Nollywood Star Emeka Ike takes on Wale Adenuga
Veteran movie maker and entertainment entrepreneur of the popular Super Story TV series, Wale Adenuga was our guest last Saturday as the...
https://newshelmng.blogspot.com/2015/06/nollywood-star-emeka-ike-takes-on-wale.html
Veteran movie maker and entertainment entrepreneur of the popular 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.
Then he took a cursory look at 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.