President of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Emeka Ike, is of the opinion that previous leaders of the Guild caused lasting damage to the industry with what he perceived as their ineptitude.
The actor who recently led some of his executives to donate some cash to veteran, Tunde Alabi (He had his leg amputated recently), told Punch that his predecessors used the Guild as a meal ticket.
He said, “AGN was used as a meal ticket by some people before now, and it was not living up to its mandate. AGN is supposed to provide for the welfare of Nigerian actors, but the people who ran it were operating it like a personal business. They spent most of their time in office visiting governors and Aso Rock. Things like that led to the African Magic rip-off because the clique of elitists I mentioned earlier were in business with them, albeit without structure. Many of them were patronised, but today, they have been abandoned, and DSTV is moving on with Uganda, Kenya, and other African countries. DSTV came to do business, but we were not organised ab initio, and now they prefer to deal with the Association of Movie Producers (AMP).”
Emeka also explained his prolonged absence from movies, “I feel the industry in Nigeria is ripe enough to pay me for all I’ve done for it. I think it would be sheer foolishness for me to keep exciting Nigerians without asking the right questions. Right now, I’m more interested in ensuring that actors get paid every time movies are shown,” he said.
