Uncle Wowo: Making sense with ‘nonsense’

Meshach Owunebe Oko, otherwise known as Uncle Wowo, has distinguished himself with his comedic character and unique style. Meshach is an entertaining guy who isn’t just funny, he’s also quick on his feet.
Far beyond the boundaries of comedy and showing a great deal of versatility, Uncle Wowo, as he’s now known in the entertainment industry sub-sector, has in a very short time distinguished himself as an artiste with laughter. He uses comedy as a weapon to teach and entertain.

The entertainer, who prides himself as Idoma Comic Ambassador, is the founder of Strong Wors Academy and Wowo Empire, a series which centres around a dumb teacher teaching ignorant students, just because he believes teaching is the only means of livelihood.

This is not surprising because the young lad from Idoma speaking part of Benue State was once a teacher at the Standard Academy Nursery and Primary School in Otukpo and Remi Educational Foundation. Uncle Wowo is famous for his funny and contorted pronunciation of English words in his ‘classroom’ and the use of words that make absolutely no sense.
Popular among them are Synagogue, which he pronounced as ‘Sainaogoguwe’, Choir as ‘Choire’

His brand of comedy also involves solo performances with imaginary calls to only who God knows.
He came into the limelight with his funny skit in Idoma language some years back in an imaginary call to a certain Emma, who he accused of pushing him into sleeping with a character called Mary.

Uncle Wowo, visibly perturbed, had in the call in formed his friend, Emma, that he heard Mary had contracted HIV.
Emma, seemed to be shocked that his friend was crying more than the bereaved, but he interjected that “you know Mary is the only child that the mother has, that is why I am worried.”

When he noticed his friend was probing too much, he ended the call and began to lament thus: nka ngeni, Emma kami ege, abo ma, nku HIV ge kriyum liye me,” which is loosely translated: “I told Emma I don’t want to ‘flog’ he insisted I should flog, now, I have flogged HIV into my body.”

One thing is for sure and it’s that the character that is Uncle Wowo stands as one of the most fast-rising content creators (skit makers) in Nigeria.
Oko’s rise to stardom did not come as a surprise to those who knew him from Federal University of Technology, Minna, because it was there he laid the foundation for his journey to the upper echelon of the entertainment industry.