Reminiscences with Dejumo Lewis

Seventy-six-year-old Mr Dejumo Lewis was the popular Kabiyesi (king), the Oloja of Oja in the long-rested popular television series, Village Headmaster. After being at a seminary for 10 years, studying to become a priest, Lewis suddenly abandoned the priesthood idea for television and acting. He started as an actor in the Village Headmaster and ended […]

Seventy-six-year-old Mr Dejumo Lewis was the popular Kabiyesi (king), the Oloja of Oja in the long-rested popular television series, Village Headmaster. After being at a seminary for 10 years, studying to become a priest, Lewis suddenly abandoned the priesthood idea for television and acting. He started as an actor in the Village Headmaster and ended up as a producer/director. In this interview, Lewis reminisced on his childhood, the journey to fame and life after Village Headmaster.

 

How would you describe your growing-up years?

My grandfather came to settle in Lagos from Erijiyan Ekiti in 1875.

His generation of settlers was regarded as the real indigenes of Lagos. He married my grandmother, a white Sierra Leonean who was said to be very beautiful. My father, Edward Ademola Lewis, was the first son in the family. My mother, who was also a core Lagosian, was born into the Suarez family. She was called Lawrencia Alaba Lewis. My grandfather built an estate in Lagos Island.

In those days, people asked which family (or house) you hailed from, especially if you misbehaved. Lagos Island was then as cosmopolitan as it could be; everybody knew a little or more about the other person, unlike what we have now. Then, if a child misbehaved in any part of the Island, be it Obalende, Olowogbowo or Epetedo, which is our own area, everyone would ask where he/she hailed from, which compound or family he/she belonged to. When you told them, they would discipline you on the spot, and you would, indeed, be lucky if they didn’t follow you home to report you to your parents, and that would be double punishment for you.

Parents did feel sad that their child was being reported because that would be a stain on their personality. They would feel their child had gone out to disgrace them. There was general discipline among the children and the youths because nobody could do just anything and get away with it. That was the set-up in Lagos then, and it was within that environment that I grew up.

What was the impact of that setting on your early education?

I went to four schools, which were all unique in themselves. My primary education was at the Holy Cross Primary School on the Lagos Island. It is the only primary school that I know with a viable Old Students Association. The school has active old boys.

For my secondary education, I was to have gone to St Gregory’s College, which was the traditional school that all boys in both the Lewis and Suarez families attended. I had taken the entrance examination and gained admission when I suddenly changed my mind. I told my parents that I would rather go to the junior seminary where I could study early for Catholic priesthood.

To gain admission to the seminary was not an easy task. Such a person must have taken an entrance examination; he must even have been recommended by his parish priest before he could be allowed to do the examination. But I didn’t do any entrance examination to the seminary; rather, the examination I took was for St Gregory’s and King’s colleges.

When I told my parents about my decision to study to become a priest, they were very happy. I never told them anything like that as a child growing up, but I had it in my mind and I had classmates who expressed their desire to join the seminary. I eventually joined them.

The school was called St Theresa’s Catholic Minor Seminary in Ibadan.

Then, we had a six-year course, unlike now that there is JSS 1 to 3 and SSS 1 to 3. After completing the six-year programme, I was recommended to go further to the major seminary because I insisted on becoming a priest.

For the major seminary, I went to St. Peter & Paul Catholic, also in Ibadan. The minor seminary was like any other secondary school, while the major was like any other tertiary institution. I graduated in Philosophy at the major seminary and also went on to study Theology and some other subsidiary subjects.

But at a point, I decided to end it all, leave the school and start living a normal life. I gave up my study to priesthood. Thereafter, I went for my master’s degree at the University of Ibadan to study Communication Arts.

How did your Communication Arts education morph into your life on television?

The same year I left the seminary was the year production of the Village Headmaster drama began. When I came into Lagos, I had the opportunity to watch the first episode of the programme. That was the first Sunday in October 1968. As soon as I saw it, I was so excited to see a drama programme on television made by black people. What I was used to was imported drama programmes by the whites. As soon as I saw it, I told myself I should belong there.

