Super Story TV series, Wale Adenuga was our guest last Saturday
as the Showtime Celebrity. The highly talented producer, who has
made many stars, took his time out to answer a number of
questions, on the problems of the movie industry especially piracy.
Nollywood and asserted that the
Igbos have taken over
Nollywood and explained in vivid
terms why he feels that the
Yorubas and the Hausas are not
part of Nollywood. He further
added that the claim that
Nollywood began in 1992 was a
spurious one.
Nollywood became popular with
Living In Bondage, a 1992 movie
that sold millions of copies and
enjoys tremendous reference in
the industry. Adenuga finds this
misleading.
“They defined Nollywood as a
product of 1992. It suggests that
those who have been making films before 1992 are not part of
Nollywood. That to me, is a dangerous claim…..When somebody
claims he founded Nollywood, Oga Bello, of course I, cannot be part
of that. When I produced my first film in 1983, Emeka Ike and his
Nollywood people were still in school.
They started their own film-making in 1992 and they are claiming
that 1992 was the beginning of film-making in Nigeria” so stated
Wale Adenuga in the interview published on this page last week. It
was an honest statement, probably made with noble intent but it
was a can of worms he had opened. Emeka Ike did not hide his
feelings.
He was particularly irked by the statement that Igbos have taken
over Nollywood and took his time to chronicle how the movie
industry we know today as Nollywood actually emerged.
Emeka Ike’s reaction to Igbos taking over Nollywood
The Nollywood you know today is not the one that cropped up from
Hilbert Ogungbe. Nollywood came about with the sales, marketing
and multiplication of CDs. The Igbos got more involved by their
investments. The Igbos did what they had to do, whether good or
not, it has given us the platform.
They provided the medium for conveying our movies to every home.
After a while, the Igbo people decided to go into movie-making
themselves. We should try to see how we can empower the different
regional ethnic areas to make their movies, interpret their culture
and at the same time have Nollywood at the centre.
It is wrong to start saying who started Nollywood, who did this and
who did that. It’s not a good way to go for a man of his pedigree.
When he made his movie, nobody knew him, just like we made our
movies when nobody knew us. The platform has been created by
both the Yoruba and Igbo marketers in Idumota and he started
making it more than even most of us that created the image that he
took advantage of.
Good for him, we are happy, he’s a visionary. But as a huge
stakeholder in this industry, talking about the Igbos or Yorubas is
unnecessary at this stage of our country’s democracy and
development where we ought to come together and chart a course.
We should come together and frustrate the enemies of the industry,
the enemies are those who have stood between the Nigerian youths
and their pension money.
They prevent our youths from being paid when they are shown on
TV. Actors should be paid each time they are shown on air, that’s
how it is on international contract and movie making standard.
Artistes should be properly remunerated anytime their movies are
shown on air. These are things we should be working towards. I’m
personally working towards galvanising Kannywood, Nollywood and
the Yoruba movies together.
We cannot be divided, we should have a central working system
under which we would have different links: Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa,
Ijaw etc. They should all be streamlined under Nollywood, creating a
stronger product. For you to now start dividing, it is backward for a
man of that pedigree.
He should keep making good movies which we are proud of and
then let’s see how we can chart a policy to make sure that the
people acting in his movies get something back as remuneration –
as their pension money, so that when they fall sick in future, they
can see something to fall back on.
That’s why most of our colleagues are dying because when they
encounter difficulties, there’s no rescue except going to beg people.
There’s no pension money to help them, some people have coerced
it. I can tell you that some people are taking the royalties of all the
Nigerian artistes on DSTV.
People are stealing royalties belonging to actors
These are well known people in the industry, every time they show
Nigerian movies on TV, they collect the royalties that belong to the
Nigerian youths. When you mention Emeka Ike to them, they want
to tear their skin, but that will not stop me from trailing them down.
Go and ask African Magic, they pay people money. I don’t want to
mention names here. I stopped fighting African Magic when I
noticed that there were middle men. They were paying the middle
game, they now pushed the fight to me and African magic.
I am saying actors should be paid the way they do on the
international scene. There are people who take money from AMAA
Awards on behalf of artistes. There are people who take the money
coming in from all around the world – Hollywood, Bollywood,
France etc. A few of my colleagues sat on these money and all they
do is scandalising those of us who talk.
