Uzo Maxim Uzoatu
22 June 2008
The Nigerian national football team, the Super Eagles, was in 2005 having a pulsating match with the Zimbabwean national team in Harare, and the Zimbabwean supporters had one big banner in the stands on which was written in bold red: "Nigeria - Good only for Films!" For the many men and women of Zimbabwe, the prowess of Nigeria in the football pitch was not as great as the accomplishment of the country in the film industry. The Zimbabweans are not alone, for across the length and breadth of the African continent the Nigerian home movies are all the rage. The phenomenon has extended to the frontiers of Europe, North America and Asia with throngs of foreigners making the frequent pilgrimage to Nigeria to have a feel of the revolution known as Nollywood, which accounts for the third place in worldwide film production after America's Hollywood and India's Bollywood.
Professor Jude Akudinobi who teaches film studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says: "What Nigeria has in Nollywood is a global brand. I am always being consulted from all over the globe about the workings of the Nigerian home movie industry. The government has a goldmine in the industry if properly managed with the requisite technical competence". Akudinobi has in the past many years made many trips from his base in California to Abuja and Lagos to facilitate Nollywood projects undertaken by Emeka Mba's National Film and Film Censors Board (NFVCB) and Amaka Igwe's Best of the Best African Film and Television Programmes Market, aka BOBTV.
Film luminaries who have shown profound interest in Nollywood range from the top Hollywood director Bill Duke to the respected acting coach Ms Adilah Barnes, the international copyright expert Ms Avalyn Pitts and the Paul Robeson Award director Prof Shade Turnipseed.
In the words of Alder: "The revenue generated by sales and rentals of movies in Lagos state is N804 million per week". This adds up to an estimated N33.5 billion per annum. Demand for broadcast content in Nigeria averages 836,580 hours of programming per year valued at N250 billion. Uptake of CDs at Alaba International Market, Lagos, alone is estimated at 700,000 discs per day. Alder submits finally that "the market potential of the movie industry in Nigeria relative to the size of each state's economy is at least N522 billion per annum".
The Nollywood phenomenon being celebrated globally today started most inauspiciously. A few Nigerian dramatists and comedians in Lagos and Onitsha recorded and sold some of their plays via the VHS format until the advent of the Igbo language home movie Living in Bondage which launched forth the revolution. At the heart of the making of that breakthrough film is the story and tenacity of one young man known as Okechukwu Ogunjiofor, popularly known as Paulo, after the character he played in Living in Bondage. Okey, that is short for Okechukwu, needs to be quoted at length on how Living in Bondage came about.
Here is Okey's story: "I would want to start by saying that when I left TV College, Jos, in 1987, one of the challenges I had then was that my parents were confused as to what I went to do in the university. I went to Jos because I had admission to study law. That year, on October 1st, we had a very terrible accident that left me in the hospital for eight months. I broke my legs, and so I was in the hospital when the others matriculated and it never occurred to my parents and uncles to go and defer my admission".
The young Okey got out of hospital only to see that his admission to the University of Jos had lapsed. He had to do the JAMB exams all over, and could no longer pass the exams. It was against this background of incipient failure that his uncle advised him to take advantage of the advertised Nigerian Television (NTA) College course on Television Production "instead of staying and wasting away at home". He found his niche in the course, but had to make do with hawking at the National Theatre in Lagos on completion of the course.
Other theatre artistes such as Frank Vaughan, Ruth Osi and Wale Macauley who were rehearsing at the theatre could not understand why he should be hawking after his training. The personable Ruth Osi gave Okey a note to meet Kenneth Nnebue who was into the marketing of Yoruba movies on VHS.
On meeting Kenneth Nnebue, who would eventually provide the funding for Living in Bondage, Okey said he needed N150,000 to be able to make the film. Kenneth told him that the amount was enough to make three Yoruba movies. The self-assured Okey instantly did an analysis of how Kenneth could quickly recoup his money on the investment. Kenneth then told Okey to bring along his certificate to prove that he was not some nobody. He went home and came back with his certificate. As Okey had said he was not willing to shoot on VHS, Kenneth told him he would make a trip to Japan to procure cameras.
Kenneth then told him to put the story together while he made the trip to Japan. Okey went back to the National Theatre, and began rehearsals without any script whatsoever. Okey who had been under the tutelage of ace director, Chris Obi-Rapu, could not but bring the great man into the project. Since Chris was still in the employ of the NTA, he could not append his real name to the project.
According to Chris Obi-Rapu: "What made the Nigeria home video industry to take-off was the input from Okey Ogunjiofor and my direction. Nobody had wanted to do anything in Igbo or Yoruba among television producers around then because they felt it was degrading. There had been some shootings of Yoruba and Igbo videos. Mike Orihedimma recorded Igbo home videos in Onitsha, while NEK (Kenneth Nnebue) was recording and marketing Yoruba videos in Lagos. They were poorly produced and directed. It is a known fact in filmmaking that it is the direction that makes the film. If I had not shot Living in Bondage and Taboo, there could not have been any Nollywood. This film business really took off because Living in Bondage was well shot as at that time. If I had not stood my grounds, the financier could have influenced the production and direction in a negative way. I resisted him because I knew that he lacked the knowledge of filmmaking. It was a deliberate directorial effort that brought about the home video revolution. It was not accidental".
The making of Living in Bondage, according to Okey Ogunjiofor, marked "the first time some people were paid in thousands of naira to act on a film. I got N500 because I had not made a film then. People like Bob-Manuel (Udokwu) and others were paid a thousand naira. As a producer and an actor, what I got was only N500".
Okey stresses that the formula that pushed him on was that unlike in the western part of Nigeria where the Yorubas always went to the theatres to watch movies, the easterners, especially the Igbo, needed the movies to be brought to their homes. For whatever it is worth, the young man's dream has materialised into a phenomenon that now holds the entire world in thrall.
The words flow almost childlike from Okey's mouth: "I had some stories and something to share but I am looking into bringing something into film for people to buy because I had thought that since the eastern part of this country does not have a cinema culture, and all of them are rich enough to have video machines in their homes, why don't I take the film to their home so that they can watch it?" He adds the following words of fulfilment: "Since we shot that film (Living in Bondage) the only happiness I have is that God used that opportunity to lift the celluloid era. And what we said was let's bring the current format of celluloid film into digital and let's create jobs for people and today we can imagine the number of thousands of people that are feeding on film".
The movies have since proliferated in the major languages of Nigeria such as Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa as well as in Ijaw, Efik, Ibibio etc. English language films are seen as welding the diverse ethnic groups together. Major players in the English language films include the producers Zeb Ejiro and his brother Chico Ejiro, Amaka Igwe, Mahmood Ali-Balogun, Tade Ogidan, Andy Amenechi, Opa Williams, Kingsley Ogoro, Charles Novia, Fred Amata, Don Pedro Obaseki; marketers-cum-producers Ken Nnebue, Rob Eze (Reemy Jes), Ossy Affason, Gabosky Okoye, Azubuike Udensi, Arinze Ezeanyaeche, Ugo Emmanuel and Alex Okeke (Emmalex) etc.
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