| Blackmail! Marketers
are killing movie industry – Pete Edochie
By IJEOMA OGWUEGBU
Saturday, March
26, 2005
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•Pete Edochie
Photos: Sun News Publishing
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That Nigerian home video marketers ‘banned’ some
major actors last year is no longer news. A few of the actors
have spoken about the issue while the majority have remained
silent, preferring to wait out their time in the cold. The
silence of one of the biggest names in the industry, Pete
Edochie, has baffled quite a few, as many did not know whether
he remained silent out of fear or if he was just bidding his
time. It turns out the latter was the case, as he has finally
spoken to Saturday Sun. Of course, it is vintage ‘Okonkwo’
– smoking from the nose and firing on all cylinders.
Below are excerpts.
Career End
I think my career as an actor with marketers has come to an
end. Whatever I’m doing now, I’ll be doing for
the church. I recently did a movie on the Blessed Father Tansi.
I always believe that discretion is the better part of valour
and I’m opposed to any situation that is likely to generate
violence. If you try something and it doesn’t work,
try something else. I am happy that I made my mark on the
film industry. Being regarded as the best in Africa, I’ve
received various awards, so I don’t have anything else
to prove. If at this point in my career, I desecrate my future
with people who are unrepentantly unsuccessful in terms of
mental development, I think it would not be good. I know between
my ears is not all muscle and I thank God for that. And going
to contest with people who are compelled to operate within
the gutters would be wrong. God let’s us change energy
levels. If I had not been persuaded by the church to do the
movie on Father Tansi, I would have asked myself how I would
have occupied myself. If the head of the marketers…
(name withheld by us), who is at the moment controlling the
affairs of the marketers can resort to thuggery and the most
inconceivable level of villainy just to ensure that Pete Edochie
does not take part in a production, I think he will stop at
nothing to ensure that even my person is eliminated so I will
not humour him. Let him run his industry and I’ll run
my life.
They are angry at my gift car
How my problems with the marketers started was that some of
them wanted to collect some money from the Ebonyi State Government
for a project. I advised them on how to go about it but rather
than take my advice, they got someone who told them he had
the ear of the governor and made some outrageous demands which
of course could not be given attention by the government.
From my investigation, it never even got to the ear of the
governor. Later, the governor heard of several awards I had
been given within and outside the country and in appreciation
of that, he gave me a car. Now, when they learnt of this,
the marketers decided that I had taken what the governor should
have given them and they decided to ‘ban’ me.
Ask any of them today, they cannot tell you of any unprofessional
conduct the list to which they added my name.
Marketers are killing the industry and the younger
actors share part of the blame
I have never liked a lie. I know they are there and are suffering
because of this. But I don’t believe in protecting hypocrisy.
I believe that if the actors had organized themselves properly
to start with, they would not just fold their arms and be
waiting for the marketers to change their disposition, for
them to say okay, come and they come back with their tails
between their legs to be told like little children, if you
do this again, I will punish you.
But to tell you the truth, marketers are killing the industry.
If you add two more years to my age, I’ll be 60 so whatever
I’m saying, I’m not talking as a kid. Whatever
they do now is retrogressive. They’re killing the industry.
They are not compelled to work with us but what they are doing
has never been done anywhere in the world. If you think that
there are people you think are insulting you or people you
think their popularity has gone into their heads or you feel
they have a superior posture when they are talking to you,
there are ways in which we can deal with such things. You
have to use your head but there has to be something there
for you to use. If it’s only muscle you have between
your ears, your reaction will be savage and untutored, which
is what we see most times with these marketers. If you feel
that some people are overpaid, you can say to them, this is
what we can pay you, no more, no less. You don’t deprive
the people of their right to be entertained. People who buy
these movies buy them because these people are in it. Now
you take out these people and you want to conspiratorially
enthrone mediocrity, you’re inflicting incompetence
on the people. We are professional actors, we operate at different
levels of competence, I mean, it happens in every field of
endeavour. After a while some others supersede them. The best
way to ensure that this happens is not by preventing them
from working. Then, having prevented them from working for
you, you go a step further to ensure that they never involve
themselves in anything in the industry, an industry you don’t
own. That is madness.
No articulation
The marketers have never articulated their grievances as they
concern individuals. And there is no way a group of people
can all be guilty of one type of sin. Even in law, if you
shoot someone and you’re caught, you’re not killed
immediately, you’re tried. If you had justification,
it might be manslaughter and if not, you’ll be hanged.
