CONFUSION ...As home
video mafia bares its fangs
By Chidi Ifenkwem
Saturday, November
13 , 2004
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By Sun News Publishing |
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Sometime last month, stakeholders in the Nigerian home video
industry returned from a film festival in Abuja to learn that
home video film marketers in the Idumota axis in Lagos had
handed down a one year boycott on about 12 key artistes.
These artistes included: Richard Mofe-Damijo, Nkem Owoh, Sam
Dede, Emeka Ike, Ramsey Nouah, Jim Iyke and Kenneth Okonkwo
in the men’s category. The female acts said to have
also been banned included Omotola Jolade-Ekeinde, Genevive
Nnaji, Stella Damasus-Aboderin, Rita Dominic and Dakore Egbuson.
The first reaction by many to the ban was to dismiss it
as a huge joke. Even the affected artistes had laughed it
off as perhaps one of such usually stupid antics of the marketers
who many of them have, oftentimes to their own detriment,
branded illiterates.
Acclaimed king of comedy, Nkem Owoh, was reported to have
said: “That’s their business. After banning me,
they will unban me”.
Zeb Ejiro, the one popularly called the Sheikh of the industry,
was said to have been even more bitter before seriously questioning
the rationale behind such a ban by marketers whom he said
are not the owners of the industry.
Closer to the end of that month, reports also had it that
some of the ‘dumped’ artistes, allegedly facilitated
by RMD, had met (eventhough RMD was reportedly absent) at
O’jez, a popular hangout located inside the National
stadium, to forge a common front to tackle the marketers’
onslaught. The meeting, attended by Omotola, Emeka Ike, Ramson
Nouah and Rita Dominic, reportedly ended without any concrete
conclusion. Jim Iyke was said to have been absent from that
meeting in other not to incur further wrath of the marketers.
Ban, suspension or boycott?
Most people who have been questioning the legitimacy of marketers
to hand down a one year no-work–order to artistes who
are usually under the employ of producers believe it was simply
in excess of their powers. Others have been quarrelling with
semantics. Should it be called a ban? Boycott? Suspension?
Or what?
Madu Chikwendu, President of the Association of Movie Producers
(AMP), while arguing that the marketers lacked the power to
impose a ban on artistes, however insisted that it is well
within the rights of the Marketers to decide not to market
anything they say they don’t want to market. In that
case, he refused to call it a ban. “Indeed, they’ve
decided to boycott the use of certain individuals which is
well within their rights. They said, if you put such people
in the movie, we’ll not market such movie. I don’t
think there’s anything wrong with that. They didn’t
say “don’t use these people o!”
Mum is the word
Almost all the Marketers echoed Madu’s last statement
when Saturday Sun went in search of Mr. Charles Anyiam, the
chairman of their association who was no where to be found.
Mr Azubuike Udensi, owner of Consolidated Movies Ltd, pretended
to be hearing of the news of the ban for the first time, claiming
that the Association which he is part of has banned nobody.
He even warned this writer not to associate his name with
anything that has to do with the word ‘ban’.
But in a telephone chat with a part owner of another marketing
company, he confided in Saturday Sun that the Marketers were
“dead serious” with their injunction against those
artistes. “They have to stay away for one year. That
is our position. And this boycott order or request or ban
or whatever took effect from last month (October)”.
Over-priced and rude
When report of the ban first leaked out, the marketers had
claimed that this category of artistes were guilty of charging
very high fees and gross insubordination, ranging from flouting
of shooting schedules – either by perpetually turning
up late and keeping others waiting or deliberately staying
away outright. And those were not the only charges. However,
no particular artiste was pinned down with any particular
offence. The blanket charge was that of high fees which, the
marketers claim, is seriously eroding their own profitability
and threatening their continued stay in the business. However,
the charges were simply verbal, thus explaining why the likes
of Zeb Ejiro, some of the affected artistes themselves, some
members of the Actors Guild, the very constituency supposed
to be protecting the interest of the artistes and most other
stakeholders who claim to belong to the elite class, have
not taken the injunction seriously. Or have pretended not
to.
Real reasons behind the ban
Saturday Sun’s investigation reveals however that the
real reasons behind this boycott may not be unconnected with
the unwholesome attitude and larger than life taste of the
affected persons which incidentally the marketers could no
longer stomach. According to a marketer who pleaded anonymity.
“Could you imagine that almost all these people don’t
eat what others eat on set. They always prefer a separate
treatment”. For the marketers, most of whom usually
put down the money for artistes’ fees and general running
costs for virtually all the movies, it is rather ironic that
the artistes live like kings while they who bring out the
money are treated like social dregs and even scorned by some
of the stars whose livelihoods and celebrity lifestyles they
sustain.
