nomination for ‘Tsunami: The Aftermath’, and BAFTA nominations for Criminal Justice and Mrs. Mandela. Her other film roles included ‘Aeon Flux’, ‘Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls’, ‘Dirty Pretty Things’, ‘Skin and The Secret Life of Bees’. Her father, Henry Okonedo (1939–2009), was Nigerian, and her mother, Joan (née Allman), an Ashkenazi Jew, was born in the East End, to Yiddish-speaking immigrants from Poland and Russia.
PATRICK CHUKWUEMEKA OKOGWU
Patrick Chukwuemeka Okogwu .a.k.a. Tinie Tempah (born 7 November 1988) is an English rapper. He released his first mixtape in 2005; his first album, Disc-Overy, debuted at number one in the UK in October 2010 and was preceded by two British number-one singles. In February 2011, he won a Brit Award for Best British Breakthrough Act.
Patrick Chukwuemeka Okogwu was born in London, England, on 7 November 1988, and has origins in Ibusa, Delta State, Nigeria.
LEMAR OBIKA
Lemar Obika (born 4 April 1978), professionally known simply as Lemar, is an English R&B singer–songwriter and record producer. He was born in Tottenham, North London, England to Nigerian parents of Enugu State, South Eastern Nigeria.
Lemar has had a run of chart success in the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia. He rose to fame after finishing in third place on the first series of British talent show Fame Academy.
Since then, Lemar has had seven top ten UK singles and sold over two million albums. He is seen as one of the most successful artists to come out of a reality TVshow. Lemar has also won two Brit Awards and three MOBO Awards to date and released his fifth studio album in 2012.
HAKEEM KAE-KAZIM
Hakeem Kae-Kazim (born 1 October 1962) is a British Nigerian actor who is best known for his portrayal of Georges Rutaganda in the 2004 motion picture Hotel Rwanda. He also starred as Colonel Iké Dubaku in season 7 of the Fox television series 24 and the TV film tie-in 24: Redemption.
Also starred in other films like Inale (2010, Nigerian), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007), The Librarian: Return to King Solomon’s Mines (2006), Law & Order: SVU, Black Gold, and Half of a Yellow Sun (2013), which is set to be released September, based on the popular Nigerian novel of the same name by Chimamanda Adichie.
OLUBOWALE VICTOR AKINTIMEHIN
Olubowale Victor Akintimehin .a.k.a. Wale (born on September 21, 1984), a Nigerian American, was born in Northwest, Washington D.C. His parents are of the Yoruba ethnic group of southwestern Nigeria and came to the United States from Austria in 1979. He rose to prominence in 2006, when his song “Dig Dug (Shake It)” became popular in his hometown. Wale became locally recognized and continued recording music for the regional audience. Producer Mark Ronson discovered Wale in 2006 and signed him to Allido Records in 2007. While signed to that label, Wale released several mixtapes and appeared in national media including MTV and various urban magazines.
ADETOMIWA EDUN
Adetomiwa Edun is a Nigerian-born British actor best known for his role as Sir Elyan in the television show Merlin. Edun was born in Lagos, Nigeria, to a Nigerian father and a half-Ghanaian, half-English mother. Edun moved to the United Kingdom at the age of 11. Edun has also appeared in several television shows. In 2009, he appeared in an episode of The Fixer, before a role in Law & Order: UK as a soldier returning from the war in Afghanistan. During series three of Merlin, Edun appeared as Elyan in three episodes, and was upgraded to a recurring character in series four. Elyan was killed off during the fifth and final series of Merlin in 2012. In 2011, he appeared in two episodes of The Hour as the character Sey, and reprised the role for three episodes in 2012. He is set to play the lead in Anthony Onah’s debut feature, Passengers.
Cute, Beautiful, Handsome, Classy and Successful, these are the products of Naija. Nna men! we no dey kari last…
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