Tricia Bombshell! I pay Nigerian footballers
If there is one actress who has paid her dues in the movie industry and deserves respect, that
person is Tricia Eseigbe.
On record, she is the first Nigerian female actress to star in Ghanaian made movies
Now a tv producer and presenter of the most successful interview programme, Bold Faces, Tricia has since given up on acting to embrace full TV production. In this interview with Showtime Celebrity, the beautiful lady who stunned industry watchers recently with the news of impending marriage speaks about her life, career and many more. Enjoy
Tricia EseigbeHow is Bold Faces?
I try as much as possible to take things easy but it’s a bit rough. The fact that you are the CEO of your organisation has its own challenges.
And in recent times, it’s become more challenging since I moved to Lekki but still maintain an office in Surulere.
Right now, we are working on getting some new programmes off the shelves.
We have in the offing “The Celebrity Eye”, “Boldfaces Extra”,
programmes that will showcase personalities in the corporate world, politicians and the people in the entertainment business.
I’m also working on ‘Boldfaces Magazine’ well as the ‘Boldfaces International Foundation for the less privileged”. This foundation kicked off in the United Kingdom.
During the cause of my interviews, I was privileged to speak with England International team goalkeeper, David James, on my show. As we got talking, he said he’d want me to be part of his foundation which focuses on agriculture, where he trains farmers and caretakers of land in Africa.
And that was how we came up with the initiative of helping children, especially the less privileged.
And we have been supported by great philanthropists like Julius Aghahowa, Joseph Yobo. They have so far given out scholarship to more than 300 children up to University level.
I also belong to an organisation called “Street Charms,” a reality TV show in the United Kingdom as a media consultant from Nigeria.
And lastly, I have been praying for my enemies to be exposed because I have realised that my enemies are within me and they are beginning to unfold one by one.
Enemies you said?
Yes, “na bad bele” people. You will be surprised to see people wake up and look for ways of destroying people’s name.
They wrote a false story about me on the net but it’s been corrected. God revealed the people involved. They tried so hard to paint me black for reasons I know nothing about.
Are you saying you are in the black book of journalists?
Not really. The journalist that wrote the story got it from an actress and one other man in Omole Estate. And whatever story they got was a cover up. It was just unfortunate that I was used to cover up their mess. I discovered later that it was an actress that was involved and the same person happened to be my friend.
TriciaBut I wondered why they had to use me to cover up their mess. Although, the Commissioner of Police gave me some of his men and I was able to do some investigation, whatever happened has been corrected. The journalist involved is highly respected.
Why did you move to Lekki?
I’d been in Surulere for years and I believe there is need for a change of environment. I had made up my mind to leave Surulere because I wanted a place that offers a natural environment and where I would be able to breathe in fresh air.
Surulere is choked up when compared to Lekki where you enjoy fresh air.
It’s a place where you can think properly. It’s quiet and it’s easy to get inspiration. For me, that is just my reason for staying in Lekki, not for any other reason or what people call effissy.
As a top actress in Nigeria, why did you quit acting so early?
How many actresses would you say have made it from acting? It’s just a few of them. And it’s a pity that people have not been able to make a living out of the profession.
The Ghanaian movie industry has taken over Nollywood, and they are now picking up movie roles in the Nollywood industry.
Nigerian movies are no more selling. Marketers are not making their funds available. Nobody wants to invest in a product that wouldn’t yield profit and that is really affecting the industry negatively. For these reasons, actors and actresses prefer doing other things, just to get themselves on the move.
Could bad scripts be responsible for this problem?
It could be one of the reasons why movie roles are not flowing. And it is a pity that music has taken over the movie industry in Nigeria. I was in a train in the UK and I was amazed when I noticed that some white people use Nigerian music as their ring-tones.
People are no longer interested in watching Nigerian movies. I can’t remember the last time I watched Nollywood movies. I think the industry needs prayers. We need to re-organise and re-package ourselves. And that would go along way to help us.
How often do you get roles now?
I don’t have such time anymore. I don’t want to take any movie role anymore. But if I must, then it must be for the sake of my friends.
Maybe, your charges are scaring potential producers from you…
For me, acting is not all about money. It is more of a passion and that was the reason some of us came into the industry.
It is only recently that money started coming in. In the days of the Regina Askias, Sandra Achums and the Kate Henshaws, it wasn’t money.
So, there is a possibility of you returning to Nollywood?
Of course, but I’d be coming out with my own movie. And it will be for the passion and not for the money. Right now, I don’t think anyone can really pay me my money worth.
