Hanks Anuku’s manager, Moses Allen, has reassured fans that the veteran Nollywood actor is in good mental health, dismissing concerns sparked by a viral video showing him alone on a street in Abuja.
The video, which circulated on social media over the weekend, captured Anuku sitting by the roadside in Wuse 2 while talking to himself and holding a disposable cup. The footage led many fans to speculate that the actor might be struggling mentally.
Addressing the reactions, Allen said the assumptions were misplaced, explaining that Anuku’s behaviour reflects his creative personality rather than any mental illness.
“So I understand you guys might have seen a video and then care to ask. It’s better to ask than to start making presumptions like other people used to do every time. You see, Hanks is a character; he’s an actor. So most of what he does is in a different world of his own.
“He does those things, people mistake it for madness or craziness. No, an artist is actually never really normal, you understand. An artist, in the true sense of it, is actually never really normal because your presence is in a different realm, in a creative realm. You know, he does not operate in the world where we do operate. Where normal people operate. A world of, you know, rat race, where you come in the morning, you have to go and hustle for what to eat. He does not really bother and does not live in a normal world as we do.”
Allen stressed that there was nothing in the video to indicate the actor was mentally unstable, pointing out that he was simply sitting quietly without causing trouble.
“He’s a serious man, he’s a responsible man with family, with children, and everything. So, whatever you guys see there (in the video) is just like someone trying to… What is wrong with someone sitting down by the grass and then talking to himself and having a drink? What is wrong with that? He wasn’t naked. He wasn’t abusing anybody; he wasn’t calling people names and everything. He was trying to float. Maybe he was trying to rehearse or to imagine a scenario.
“He was imaginative in that video. I don’t see anything that he did that is wrong, or that the whole world is now saying, ‘Ah, this man is mad.’ Mad for where? Like I told you, if you want, I can coordinate a conference call, and you can now even record the conversation, and now see if he sounds like a mad person, or like an artist.”
The manager added that Anuku is currently doing better than ever and urged the public to stop attaching negative labels to the actor because of his unconventional personality.
“I’ve been his manager for years. Kindly let the world know that the legend Hanks Chukwuemeka Anuku is sound and has, in fact, never been in a better mental state than now, please. He’s simply an artist, and I really wonder why the world expects artists to be like normal people.”