In the seminary, I was very much into drama. Actually, from my childhood, I used to dramatise all around my grandfather’s estate. In appreciation, they would give me one pence, sometimes two, and that was a lot of money for a child. When I was at the junior seminary in my final year, I became the senior prefect, as well as the drama prefect. And I was already producing plays there. I was more interested in Nigerian plays, especially when done with the Yoruba language. I was the first student there to produce a Yoruba play written by Pa J. F. Odunjo of the Alawiye fame. It was such a big production that people came from outside the Minor Seminary to watch it. They were fascinated by what I did.

Coming out of the seminary, drama was my first passion, though I didn’t know what I was going to do. I knew I was going to get involved in drama as a hobby. People like Pa Ogunde and Pa Ogunshola were already performing.

When I watched the Village Headmaster with the various people across different tribes in Nigeria on one set, I was fascinated, and it never even occurred to me that I would be part of it later. I started as a freelance in the Village Headmaster cast, and even when I joined the television industry later, I was still a freelance. I was employed first as a programmer, and later I trained to become a producer/director, both here and abroad. I studied Celluloid.

Today, people in the so-called Nollywood refer to themselves

as filmmakers. No, they are not making films, they are rather making movies on video. They should call themselves movie makers not film makers. It is a misappropriation of that term.

In Village Headmaster, I did not get the role of Kabiyesi immediately. I was getting small roles at inception. No, not small roles; really there is no small role in drama. Even when you are a waka-pass or part of the crowd, you are there to play that role as naturally as it should be. Everyone on set is important. It was after six months of production of Village Headmaster that the role of King was created. It turned out that when it was created, I was invited to play the role.

As a result of being outstanding in school and later in my professional life, I had a lot of attacks, which I didn’t understand at the time. We had degenerated in morality in our generation, to the level where a good person was subjected to attacks. Now, it is worse, there are moral degeneration and social ills.

The corruption we are fighting today has been in existence for a long time. I always say, ogede n baje, a ni o n pon (a banana is rotting away but we misconstrue it for ripeness). Even in those days, there was selective justice. I laud the efforts of the present administration in the fight against corruption, and I must say I am surprised that some people in government can be fighting to ensure the corrupt practices remain. Obviously, many politicians don’t want to be investigated or tried.

During your childhood, what extraordinary things did you do, including pranks you played?

I was from a strict Catholic family, so there was no room for any serious pranks. When we were at the Holy Cross (boys only) school, we used to play inter-school football. Any school that wanted to play with us at the Tafawa Balewa Square must be ready to fight, whether we beat them or they beat us. I was such a docile and not rascally child, so that kind of prank put me off, to the extent that I was not even participating in the matches. In fact, we eventually nicknamedourselves Holy ‘Werepe’ (devil’s bean, an extremely itchy plant), asagainst the name of the school, Holy Cross.

Another Catholic school for girls only, St Mary, was not so far fromours. Everyday, there were reports that the Holy Cross boys had beatenthe St Mary’s girls, though many of them were our girlfriends. At apoint, our very strict and disciplined headmaster, Pa Afolabi, got fedup with constant reports from St Mary and gathered all the Holy Crossboys at the assembly, from Class One to Standard Six. Then, we werespending eight years in primary school because there were Class Oneand Class Two before Standard One to Six. On that particular day atthe assembly, Pa Afolabi ordered the boys that were reported for thatday to be lined up in front of the whole school and some teachers wereasked to flog them. At the end of the exercise, he said to the hearingof everyone, ‘I said you should stop beating the girls; rather lovethem, be friendly with them.’

In each neighbourhood, there were Area Boys and Area Girls clubs. It was such a honourable thing to belong to any of the area clubs. At the clubs, senior members were into one profession or another, teaching the young ones social responsibility. Youths were prepared for active professional lives. If you were a member of an area club, it showed you were a responsible resident of the area. There were so many of such clubs around.

Which of the area clubs did you belong to?

Our parents did not allow us to belong to any area boys club, which I found very painful. The clubs were doing drama and so many social activities for young people. We could not join because we had a protective upbringing.

Playing pranks at that time was minimal because the clubs had taken care of the young people morally.

The other interesting aspect of the area club thing was that if you lived in one area, like Okepopo or Epetedo, and you went to other areas like Obalende, Lafiaji, Campos or Olowogbowo to befriend a girl, the boys in that area would challenge you on why you would come to take their girl.