Let’s talk about the challenges you face in getting the kind of people, especially footballers on your programme.
For the international footballers, you first hook up with their managers and I pay quite a lot of money to get them appear on my programme.
And these include the Nigerian players. It’s not just a mere talk, it is money. There are lots of sacrifices apart from money. And I wasn’t frustrated because I knew what I wanted. It is business and there was need for me to make it work.
Although, the challenges used to be more than this at the initial stage, now it’s a bit easy, especially now that I have all the equipment and the fact that I also live most of the time in the United Kingdom with my family.
I have been moving from one region to the other and that is why I wouldn’t know why some people would sit in one place and frame all sorts of lies against me. I have now realised that success is not easy to come by and tongues are bound to wage. And the more I concentrate on those careless talks, the more it will affect my job.
What is your relationship with the footballers?
It was very firm until devil used some people to push some funny things which were not true. They wanted to destroy the relationship between me and the footballers with envy and jealousy but they haven’t been able to succeed because they more they talk, the more I get closer and stronger. That is why I pray to God everyday to expose my enemies.
Maybe, the enemies didn’t think you could make a success out of the programme.
Who says you cannot get the players when you want ? But I’d say that I like it when people begin to wonder how I get my jobs done. Anyone that wants quality must strife to get quality. And if it will cost you so much to get that quality, why not!
But it’s a pity that some people are stingy and lazy. And these are the same people that go about saying things that are not true. And that is the reason why some programmes don’t stand the test of time. I took a bold step in doing what I’m doing.
…Or because you were having affairs with the footballers?
What affair would exist between us than my job? Why should I keep an affair with the same people I’m showcasing on my programme? Why can’t people mind their business and let those who are doing their work concentrate. For me, it is my job and nothing more and I put in all my best to get the best result. The outcome is what you see on ‘Boldfaces’.
You are the first female Nigerian actress to be featured in a Ghanaian movie?
Yes, and I feel so great. It was in Nigeria here. I played the lead role in that movie called, “Samadora” that made waves across Africa. And that was what launched me into the mainstream acting profession. And I was called upon by some marketers and producers who needed that same girl that played in the Samadora to play a lead role in two of their movies, “The Visitor’and ‘Asibu”.
When I got to Ghana, the whole place scattered. I was shown more love and appreciation in Ghana than in Nigeria. I didn’t pay for anything. Everything I used there was free. They didn’t want me to pay because I was an actress.
There was a place that I went to buy some clothes and the people didn’t let me pay. Even in the saloon, it was a privilege for them to touch my hair and my billboards were all over Ghana. It is no longer the same, now that we have scattered it with our own hands. Today, Ghanaians don’t have respect for Nigerian artistes anymore.
Are you saying Ghanaians have taken over the Nollywood industry?
Obviously and that is reflecting in all that they do. They are getting the lead roles and playing it well. Ghanaians take their jobs very seriously. I’m not saying that we don’t have talents but Ghanaians are doing so well and coming up fast and if we are not careful, they will take over.
As someone who was close to JT Tom West, how would you react to controversies surrounding his estate, especially as it concerns the woman that had a son for him?
It will be difficult for me to comment on Tom West or anything that has to do with his belongings or family. He has a family and I believe they wouldn’t want to be reminded of their son’s death.
Well, as a woman and one whose look still commands admiration, do men still make some advances to you?
Of course, but it depends on you as an individual to open your eyes. You don’t quarrel with them but you have to put them where they belong. You don’t make trouble with them.
Growing up
It was very strict. I grew up in a strong Christian environment and I think that really helped in building up my character. It was just from home to school and back to my house. The driver was always there to take you to school and after lesson, he came to take us home. If was having a conversation with you as my friend, there was an extension in the other room.
So, why your choice of profession?
When I came to Lagos, I wasn’t supposed to come and act. I was supposed to do my Masters Degree.
But I met a friend who was going for casting and she asked me to follow her. It was there I was picked for a role. But I rejected that role. And that was how I picked up acting. And from there, I developed the passion.
And what was the reaction of your parents,the first time you told them you were going into acting?
They didn’t object to it. In fact, the person I wanted to marry left me because of the profession. He asked me to choose between himself and movie and I chose movie. And that’s how we separated. I was stupid to have thrown away the relationship which I’d nursed for years. But I believe it was God’s plan.
And how much were you paid the first time you acted ?
It was Samadora that launched me out and that was in 1998. And I was paid N60,000 for playing the lead role. It was actually N40,000 because after the movie sold very well, the producer gave me another N20,000 for a job well done.
