34—Vanguard, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2013
Justus Esiri: Sudden departure of a Nollywood patriarch The way we are going, we will not last
A TRIB UTE TRIBUTE
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Ojukwu and Awo and somehow, one person did not follow the agreement that was reached. Concerning April 1990, you talked of learning your lessons are you saying you regretted the action? I do not regret an action against a military government. People see it as a coup, but I don’t see it as a coup. We did not take action against an elected government. Some of the officers who took part in the action and soldiers who joined, were actually Hausas and they came and said oga, thank you for this, but during the action when they heard the speech – (to excise the core North from the country) they became confused and I think that is where the regret is for making that statement I must say, Col. Nyiam...Gen Babangida and myself made misyouthful overzealousness or takes whatsoever. I have also seen that over time that the fact, the east became the weaker side. It goes back common Fulani man following his cows and to Lugard. You know Lord Lugard was the there are many in my state, Cross River, he is governor of the northern protectorate, he was sent just a human being like any other human to come and be both governor of the north and being. If you go to Osun, you will see some the south. When Lugard came and said these beautiful Yoruba looking people, but I heard people are so rich, he saw how the south was rich and he then used his connection in Whitehall that they are Fulanis. (British Civil Service) to convince them to amalgamate these two people so that the crown Accusing office would not be subsidising the northern a people office. It was by chance! In the same way when the So, my regret is this: it is not the people, it is not Yoruba or Ibo that is the problem, civil war happened it was expedient to as well because in our action it tended to give that undermine the other regions by centralising impression, the regret is that you cannot power. It was only for war. But in so doing, they now realised that “ah, we can now have a share accuse a people. God has blessed us and I do pray that the of this wealth.” What that has now done is that it leaders help us towards having a country. has made some who were among the best farmers This would be the greatest country there in this country to become lazy. As a young man in would ever be. A country where you have Zaria, I saw that the Hausa farmer was a better people with round faces, you have people farmer than any other farmer in the country. The with slim faces, bantu looking, Fulani looking irrigation techniques we read about Egypt, I saw and I think that this could be one of the it in practise around my school in Zaria. Instead greatest countries looking if the leaders give of baking we are now sharing the cake. We have no apologies to give and Sharing makes people like I said, Gen. Babangida and lazy, we need to go back, let the people myself have made mistakes and we from each region do have moved forward their best and contribute to the centre.
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it a chance. What’s your present relationship with Ibrahim Babangida you were recently seen with him at a book launch? We were all honouring a common friend, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi. Of course that is not the first time we have met as it is being portrayed. One of the papers went as far as saying that Great (Ogboru) was apologising. There was no apology, it was just respecting in the true Nigeria culture, an elder-statesman. We have no apologies to give and like I said, Gen. Babangida and myself have made mistakes and we have moved forward. Having successfully conducted the civil war and the idea that no part of the country should again be able to question the centre, do you think that the case of devolution of powers to the states would work? Lets be clear, if you see the killing of Easterners, Ojukwu had no choice. It wasn’t that anyone in the east was too powerful, in
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The Hausa man would be better off because he is a very hardworking man if he is not deceived by this issue of governors going to the centre to take money which I see as stolen money. In the sharing of the cake you said “they” saw. So how can you convince the they to hands off the cake? If they don’t allow, you see what Boko Haram is doing? People forget that Boko Haram now is a class war. The people who are affected more than anybody are the emirs from the north more than even us. So, it is no longer they now, but it is a time of reckoning now and it is in that spirit that some of us believe that Babangida, Buhari, the southern leaders should get together because we really need to talk. We cannot run away from talk. What the National Assembly is doing is just a joke and I knew it was coming to that and I am not surprised that the issue of hidden agenda has now come out. The people there, how many of them were properly elected? How many of them are really representatives of the people.
BY OKOH AIHE
E hadn’t seen for years. But news of Mr Justus Esiri recuperating in a London hospital troubled me to no end. For, we had a relationship - Justus Esiri, Gaby Okoye (Gabosky), Charles Igwe, Amaka Igwe, Mahmood Ali-Balogun and my humble self - all of them movie makers, with me working from the outside as a journalist. The tiny group, very informal in nature, had one major goal: to make the country’s movie industry, later christened Nollywood to our protestation, self-sufficient and be able to pay practitioners like the real stars they are. With all the glamour, we knew Nollywood was hollow inside and we expended time trying to add some depth to the industry by giving it a character and direction that could attract the global community. We had to protect the industry from being perishable! There was no gainsaying the fact that the industry could be bankable on the long run. After all Kenneth Nnebue had shown the way with Living in Bondage. And you couldn’t attend film and television
Justus Esiri...a good man
programmes market across the world, attend various trade shows and wind up at the NAB in Las Vegas without knowing that there was big money to be made from the movie industry. The challenge, however, was that the industry was too informal and the practitioners were not tempered enough to look at the real business in this unfolding entertainment genre. But Esiri was there trying to introduce some seriousness into the business. Among us we hosted some meetings in turn and those meetings were like little parties, some kind of fun amid fashioning out very serious business that would later become one of the country’s biggest exports. Sometimes pioneers can be like little paper tow-
els that mean very little in the course of a great meal. People knew Esiri for his role in The Village Headmaster and several other roles in the movies and may not be conversant with this small story as a real patriarch of the movie industry. He was one of the few elderly ones who absorbed needles insults for Nollywood to stand. Back to the tiny group working for the growth of Nollywood; little strands of progress soon began to create little waves of confusion. Members of the group who had made very difficult financial sacrifices and expended unrewarded time were beginning to look at the end and not the journey to the end. Naturally distrust crept in like the biblical thief of the night and attacked the seams of a relationship like the bunch of broom sticks that together could not be broken. I didn’t see Esiri for years. And Mahmood Ali-Balogun too. So when Mahmood told me he had lodged together with Esiri at the Hilton in Abuja, it was God provided opportunity to meet him and do some little flicks down memory lane. There he was in his suite with the driver he had contracted to take him for two days while in the capital territory. The embrace was tight like that of the wrestlers in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, and I was overjoyed because of the strength I could feel through him after all I had read in the papers. He told me the story of his life, how a seeming innocuous health condition took him to the UK and how he had been told by one of the doctors that had he continued with a particular prescription drug could have harmed him irretrievably had he continued with it. The 30 minutes we spent together were nearly a good cover for all the years we had missed each other. Esiri was a good man. He had enough dose of humour to douse any situation. He could get along with anybody no matter the age and material difference and would contribute his best with utmost humility. He was a star but never carried the imprimatur on his forehead. He radiated light in the darkness that is the daily grind of the Nigerian life and spread joy to many homes across the country. His death on Wednesday has robbed the country of a great actor per excellence, a seasoned stardust in the real sense of it. Yet all humans must subject themselves to the finality of death and the supremacy of the Almighty God, the father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. As they put it in the movies: Roll Tape, Action and Cut. So, for Esiri, it is final curtain call, a glorious apotheosis to the realm of the celestial. •Okoh Aihe writes from Abuja