Many young people living in the same areas or attending the same school eventually ended up marrying one another. Despite that, there was so much discipline. If you were not up to a marriageable age and you were befriending someone from the opposite sex, it must not be known to your parents until you were advanced in your education or had reached a mature age. When you were old enough, you would get an elderly person who would talk to your parents. Then, you couldn’t just walk up to a girl’s parents and tell them you wanted to marry their daughter. You would end up receiving many slaps.

I remember that in my childhood, I was very disturbed by the sight of children who belonged to the Islamic religion but were not going to school. In the estate where I lived, for instance, there were so many of them and all they did was attend Arabic school. The alfas’ method of teaching them was very harsh. No matter how far a child was in the gathering, the teacher had a long whip that would reach such a child.

I was seriously concerned about why some sets of children should be educated in Western education and some wouldn’t, but I had nobody to discuss it with.

Why did you suddenly abandon the path to priesthood?

I was interested in traditional drama. I started developing interest in our culture. I was at the seminary for 10 years. In 1960, there was a second Vatican council which brought all bishops together in Rome for a year. They were discussing, praying and taking decisions. At theend of one year, they came out with a communique that all Catholicchurches should go into cultural adaptation all over the world andhave a healthy relationship with other religions and Christiansects too.

I was interested in the cultural adaptation part of the resolution. I started researching into culture and I came to realise that what we were doing with foreign religions is like an imposition of their culture on us. I did some research and writing because at the seminary, we had an internal journal where we were given the opportunity to write. During my research, I discovered that everyone was serving the same God and it’s only that every religion calls God according to its own culture. I wrote about this and it was published.

Some of my classmates found it radical and feared that I might be expelled.

That showed me that the authorities themselves were aware of the truth in my write-up.

A branch of philosophy also changed me. It is called existentialism. It makes you know who you are and encourages you to be yourself.

I was tolerated in class, and despite my radical bent, I was not maltreated at all. Inside of me, I had that conviction that there was something amiss in the practice of religion and issues of culture. I realised that religious globalisation is an imposition of culture by the West and Arabs.

After I left the seminary, some people appealed to me to go back. But I knew that with my radicalism and desire for culture, even if I succeeded to be a priest, I would eventually have problems with the authorities. I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of being called a rebel priest. So at some point, I had to quit.

We had a rector, an American, who I went to after packing my bags. I told him to pray for me to achieve success in whatever I was venturing into. He pulled me up from where I knelt to receive his blessings and embraced me. That was rather strange to me. Though he taught us Metaphysics and I was his best student, I was shaken by his gesture. I was surprised to hear, two to three years after, that he not only left being a rector, he left priesthood and got the dispensation to lead a normal life. It was then that I realised that the man was admiring my courage.

I was so favoured at the seminary that I could say my 10

years there were the best years of my life. Now, I think I am living the best time of my life because of my convictions and doctrines.

What particular circumstance led you to the television and film industry?

I had become a full member of staff before the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) absorbed all the television stations all over the country in 1977. I moved from programme planning to fulltime production. I found production very interesting so I requested to be transferred from programme planning to production. Television production at that time involved film inserts.

I was also recommended for foreign trainings in Holland, England and Germany. In those days, in Holland, you must choose film production. I performed well there and there were invitations for me to stay back to work, with very attractive offers. But, for me, home was home; I needed to contribute to the development and advancement of my country.

How did Village Headmaster start?

The late Ambassador Olusegun Olusola had an idea of a programme to showcase and relive the life and times of old headmasters in those days. That’s how Village Headmaster was conceived. But Olusola was not the developer; he just wrote the concept on paper. Mr Sanya Dosunmu, who was studying abroad, was contacted by Christopher Kolade, who was then the Director of Television on NBC TV.

When Mr Dosunmu returned to Nigeria, he became the first producer/director of Village Headmaster. Today, he is a king, the Olowu of Owu Kingdom in Abeokuta.

The Village Headmaster cast was quite an interesting blend. How was it put together?

Recently, some of us went to visit Oba Dosunmu in his palace and he told us some of his challenges at the time. He said he did extensive research on who would play what role, because at that time, there was nothing like professional acting, particularly in the English genre.