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BOB EJIKE; THE LAST MAN STANDING
Nigeria’s King of Pop, Bob Ejike has just dropped a Christmas present for Nigerian and African music lovers. Twenty-five different singles and an album, in a space of two months! That’s making history. Ejike’s audio CD Forever and Ever confronts Nigerian music purists who believe that Nigerian music must be recorded by an all Nigerian team, and sounding like D’banj or Timaya. Ejike, whose musical horizon has extended to Italy and East Africa, uses an ensemble and production crew from Nigeria, Uganda and Congo, and dares to sound like the new improved Bob Ejike.
Many are astonished at the sheer number of releases, wondering what Ejike, a world renowned university professor who pioneered Nollywood, launching such superstars as Richard Mofe-Damijo and Lillian Bach, and promoting the Nigerian film renaissance to international recognition, is doing with a 16 track album. However, they relax once they hear the throbbing rhythm, heavy bass guitar and intricate xylophone works in Change The System, which laments the socio-economic decay in Nigeria and decries the beleaguered lot of the common man.
Egwuoma, an Ibo song re-enacting black history and artistic heritage, surprisingly features Ugandan-born international sensation Cindy Sanyu, singing in flawless Igbo Language. Cindy still shocks the listener with her pidgin English rendition in Gimmi Gimmi. In On The Radio, The multiple award-winner does the extraordinary by appealing to radio and TV stations to play his music and videos. He continues in Higher, which features the comical duo Aki and Pawpaw, as well as Italy-based Nigerian artiste B.B. Jones, calling on you to request his music on radio, TV and locals. After thirty persistent years in the scene Ejike deserves the attention he craves. Why did he shoot forty videos, if not for them to be shown?
In the only reggae track Niger Delta, Bob Ejike, the social crusader, appeals for an end to the crisis in the Niger Delta, and asks the Nigerian government to make efforts to improve the underdeveloped oil producing areas. Other songs include Africa, Where Did It Go? Nigerian Woman, We Are Family, and the classic Does Your Mama Know?, which conquered the airwaves in early 2000. Iyawo Mi, a Wazobian piece on family values, is rendered in Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa, followed by Making Up, (a typical Naija song), Cheating On Me, and Give Me.
Ejike, a former NTA (Nigerian Television Authority) presenter, and Sunday Sun columnist, started this project 7 years ago in Lagos, with ace producers Nelson Onome Browne and Chris Okoro, before taking the materials to his studios in Italy and Uganda for continental and international touch. He ignores conventional wisdom, which dictates that for any album to be successful in Nigeria, it must be noisy, without making lyrical sense, and delves into serious social, economic and political themes.
Bob Ejike juggles genres, from hip-hop to RnB, to highlife-Makossa, with an import that would satisfy Naija hip-hop buffs without alienating his traditional fan base. His fans will be amazed to find the middle-aged crooner an accomplished Naija rapper. The overall African flavour flows through the expertly performed pieces. This is not one of the all-too-familiar computer-made synthetic albums. All instruments were played and recorded live. The songs were chosen from forty-five mastered pieces, almost all with videos that were shot in breathtaking locations in France, Italy, Uganda and Rwanda. The videos were first launched on Bob Ejike’s website http://www.hiphoprhythm.com then on U-Tube, Facebook and MySpace, from which they were borrowed by hundreds of entertainment websites across the globe, making Bob Ejike one of the most famous African artistes in the Internet.
Now you have a Nigerian album that makes sense and sounds different, in which the artiste is not just reproducing another person’s beat and boasting about his wealth and the girls he has slept with. Forever and Ever is not the typical media hit that you cannot find anywhere outside your radio and TV. You can get a copy from the nearest shop to your home for just N100. Ejike, an advocate of art for art’s sake, kept down the price to ensure that everyone can afford a copy.
Those who were wondering whether Bob Ejike would leave acting after starring in 40 Nollywood films, and become a serious musician, will be convinced. The argument about whether he is a better writer, model, actor, singer, or TV presenter will terminate. One thing is certain, Ejike, who was trained by The Reverend Chris Okotie, remains one of the most experienced pop musicians in the continent and a valuable asset to the Nigerian entertainment culture. He is one of the few mature artistes who have survived the onslaught of the young hip-hop rappers, and he did it by being consistent in his style, never copying or imitating anyone. He often complains that there is no recognition for pioneers and multi-talented people who have contributed to the different areas of the art. One price that no one can deny Bob Ejike is the award for tenacity, perseverance and consistency, and that is Forever and Ever. Amen.