Omotola
Omotola, Saturday Sun learnt comes to location with mere slippers
and must be given “Shoe allowance” for every movie.
One marketer revealed that this allowance could go as high
as N20,000, otherwise she would not go on set. This is excluding
the digit fee that would have been paid as artiste fee. She
also would not tolerate sharing a similar diet with other
lesser cast members, let alone lodging in the same hotel with
them - except the hotel is something from at least a three-star
rating.
RMD
Unarguably among the most professional in the land, the case
against Richard Mofe Damijo may not be unconnected with his
‘string of exotic cars’ and landed property at
VGC. But worse of all, the marketers say RMD’s sometimes
stubborn insistence to have 10% of every tape sold (after
a stated sales figure) as either royalty or compensation for
not meeting up with his terms may have infuriated the traders.
Nkem Owoh
Nkem Owoh’s fame allegedly went into his head so much
that he gave an order to the marketers all queuing for him
to go pay the whole 100% of his usually non-negotiable artiste
fee into his bank account as a first expression of their interest
in him. This fee at the peak of his career sometime last year,
reportedly ran into millions. A marketer told the Saturday
Sun that one day, Nkem Owoh got to his account only to discover
to his shock that his deposits was far in excess of N20 million.
Genevieve Nnaji
Nnaji’s sins seem to out-number those of the others.
For apart from being liable of all the other offences Omotola
was accused of, she was also charged with deliberately shooting
up her artiste fee as she liked. Then again she never kept
to rehearsal and shooting schedules, preferring to attend
all these at her own time. In fact, one of the marketers revealed
that they had even toyed with the idea of extending hers and
Omotola’s to three full years.
He told of an incident when about three producers and marketers
had to wait for Genevieve at the airport with scripts. She
had allegedly told each of them to wait for her at the airport
only to come and take one script scuff at another and simply
ignored the third and walked away.
Unfortunately, neither the star actress nor any of her affected
colleagues is responding to all these allegations.
Stella Damasus-Aboderin
Also liable for the other offences, Stella bears the burden
of yet another offence: the marketers accuse her of sometimes
taking money, appearing in some scenes and disappearing without
finishing the contract.
Kenneth Okonkwo (Andy)
Even though, he too is a marketer, Kenneth’s desire
to join the league of the big earning stars seems to have
been his major undoing. When he queried his inclusion in the
deadly list of the ‘damned’, even when he ate
from the same bowl as fellow marketers, he was given the clear
message: “We are banning Kenneth Okonkwo, not Goal Productions”,
that is, Kenneth’s marketing outfit. In other words,
Okonkwo will still be free to market films but should not
star in any, even if the one sponsored by himself, otherwise
he would face the music. Okonkwo (known more as Andy Okeke
for his role in the ground-breaking Living in Bondage), said
our source, joined the ‘big boys’ when he realised
that ‘small boys’ like Jim Iyke, Emeka Ike and
even Ramsey Nouah were asking for, and receiving, very heavy
fees. He too allegedly decided to up his charges, as a veteran,
and one acclaimed to be good for that matter.
Ramsey Nouah
Ramsey’s problem with marketers as we reported in this
paper a couple of months back still traces back to his sudden
attitude of asking for as high as 800,000 to N1 million just
because Emeka Ike, whom he considered as his contemporary,
was being paid up to that amount. His case was even worsened
when news came to the industry that he uses the latest technology
in television simply referred to as the big screen which reputedly
gulped some millions if naira. “Can you imagine that”,
asked one peeved marketer. “If you go there, to show
him a script, he will always be playing computer games, without
even giving you attention”, the marketer added in anger.
Jim Iyke
Jim clearly shot himself in the foot when he returned from
his latest overseas trip to announce that he wouldn’t
be taking any job less than N1m. “It seems it was the
trip that tripped him because he was not like that before”,
said a source at Idumota. But since the news of the ban hit
home, Ike appears to be the only one that has been taking
it calm. He was said to have boycotted the meeting called
by his colleagues at O’jez, preferring instead the option
of negotiation.
The Mafian Angle
Except that the Italian mafians in the United States mostly
engage in illegal underground businesses, one would have had
no difficulty likening the modus operandi of the Idumota Marketers
to those mafians. Here are a group of traders that travel
to any country in the world where tapes are made to place
orders. Most of them have succeeded to the point that they
get the makers to brand their names on these tapes. Others
end up securing total franchise to import such products into
Nigeria. They were able to achieve this due to sheer persistence
over a long period of time. This level of monopoly, therefore,
has ensured that whoever in Nigeria that now wants to acquire
these tapes for any type of use must go through them. And
with a legal union or association already formed for that
purpose, it becomes easy for them to frustrate the efforts
of anybody outside their union thinking of importing such
products without going through them.