He searched for people who were into amateur acting. A lot of them turned out to be outstanding, including people like the wife of Ambassador Olusola, Uncle Jab Adu and Uncle Ted Mokoro. Apart from their regular jobs, they were involved in amateur acting. He studied them well and gave them what he thought was appropriate for each character.

What were the challenges in the production of the television series?

Initially, according to him, he didn’t get the cooperation of even the writer/creator of the series. They made things difficult, but Christopher Kolade overruled a lot of the difficulties and stumbling blocks. Being a professional himself, he was able to overcome many difficulties.

How did you graduate into being a producer from an actor in the Village Headmaster?

At the beginning, Village Headmaster was just a hobby for me. At a point, it was being rested from time to time for very wrong reasons. I was in Jos. One of the big achievements of Engineer Vincent Maduka when the NTA was being established in 1977 was the establishment of the NTA College. I was assigned to teach television production at the college. I was on that job when Peter Igho came to me and said that all attempts to revive Village Headmaster were not successful. He asked me to help revive it. He said I should run the series for two quarters, after which I could also give the job to someone else I must have trained. I jumped at the offer because training was very interesting for me.

When I started the new Village Headmaster series in 1984, I experienced more obstacles and challenges than Sanya Dosunmu did, but I overcame them. All the assistants they were giving me were not into drama. The one that came close to it was Enebeli Elebuwa. He was not into drama at that time; rather, he was into programme production services, where they did graphics and painted the set. He wasn’t competent to take over from me.

It got to a time I felt I had had enough. It coincided with the time I was admitted for my master’s at the University of Ibadan. The management further made matters worse when the one-hour TV programme was reduced to half an hour. Before they did that, there was a clamour for an extension of the time. It was a fantastic programme and everyone wanted to watch it. The management reduced the time without communicating with me, the producer; sponsors and advertisers.

I felt I had had enough, so I went straight to the director of programmes and told him I was leaving the Village Headmaster, both as an actor and its producer. I gave him the excuse that I had gained admission for my master’s. He told me to get someone competent to take over from me. I went ahead to get Tade Ogidan, who was a staff of the NTA 10, and his productions were fantastic. The director insisted that I must supervise him for another quarter, which I did before I handed over.

Tade was a first class producer/director, particularly in drama. A year after Tade took over production of Village Headmaster, they just suspended the programme and rested it permanently.

At locations, were there memorable moments you can recall?

Of course! Incidentally, I was the one who took Village Headmaster to outside location. Before then, it was being recorded within the studio. Getting the cast to location was not an easy task as most of them had other things they were doing, plus the fact that we had to be in camp periodically. Our camp then was Ajara in Badagry. The people in town, including the King of Badagry, were very supportive.

It is believed that in the movie industry and at locations, relationships between genders are loose and decency takes a back seat. What was your experience?

There wasn’t much of that in Village Headmaster, but in the movie industry, it happens. There is no industry or profession where relationships don’t develop between people of the genders. When there are groups of people in camp together for weeks, you cannot but expect relationships to develop, some of which grow into marriage. Some others cannot be avoided.

What I always stand against is for any producer or director to make excess demand from an actress to serve as a condition to get her certain roles. It is certainly unprofessional, immoral and condemnable. I found out that some female actresses themselves, especially those who want higher roles that attract more money, seduce producers.

But it also happens in higher institutions where lecturers demand sex for marks. My last child had such a problem. I had to call my friends who were lecturing there to get their help. Three months later, she told me that she was able to deal with the situation. In many other situations, it is students, like actresses, who ask for sex.

How rewarding has acting been for you?

Financially, not so much. The people involved in Village Headmaster were professionals in their own fields. It was the satisfaction of being part of a hugely popular and famous drama, and making a good job of it so much so that viewers were demanding an extension of time that they found rewarding. For me, it was highly fulfilling.

I am the poorest paid veteran in the Nigeria film industry. But I still love production. I am very critical of the standard of production and I am always eager to develop the young ones.

After Village Headmaster, what other things were you involved in?

After the series, I was into television movies. It was in NTA that this idea of parts 1 and 2 started. I was posted to NTA Ibadan as manager, programmes, and after five years there, I was posted back to Lagos, where I was forcibly retired in 1999.

How do you keep yourself busy now?

After retirement, I started to write on culture, communication and nation-building. That book is what has preoccupied me for over 16 years. It will be published this year.