(Bob Ejike’s fotos are in google)
MARY E. AJAYI
University of Lagos,
Akoka.
AFRICANS MAY BOYCOTT TIME MAGAZINE: BOB EJIKE
Nigeria’s King of Pop, Bob Ejike just released 25 singles and an album all at once, making music history. Mary Ajayi spoke to him in this revealing interview. Here are the excerpts.
Ajayi: The late Tony Ibegbuna of Radio Nigeria used to refer to you as Nigeria’s King of afro pop. Now The Guardian calls you Nigeria’s King of Pop. How are you carrying the title?
Ejike: First of all I need to understand the full implication of the title because on one point pop is a dying genre, on the other hand pop refers to the entire gamut of music, and the Nigerian music industry is full of kings.(laughs). While accepting the long deserved honour, I don’t want them to upset other stakeholders and most importantly, I don’t want it to go to my head.
Ajayi: Prof. Bob Ejike, you have just been given the Award for the Most Popular African Artiste on The Internet, how does that make you feel?
Ejike: Among the other awards that I have received, that is the most flattering. Besides launching my website http://www.hiphoprhythm.com I did nothing else, I didn’t even know I was famous on the web.
Ajayi: 25 different singles of yours and a 16-song album, Forever and Ever, have just been released what’s the reason?
Ejike: I’ve been in the entertainment industry for thirty years, and it appears my major impact was made in Nollywood movies, but I’ve done much more, like presenting NTA’s Tropical rhythms, anchoring The Sun’s Klieglights, publishing books, modelling, video editing, voiceover. I suddenly start getting this creepy sensation that time is running out. Maybe it is the middle age crisis.(laughs) I still want to shake the earth, cause a tsunami, move mountains.
Ajayi: Won’t the sheer number of releases invite pirates to your work?
Ejike: I don’t make my music for money, if I can help it I’d give it all out for free.
Ajayi: How do you intend to tackle competition from the grassroots Nigerian artistes who have already created an accepted naija sound?
Ejike: Art is a gift from God and cannot condescend to the vulgarity of competition. Michael Jackson did wako and sold, and Marvin Gaye played cool and still sold. However, there is as much naija in my music as in Timaya’s.
Ajayi: Your album Forever and Ever features Ugandan star Cindy Sanyu singing in Igbo and pidgin English. Couldn’t you get a Nigerian star to feature with you?
Ejike: I am a pan-Africanist. The African borders were created by European imperialists, but research has shown that some Ugandan peoples actually came from Nigeria, so I was only bringing home one of your lost sisters. (laughs). Anyway let’s appreciate the fact that she sang without an accent.
Ajayi: How is the response to these recent releases?
Ejike: I am told that the collections are already in most countries in Africa. Now, I can’t take the credit for the success, because the collections also include works from D’banj, P Square, Bracket, Keffe, Wande Coal and other great Nigerian artistes. My fans are truly enthusiastic about Forever.
Ajayi: In your website http://www.hiphoprhythm.com you appealed to your fans to request your music. Why did you find that necessary?
Ejike: Most people who claim to know me have not heard 1% of my music, and I don’t have the good luck of having a Kennis Music on my side, so the only way I can make an African Queen is through my fans. I am still appealing to my fans and friends throughout East and West Africa to call their favourite DJs and presenters on radio, TV, discoteques, nightclubs, and Nkwobi joints, everywhere and request for Bob Ejike songs and videos.
Ajayi: Did you read Ruben Abati’s article on the Nigerian music industry? What’s your impression?
Ejike: Ruben Abati must have read my mind. This is an article that I wanted to write long ago but I restrained myself because you know many of us do not understand the commitment of the art critic, and how he brings about better understanding of the art towards the development to the industry. Instead they begin to accuse you of jealousy, envy, sometimes of being envious of even less able people.
Ajayi: Who are your favourite Nigerian artistes?
Ejike: Dare Art-Alade, without a shadow of a doubt is the best singer and songwriter in Nigeria. Mr. Cool is definitely one of the best. 2 Face, D’Banj, Timaya, Wande Coal are great showmen, and show sells more than musical substance, however musically speaking I still feel a strong nostalgia for Fela, Ofege, Joni Hastruup and Monomono, B:L:O, Bongos Ikwue, Harry Mosco, Chris Okotie, Kiu Amakiri, Dora Ifudu, Gbubemi Amas, Ozo, Jide Obi, Felix Liberty, Dr Alban, Sade, Seal, of course I enjoy my own music, which is why I play it.