Now, if Nkem Owoh says it is the marketers who need him more
and not vice versa and Omotola believes that it is the viewers
who would have the final say about who they actually would
like to see in a movie and not the marketers, that still does
not water down the powers of the marketing mafia. For, harmless
and uneducated as they might seem, they tend to have all it
takes to ruin and frustrate any artiste out of the industry.
This is more so against the backdrop of the sorry state of
the Film Co-operative Market, launched last year by a group
of starry-eyed practitioners in the industry who claimed to
have had it up to their necks with all sort of cheating and
victimization from the marketers at Idumota.
Led by Don Pedro Obaseki and Peace Fiberesima and a whole
mixture of producers, directors, writers and actors all united
by one common grudge: to get rid of the Idumota traders, they
had come together. But the story of that market is better
told in secret. Not only has the place turned to a ghost land,
its major players have in recent times, fallen back to the
Idumota marketers for one joint deal or another.
A visit by Saturday Sun to the market, located on Babs Animasaun
street, Surulere showed that most stalls were under lock and
key at an hour when there would be total traffic jam at the
composite Idumota market. The stall owned by Don Pedro, whom
we learnt, by the way, has been removed as the chairman of
the co-operative, was said to have been closed for months.
In fact, a recent flick produced and directed by Don Pedro
Obaseki for Konia Concepts is surprisingly being released
by Ulzee Limited and not Film Co-operative Market.
Both Zeb Ejiro, his brother, Chico, Paul Obazele, Ralph Nwadike,
Peace Fiberesima, Sunny MacDon W, Fred Amata and others all
own stalls in that market. They all started out with the tall
dream of coming to add some enlightenment into the marketing
angle of films which they believed was being messed up by
the illiterate Idumota traders. Their grand expectation was
to infuse some educated gimmicks into the whole thing so that
before anybody could pronounce the word Idumota the co-operative’d
already be selling Nigerian films in Hollywood.
The Co-operative today
The full story of the Co-operative Market will be adequate
for another day, but for now suffice it that that lofty dream
has been put in abeyance for now. A few months ago, Zeb Ejiro
publicly announced losing some millions in a film that the
so-called Film Co-operative market reportedly released. Ejiro
had vowed not to make such mistake again.
Our source also pointed out that even before the advent of
the Film market, some persons, who also claimed to be ‘educated’
had tried their hands on marketeing their films, “what
happened to them?” he asked rhetorically, citing the
instances of Amaka Igwe, Zeb Ejiro, Ken Nnebue, Zack Orji
and a host of others.
The truth
Saturday Sun learnt that it may be near impossible breaking
the stranglehold of the marketers, especially since they are
the ones who sponsor these films too. “Don’t forget
that it was still these boys that made these stars what they
are today”, one producer stated, adding: “The
problem is that they are too impatient. Once a particular
film sells well, they all troop to the lead artiste that acted
that film and price him, most times, out of proportion, even
if it meant telling the same story in another form. But, it’s
good they are coming back to their right senses. I think it’s
more of the function of the economy than anything anybody
would want to say about it.”
Even if we accept this submission, it then adds strength to
the earlier argument that the combination of the Idumota,
Onitsha and Aba film marketers associations have grown into
a powerful cartel that, like the Italian Mafians, can make
a person a star today and tomorrow, decide to unmake him or
her.
Confusions reigns
The boycott order, having not being documented in any form,
has thrown up three points of confusions. The first is the
confusion in the minds of the boycotted artistes and their
many sympathisers whether the ban stops at film shot by the
artistes within the territory of Nigeria by Nigerian producers
within their association or does it extend to any film at
all featuring any of such artistes whether shot in Nigeria
or not and whether produced and directed and financed by foreigners.
This is a very important angle which the Marketers need to
turn their minds to.
The second confusion borders on the moral ability of the marketers
to all abide by their own injunction. Good, they’ve
announced a penalty of N500,000 plus a 6-month suspension
of any marketer that flouts the order, but given the human
angle of greed and the temptation of Nigerians to make quick
money, what stops a marketer from knocking down the rules
and using any of the boycotted artistes to shore up his sales
and, if shove comes to push, pull out from the association?
The third confusion is the possibility of the marketers being
able to raise these artistes back to their former positions
of stardom, given that the new breed artistes that would be
taking over the scene would have grown to equal, if not, surpass
their stature by the time the ban would be lifted.
Advantage
One major advantage of the boycott, most people that spoke
to SS believe though, is the room it will give to the industry
to thrust new talents unto the stage. Majority of movie lovers,
it was discovered, were long fed up with watching these same
artistes repeat almost similar lines and actions over and
over again in different films to the point that most of them
reportedly read their scripts only once and mount the set
to deliver their lines. And, surprisingly, still had all the
awards and trophies reserved for them at every movie award
ceremony.
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