But you must be listened to first. In the case of all the
people who were affected, nobody was listened to. But that’s
alright. But they have no right to not only interfere in their
professional lives, but also intimidating, frightening even
those who should mingle with them professionally.
Secondly, because they are the ones who provide the monies
for these movies, they believe that there are no checks and
balances, nobody can supervise them, nobody can say, you’re
overstepping the bounds. The marketers do not belong to any
association that binds us, so they cannot claim to be guided
by any decisions that we take. There are three groups of people
you can’t win an argument with in Nigeria, that’s
the police, Okada riders and the marketers. But the moment
you start playing God, God intervenes and you won’t
like it. Today, the present leadership of the marketers is
playing God and they will not like it when God intervenes.
You’re destroying the industry because you pay those
who work in the industry. You’re enjoying a monopoly
and you make it a strangling monopoly. If you carry it too
far, you pay for it. They owe the entire country an explanation
for killing the industry and secondly they owe them an apology
for insulting their insensitivities with the mediocre work
they are bringing out since then.
Thugs
Ray Echechi is a young man who wanted me to be in his movie.
He camped up to 40 cast and crew members in a hotel. Before
we knew what was happening, these marketers sent thugs to
the hotel to intimidate people, just because I was in the
movie. This young man is not a member of their organization,
he’s an independent producer. But they forced cameramen,
actors and other crew members to leave the production. He
had to stop production for one week, even with everyone still
in the hotel. Eventually, I told Ray that I was getting out
of the production so he could go on with his movie. Even after
that, they told him he couldn’t shoot the movie again,
because I had been involved in it at all, even though I was
no longer in it. He asked them what it was I did to them,
they said it doesn’t matter. I would like you to interview
(name withheld) and ask him why he chose gangsterism as an
administrative policy.
The minister’s failings
Nollywood, as we are being referred to now, is popularizing
the image of this country and there are individuals who make
this industry happen. Majority of those individuals have been
sidelined and this has in its way affected the quality of
those films being produced. I believe it is the responsibility
of the office of the Minister of Information to ask questions.
Having permitted this thing to drag on for so long and given
the dimensions it is now assuming, I don’t think I will
clap for the minister if he continues to keep mum on the matter.
This is his constituency and he owes an obligation to the
people. If the people involved are not people with professional
clout, we could say alright, it is not important. But given
the class of people who are involved, you can’t afford
to ignore the situation. If Christian Chukwu fields a team
without the main playmakers, he owes the Minister of Sports
an explanation as to why this is so because if as a direct
consequence we lose, tongues are bound to wag and the buck
will eventually land at the minister’s desk. He would
have forestalled this by inviting Christian to explain the
absence of these people.
Ineffective Guilds
We have so many guilds. Experience has proved that these guilds
mean nothing. These guilds exist purely at the mercy or the
disposition of the marketers. If something is wrong with the
industry today, the people who are in the Actors Guild don’t
have the courage to say we’re going to speak our mind
because they are afraid of getting spiked by the marketers.
If you belong to an association that cannot guarantee or protect
your interests, then what is the use of that association to
you? It is worthless. If you go to the Directors’ Guild,
it’s the same thing. The directors work on films sponsored
by the marketers. If the marketers say to the director, if
you work with Pete Edochie, you’ll not work for us again,
he backs out. Same thing goes for the scriptwriters and others.
All the guilds are parasitically dependent on the marketers.
Why don’t we just wait and see the course that these
people are drafting. All the people who have tried to operate
independent of them have been frustrated and intimidated.
If you shoot a film and none of them is involved in it and
you send it into the market, they’ll kill it. Unless
you involve one of them, they’ll pirate your movie and
the pirated copies will be sold and yours will be left unsold.
The minister owes us his involvement in this matter.
Nemesis
When you take an action, you must think very clearly about
the consequences of that action. You do something and you
think it has ended with you. This is why people suffer accidents
they can’t explain. You’re sitting down; a tree
falls and kills you for no reason. God never designed people
to die that way. We are the architects of that kind of tragedy.
You prevent the actors from working, but you want to work.
You want to starve their families but you want to work and
raise yours. It doesn’t happen. Mark my words, divine
intervention is coming soon.
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