Ajayi: Can you comment on the tremendous development we are witnessing in the Nigerian music industry.
Ejike: Tremendous? Some Nigerians are knocked off their wits because a few erstwhile impoverished artistes are jeeping loudly around town. However, my experience and study show that there isn’t a great improvement in the quality of music we are producing now in Nigeria. What has changed is that the linguistic vehicle of communication has changed to Pidgin English, thus making the lyrics more comprehensible to the ordinary people. However, the industry lacks originality, most of the songs are copies or outright clones of other previously released pieces, using different words. Nigerians now buy and listen and dance to Nigerian music, something they had curiously refused to do for decades, so kudus to the former Nollywood marketers who are now selling music thanks to the decline of the film industry. But even the successful music marketers are not more than 6. You can count the beneficiaries of this new development in your fingers, and that is not a revolution. During the boom of Nollywood we had hundreds of executive producers lining up at Winnis Hotel seeking artistes and thousands of artistes and crew, marketers and video club owners made their living from the film industry, now that was a revolution, a renaissance.
Ajayi: Which musicians influenced your music?
Ejike: Chris Okotie, more than anybody else, Magic Fingers Ayo Bankole jr, Fela, James Brown, Prince, and Michael Jackson.
Ajayi: Where exactly do you live ?
Ejike: It’s hard to tell because my time is equally divided between Nigeria, Uganda and Italy. Much of my audio recordings are done in my studios in Kampala, My videos are all shot in Europe, Uganda and Rwanda. Around the summers I am singing nightclubs in Italy, after which I fly to Lagos for promotions because of the vibrant nature of our entertainment industry.
Ajayi: So you have homes in the three countries?
Ejike: Yes I am crushing under the weight of maintaining four homes in three countries with staff and vehicles and paying taxes on them. (laughs).
Ajayi: Five years ago you predicted that Nigeria would lead the music world ten years from then, do you still hold that view?
Ejike: You need to understand my role, my gift. I am not exactly the superstar type, but I am an intellectual artiste, a thinker, a pioneer, a wall breaker. Ever since I launched R.M.D with my film Echoes of Wrath in 1982, when I was still a child, ever since we made the first Nigerian film on home video Okpuru Anyanwu, in my village Oba, my calling has been that of conceptualizing new forms of expression for Nigerian art, creating new avenues for the enhancement of artistic creativity and creation of wealth for artistes. I could see then that Nollywood was going to cave in and the music industry would inherit the marketing structures and international network we have created.
Ajayi: Which are the other areas of original undertaking that you have been involved in?
Ejike: Besides pioneering Nollywood, the fastest growing film industry in the world, I contributed to the expansion of the Nollywood reality in Europe through exhibitions, symposia, public lectures backed by Nigerian film screening, workshops, Internet journalism etc. I was the first Nigerian artiste to establish in Italy and this fact helped in no small measure in establishing Nigerian art and film in the peninsula. Thereafter, I became the first Nigerian artiste to reside in Uganda, and indeed the most popular West African musician in East Africa. This has also helped to place Nigerian film as the foremost home entertainment here in East Africa. I am building a bridge between the two regions, inviting artistes to play from both sides, I am the first person to bring Ugandan music into mainstream Nigerian art. There are other innovations I intend to add to the music industry, but the less we talk about them for now, the better.
Ajayi: But Prof, many people think that Living in Bondage was Nigeria’s first home video film.
Ejike: I made Echoes of Wrath starring R.M.D ten years before Living in Bondage, and won the national award NAFEST with it, and my village movie Okpuru Anyanwu was a hit two years before Bondage.
Ajayi: Why did you leave Nigeria after pioneering this great artistic revolution?
Ejike: I had seen one war, a highly corrupt civilian administration, and five military dictatorships, within which one of Africa’s best journalist was parcel bombed to bits. These were sufficient to show me that there was little room for creative and outspoken people in Nigeria. At the age of 13, I was the youngest columnist in Nigeria, probably in Africa. I was sharing a page in Drum Magazine with Ben Okri. Okri left for England saying he was certain he couldn’t make a living in Nigeria as a writer.
Ajayi: So after your graduation from university, you went on self-exile to Italy, but when you came back you worked as an actor for several years and just when you started getting famous, you left again, why?
