Theme of Juju in Nollywood is justified – Francis Duru

Will it now be right to describe Nollywood acting in Nigeria as an all comers affair? Well, it is.  Because the gate is wide open, there is no regulation and moderation. People who call the shots see it as how much money they bring in weather there is professionalism or not is not their business. […]

Will it now be right to describe Nollywood acting in Nigeria as an all comers affair?

Well, it is.  Because the gate is wide open, there is no regulation and moderation. People who call the shots see it as how much money they bring in weather there is professionalism or not is not their business. All they care is for their movies to sell irrespective of how they do it and you don’t blame them.

What do you think is the way out of the present state?

Way out is to go back to motherland. It starts from everybody you and I. Including the journalists creating the awareness of this decay. Theater is getting into extinction. So if we don’t start creating the awareness from you the man who is in the media, then we are making a big mistake. We depend on you to make the practitioners and the private sector companies work together.

Given the dwindling fortunes of traditional stage plays in the industry, what will be your message to the students of theatre in universities?

I must tell you that even the decay is actually getting into the universities. The average theatre art practitioner who lives in the university looks at the home video as his only place of practice and if the person is leaving the university and understands that I can actually change the status quo, for instance look at Abuja, the world comes to Abuja everyday it is rare for you to have a real core artistic performance in the city, stand up comedians have taken over the stage and now the whole thing about the stand up comedies is about repetition and repetition because the hype is there. The media have so much publicized the whole thing. You guys have made it an accepted genre, so people go to cinemas to watch it. These same people advertise and bring a good play, it will sell. I bet you even in Abuja alone, you can get a very good audience for the stage play. The theater unite families and people together, it brings about social cohesion. But the corporate bodies and organisations have a lot of role to play by sponsoring stage plays which will rouse the public consciousness. It makes my heart bleed that a city like Abuja does not have a culture of theatre which will tell our own cultural story and the world come to this place on a daily basis. But the good news is that we at the Actors’ Guild are working on a partnership with Abuja art and culture such that every three months we will organize shows and let people enjoy themselves. We will also use the stage to train the actors.

The theme of Juju has dominated Nollywood, do you think this has portrayed the country’s image positively?

We have done so much. Let me tell you, we have uplifted, promoted and projected the integrity of this nation. We have colonized the world with our movies. It has created a consciousness of who we are and our culture. Movie making is all about communications. Our cultural indices cannot be turned away and besides, there is no culture where they don’t practice evil. The main thing is that in most of these movies, evil does not overpower good so whenever we do things like that we are trying to raise the consciousness of people that evil exits but it does not overpower good.