They paint a bad impression about us and make us look like
troublemakers. Why won’t we make trouble? Why would there be
peace when there’s injustice? People like Wale Adenuga should join
hands with us to make sure that his artistes do not suffer in the
future. You make a huge star and you eventually don’t have
programmes for the star.
In all these pageants, millions are made, but they expose these
models to prostitution. What is in all this for these people? These
government of change should address all these anomalies going on
and that’s what we are working on, to ensure that we remove those
people in the middle. Go and ask the Ghanaian actors, when they
show them with us on TV, they pay them in Ghana.
Right now, there’s change. Everybody must be treated with equity.
Granted, artistes are desperate to become stars, they can do
anything to become stars. These are the things I want to correct
and I will expect someone like Wale Adenuga to come on board.
Let’s sanitise the industry to meet up with Hollywood standard. If
our Ghanaian counterparts get something in return for starring in
our movie, then Nigerian actors are entitled to something too.
If it’s 1 dollar, make it an alert on their phones. Let’s have biometric
ID cards; these biometric ID cards can stand like a master card ATM
card where you can go and take anything that has accrued to you
from your efforts in the past.
How come Nollywood is predominantly Igbo?
You could be right about that but that’s not to say that’s how
Nollywood should be. When he (Wale Adenuga) made his movie, it
was just a one-off. Several movies were made even before he made
his own, that we didn’t know about. In that same 1993, Amaechi Obi
and I made a movie that never saw the light of day just like his own
didn’t.
But what we are talking about is history, pedigree. How did they
start packaging this whole thing for export? How did investors get
involved? How did all these become a budding industry? It is not
impossible that Wale Adenuga would have made an unattractive
movie. Let’s stop these tribal issues.
What should be the role of Actors Guild of Nigeria, in unifying all the
sectoral bodies in the movie industry?
Actors’ Guild of Nigeria means every actor in Nigeria irrespective of
tribe and ethnic background. What we are presenting to the
government is a central working system. The last president of the
Actors’ Guild of Nigeria is from Ijaw (South-South), before then, the
last president was Yoruba and Emeka Ike is the next right now.
If Actors’ Guild is a Nigerian product, I’m of the opinion that
Kannywood, Yorubawood, Kadunawood, Igbowood should all come
under a central working system.
We’ve been operating on individual basis and that’s why the middle
man has the opportunity to play the game he’s playing right now.
If we are going to see any stakeholder, we should go with an agenda
that covers all. When we get a film village, Kannywood should have
their own department; Yoruba movie makers should have their own;
the Igbo movie makers should have theirs too and producers should
have theirs. Then everyone can work together as a central working
system, not one that someone can manipulate.
Our problem
How come they keep calling billions, billions and yet Actors Guild is
situated on a 2-bedroom apartment; who is fooling who? I am a
straightforward man and some don’t like it that way; who is fooling
who? What were they doing in a 2-bedroom apartment upon all the
billions we kept hearing Government gave out in the name of the
industry?
These are the things we need to look at. Let’s face the Nigerian
youths, the Nigerian problem seriously. Let’s bring the youths to the
forefront; how do we market these youths? How do we make one
million youths in every state have a place in Nollywood in the next
two years? That is my target.
My target is to give one million artistes jobs in every state in the
next two years. We would situate a strong central system and then
have electives around the whole 36 states. These electives can now
mentor every young child that has interest in the trade. The absence
of this is what we see; confusion. So many kids want to be actors
tomorrow; they keep calling me, I don’t have answers for them. I
will fight all of them till we all lose it or gain it for everybody.
Open challenge to Wale Adenuga
So let him not think it is Uhuru here. Before Wale Adenuga opened
his studio, I had opened my studio at Adeniran Ogunsanya. Before
he started making cinematographers, I had made several
cinematographers in my office at Adeniran Ogunsanya. I trained
over a 100 ex militants in Ghana which was about the best training
in amnesty; I did not embezzle a dime and those boys, they love me
as if I’m their father.
They call me daddy because my interest is their life. They know I
mean well for them. That is how we should go about as responsible
Nigerians not just make a way for our own juniors. If Wale Adenuga
Junior will not suffer in life, what happens to other people’s
Juniors? So when they talk, they should know that the man they talk
to, is a very intelligent man and not a riffraff or an idiot. I am
properly educated, an Engineer is not a man you take for granted; I
am painstaking in my decision and I am very concise in what I say.
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