Ejike: I realized that Nollywood needed international exposure, that what we were doing in Surulere alone would not get us global recognition, and someone had to do that dirty thankless job of getting the world to accept and appreciate our art. There were already many great actors like Olu Jacob, Pete Edochie, Richard Mofe-Damijo, Zack Orji, I didn’t think I would be greatly missed, so I returned to my teaching job in Italy, and from there travelled the length and breath of Europe, North, East and West Africa, promoting Nollywood. I also did a lot of work on the Internet, writing for various journals about the Nigerian film renaissance.
Ajayi: Did you get paid for this?
Ejike: No, this was strictly vocational, but as a European university lecturer I earn much more than I’ve ever earned doing anything in Nigeria.
Ajayi: You are sometimes called a jack of all trades…..
Ejike: and a master of all, some add (laughs)
Ajayi: What else do you do?
Ejike: Basically, I am a teacher, I started teaching from my Youth Service in Federal Girl’s Government College, Shagamu, I have since taught at Queen’s College, Yaba, the Italian Cultural Institute, and Alliance Française, Lagos. In Italy I taught at Oxford College, Milan, the Milan County Board of Education, The Polytechnic of Milan, and Universita Popolare of Rome, where I was also director of publicity. I have worked as a public relations and language consultant for Western ambassadors. I package the images of Italian aristocrats and politicians at the highest echelon. In Africa I have worked on a Ugandan national hero and I have also packaged a Nigerian presidential candidate.
Ajayi: Could that be Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu?
Ejike: The names of my clients are official secret.
Ajayi: You have stopped writing your Sunday Sun column Klieglights, why?
Ejike: In Africa a freelance journalist sponsors his own research and gets his story at his own cost, but no one thinks he should be paid. That’s why I quit.
Ajayi: As a Nollywood pioneer, how do you see the recent portrayal of Nollywood by Time Magazine?
Ejike: Time magazine is unhappy that a few inexperienced African artistes and “illiterate” traders have done the unthinkable, wresting film viewer-ship in sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and much of the third world Diaspora from Hollywood. We have also, using digital cameras shown the world our reality, thus effectively disputing centuries of racist lies and stereotypes about the African humanity and way of life. Time magazine, therefore cannot be happy about the unprecedented victories of Nollywood. I don’t remember ever reading anything good or completely truthful about a Blackman or an African in Time magazine. When the subject is black, Time reads like a white supremacist tabloid, as if 400 years of slavery and colonization, followed by neo-colonization isn’t enough unjust punishment, they attack our image in an attempt to destroy anything good we initiate. Nollywood is only the latest victim of this racist onslaught. When Boutros Boutros Ghali became U.N Secretary General, Time magazine asserted that Egypt is not really Africa, attempting to ensure that black people do not take credit for his achievements, as if the Egyptian pharaohs were not black. The points of view of Time writers on the third world in general and Africa in particular are often condescending. They insulted the Arabs until they opened Al-Jazira. Africans can also open their own big media outfits to represent them adequately. Time should understand that globalization means that the big white man can no longer hold a monopoly of power and information, other power blocks are emerging and they can’t go on lying about other people, to discredit them with impunity. Now Africa has a voice in world media through Nollywood, and nothing written or photographed by Time, or other racist media will ever change that. A bore read almost solely by politicians and businessmen on transit cannot possibly influence global movie attitudes. The major world media is the Internet, and those African bloggers reproducing the nauseating photographs to complain about them are doing Time a favour. More so, Africans have the power to stop racist media from casting aspersions on their image and end this journalistic lynching. Time magazine sells in Africa. If Africans boycott Time they will be forced to stop the unprovoked press war against Africans and black people. We can reduce the sale of Time Magazine in Africa by 90% like we did to Hollywood films.
Ajayi: What is happening to Nollywood? It seems the Titanic you built is sinking.
Ejike: I have on occasion tried to convince my colleagues to keep government out of Nollywood, but they kept inviting one of the most corrupt organizations in the world into the affairs of Nollywood. The result is, like everything government is involved in, stalled development, with artistes running helter-skelter from Ghana to Sierra Leone, anywhere they can eke out a living.
Ajayi: In Italy you are seen as an Italian artiste, how do you think Nigerians feel about this?
Ejike: I am a full blooded Nigerian, but the fact remains that I have been an Italian citizen, living under the Italian cultural reality much of the last 21 years.
Ajayi: What’s the best thing that ever happened to you?
Ejike: Meeting Michael Jackson.
Ajayi: What other surprises should we expect from you?
Ejike: If I told you it wouldn’t be a surprise anymore (laughs).
(Bob Ejike’s photos are in google)
Mary E. Ajayi,
University of Lagos,
Akoka, Lagos.