9jaNollywoodstars

Loy Nabeta is a Ugandan and a Nollywood freak.He observedthat though our movie scenes are commendably African in the true sense but in maintaining this basic element, they don’t do any justice to the person who has an early wakeup call e.g the typically African wailing and falling over when someone dies.


I’m aware it will be hard, after writing this, for me to shake off accusations of being the poster child for successful Western cultural imperialism but one has to take the risk.I watched my first Nigerian movie in 1997. I was very impressionable then - for I was 10 years younger. And if my memory serves me, it was the hit movie (a hit in Nigeria, that is) titled Sakobi, which I think was also the name of its dazzling heroine. The movie, which was essentially about the wages of greed, featured a lot in the way of the supernatural, specifically the predominance of cults in Nigerian life. Although I thought it was generally an impressive piece of work, it also impacted on me in such a way that when I visited Nigeria later that year for two months, I found myself caught in an uncharacteristic paranoia that had me constantly looking over my shoulder, wanting to run from even my own shadow. I could never go out of the house alone!



I had thought I would go back to the shop to borrow some more Nigerian movies but I somehow never got round to doing so. Since then, however, back home in Uganda the Nigerian cinema bug has all but conquered everyone in its path - be they pastors, house girls, housewives or corporate types. Nigerian movies are a big deal and smart TV station proprietors are making the most of this seemingly insatiable demand.In fact, in Uganda today, when someone says they loved last night’s Ekinigeria (literally meaning, “Nigerian”) you are supposed to understand they enjoyed last night’s movie - and not the date with Olusegun or some Nigerian dude they just met. In Tanzania too, I have also found that there is no escaping the Ekinigeria bug. It is big. And these are just two countries. Would it surprise anyone that the Nigerian movie industry, now dubbed Nollywood, is a $600m enterprise (as of 2005)? I guess not.


What I find surprising though, is why - and I can’t think of a better way to put this - after sustained exposure over a long period of time to endlessly superior (Western) cinema, Africa is suddenly eagerly gobbling up such crassness, such directionless, tasteless, utterly embarrassing and annoying stuff that is now being strutted as “African cinema”? Seriously.Brainwashed brat? Guilty as charged. And while we are on the subject, switch on your TV for a moment and sass out the phoney American accents oozing from your favourite Nollywood stars and then tell me who is the fraud. Do they really have to speak that way? In my opinion, the Edge of Paradise, a Nigerian soap on M-Net, is about the only Nollywood product that has survived this vice - and that is why it’s the one thing I may allow myself to be caught indulging in as far as “African cinema” goes. That, and the Super Story series.
Oh yeah, some people will no doubt argue that it is not only Africans who are enjoying Nollywood. True. But the fact that people are watching doesn’t mean they are necessarily liking what they see. I suspect some viewers just want to see how far seemingly normal, decent looking African adults can go in clowning themselves today in the name of making movies. (Perhaps these viewers are understandably fed up with the chaotic politics and constant slaughter they find on the television news channels).