actor featuring in numerous movies. In this chat with SAMUEL ABULUDE, the father of four spoke about his career, his celebrity marriage in a truck and his agenda for Lagos AGN.
How do you feel becoming the new chairman of AGN Lagos Chapter?
I want to thank God for everything because without God, the possibility of becoming the leader of Lagos Actors Guild of Nigeria(AGN) will not have come to pass. It is a big responsibility.
How prepared are you to face opposition in your pursuit to effect changes?
The bible says that the kingdom of God suffers violence and the violent take it by force. So the new EXCO is ready to take the bull by the horn. Anybody who wants to take the Actors Guild down, we are ready for them. Every of my members are God fearing and are passionate. We cannot sit down and watch things go wrong. We are ready to fight and do whatever is right to bring the Lagos AGN to its glory days. In my 16 years of Nollywood, I have sat down to watch at our collective responsibilities, our collective liberty being eroded by quacks, untutored, uncouth, unreasonable human beings coming to take positions in AGN. That is the problem we have. This is the motivation that has pushed me to come out.
What agenda do you have for the AGN?
If I want to sum it up, I will call it, the Restoration Agenda. Repositioning the Actor’s Guild to where it ought to be is uttermost on our minds. I don’t want to bug you with many points but the truth is there is disintegration of the Actor’s Guild of Nigeria. That is the area we are fighting right now. To be candid with you, part of our campaign is to reunite the Actor’s Guild of Nigeria which we have begun to achieve during the campaign. That election witnessed a lot of stars who have not been attending meeting for almost five to seven years now; we saw a great number of them. Let me take the example of my good friend Chinedu Ikedieze MFR and Benedict Johnson, Obi Madubuogu aka the King of Mosanga. I saw some veterans, Big Freddo, elders who have not been attending meetings. The place was filled up with stars and this is the gap I want to bridge. I want us to have a centralisation of ideas, policies with the elders and these upcoming ones will learn from them.
After that, we will be pursuing the secretariat. We will be doing these things together. As we are trying to get the guild reunited, we will be building our secretariat because without a secretariat there is a limit to what we can do. We need a secretariat where we can meet and deliberate and find out what is going on in the industry. Already there is a health insurance policy that the national president has started. We are going to cue in to that and make sure the Actor’s Guild of Nigeria Lagos Chapter benefit from such scheme.
During the Lagos AGN election campaign a lot of things happened, some came with fake tellers, some with photocopied tellers. Some didn’t even know what was called AGN. It was when INEC looked into this that they found out that some of these people didn’t know what was going on. Those that lost out we are already extending the arm of fellowship to them to support us to move AGN forward.
Your beginning as an actor
I’m from Mbaise in Imo State and a graduate of Theatre Arts from University of Port Harcourt. I started acting right from childhood. As at the age of seven I had been involved with stage acting with my church’s youth organization in the village. I was involved in debate and drama clubs entertaining people in my secondary school. I got involved in my first movie Evil Passion II in 1994 and this was during the long university strike that lasted for almost a year. Many of us relocated to Lagos to look for jobs during the strike. A friend I stumbled on spoke to me of an ongoing movie audition and I went there and as God would have it I got the role.
Your name has echoed in the movie industry, how have you been able to sustain the brand till date?
My name is a brand and I intend to use that brand to reposition AGN. If I can manage myself as an artiste, why won’t I be able to manage AGN as a guild? If I can remain stainless, I can always make AGN remain stainless. Most Nigerians believe AGN is where you find riff raffs, touts and ne’er-do-wells. But we are ready to change that with our performance.
Why did it take you almost 14 years before taking your wife to the altar?
Some people even said it was because I didn’t have money to organise the wedding. But to me, it was a deliberate act. It was a promise made to God that when he blesses me I’m going to celebrate my marriage in a very big way. I don’t owe my in-laws, everything about marriage was done in 2002 but I promised God that if he keeps me alive by the time my last born would be five years old, I would celebrate my marriage, alongside my children. And that was exactly what I did immediately my last born clocked five.
What motivated you to have your wedding in a truck?
That was my own way of entertaining people because the entertainment must continue and that is my job as a comic actor. I must apply all the tactics within my disposal to make my fans happy. It is not only on screen that I can make people smile and laugh. I felt that I could also achieve same without being on TV. I was using the occasion to celebrate my wife having endured for a long time waiting for me. I made my fans realise that I’m a core entertainer on and off the screen. Port Harcourt knew that someone was wedding on that day.
As the Lagos AGN chairman, are we going to see less of your acting?
The constitution does not stop me from acting but on my own I’m going work hard and drop a lot of other things; things that will make me not to work for this association. But I can still go to set and come back to work because I have capable hands around me that can take charge when I’m not around. Already the movie producers know my new status and will work around it. I’m around to work tirelessly for AGN till these two years expire. My fans will see more of me as actor in and out of the screen. As am talking to you in this press conference, there is always a way to make people relax and have fun which is me.
And your family will not suffer?
My family is already happy. They even want me to go and live in that office (general laughter).
As a popular actor and married man how do you cope with women seeking intimate attention from you?
If these female fans are not there, there won’t be me. But basically part of what I’ve learnt in life that has sustained me so far is how to manage myself as an artiste. Women are part of my success and they need to be treated with care.
They will always be there. No African woman will come and tell you she loves you and you should take her to bed. It’s not our culture. These women respect me apart from just admiring me and I respect myself. Besides, I’m a happily married man so why would any woman want to have something intimate with me especially when I’m not that kind of man. I’m not a womanizer and I don’t think I would ever be. My wife has always been enough for me. She is a precious gift to me.
Comedy for you was it inborn or you learnt it?
It’s inborn and runs in the blood. It’s a special talent that God has given me. Even if you learn it you won’t be able to do it like someone who was born with it who is gifted.
How come you don’t do stand up comedy then?
I still do stand up comedy but it’s not my specialty. Most times I’m always on the set when I’m being called for stand up comedy shows. I have an annual comedy show titled Owerri Must Laugh and normally invite some other artistes to come and entertain people.
What has fame denied you over the years?
I don’t see fame as having denied me anything rather it has given me lots of prospects in life and favours. Apart from the fact that there are places I used to go in the past that I can no longer go, I don’t see any other thing fame has denied me of. If you see me in a motor park eating, it becomes news, so I try to be more careful of what I do now. Because of what you call fame, I no longer have the opportunity to sit out and enjoy my usual mama put. On the other hand, fame has given me the opportunity to interact with anybody both the young and old. Sometimes I walk on the street and discover that mad women on the street would recognise me calling my name- Victor Osuagwu (laughter).
How did you meet your wife?
I met my wife while she was still in secondary school. Then I was in the university. I saw her and found out she was good for a wife, not just a girlfriend. Roseline is from a royal family, so I allowed her to grow and mature. The family knew me and welcomed me. We were moving on till she got admission to the university. In fact, we courted for almost 9 years before we started talking of marriage. She is a friend, a mother and everything to me. She is everything a woman can be to a man.
What attracted you to her?
She is homely. If my wife cooks for you, you will hate eating outside. She is the kind of a woman that makes home out of a house. Her homeliness has been something else. I’m always relaxed when I go to locations being rest assured that I have a woman at home.
Can you tell us what people don’t know about you?
I take life as it comes. I’ve never experienced poverty as someone; somewhere would always come to my rescue. Though it has not been all rosy, there were times we were using legs to walk from one place to another. Sometimes, it was Molue, then bus, motorbike and now we have money to buy our own kind of cars. That is life for you, it keeps getting better.
(Leadership)
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