Nollywood has a lot of producers, but only few of them are renowned. One of them is Teco Benson. He has produced a lot of movies in different genres: romance, politics, epic and many more. Currently, he is into human-angle movies. In this chat with Patience Ivie Obhafuoso, he talks about his recent work, Fake Prophet
How did you come up with the concept of the film, Fake Prophet?
I am a film maker and my kind of film is not just entertainment based.? I try to go beyond entertainment because by the time I got into the industry about 20 years ago, I came with the vision to use movie as a medium of change. I realised that since I don’t have access to political power where I can effect political change and do not have access to the pulpit where I can preach the truth as a pastor, then I could use the movie industry to actually make more of an impact than the government, and that is why I embraced this goal, so I’m not just out to entertain, but out to preach messages also.
The film, Fake Prophet was an idea that came about when I had a meeting? Stepping Stone Nigeria. They actually had the idea of carrying out child right campaign through movies so they were trying to get across to me and eventually, they did across to me and we held our first meeting where they told me their dreams and plans, so I said ok, the way forward is to let me hear the story, and I felt that there was a link between my vision and their vision and that was why I accepted. I thank God, we have premiered the film in London and New York and in Abuja, am happy about the response in all these places, am optimistic that the film is objective. That is my major happiness when I do a film.
Can you throw more light on the area of child abuse in the film?
Stepping Stone Nigeria is out to fight holistically the issue of child abuse and accusing children of witchcraft? because some of these things are forged, some people cook them up just for monetary reasons. Also to tackle the issue of fake pastors, you know, Christianity is the last hope, let me say religion because we all put our trust in the church and in the mosque, because immorality is everywhere now, our value system has gone, people kill each other now without remorse,? people commit sin without remorse so religion is the last hope of every body believing that the people who are preaching to us would be able to tell us things that would make us grow. But I sat down and realised that churches are increasing every day and as they are increasing, immorality is also increasing.
A lot of people have left the calling they have because of love for money, the Bible even says at the end time, men? would be merchants of the Bible, they will leave the truth and start preaching money. You can? see these issues highlighted in the film, many poor widows are members of some churches and they are passionate about their churches, so they contribute money in building of schools. Now, schools in the world are expensive,? the average poor man cannot attend the normal private schools, I think the reason why churches build schools is to make sure? their members attend free of charge because that is where they pay their tithes and offering every day, they want to make sure their children do not mix up with children of ‘the World’.
But now, most Christian schools are even more expensive than the schools in the world. So that is why we have come with this film because we are not the government and do not have the power to enforce so what we have produced this film so that when people watch it and see the truth, a lot of people are going to have a rethink and the pastors will repent and there willl be changes. That is the perspective that we are coming from.
What is your recommendation to the government on this issue?
The film, like one of the respondent said, needs to get to every nuke and cranny of the country and the only way this can be achieved is by distributing this film freely and if government can come in and fund the distribution of the film, it will go a long way in achieving the desired goal. Some states have passed the Child Right act into law, now the federal government should be able to prevail in the remaining states. If the government can do that, then they will be able to monitor and ensure that the states are enforcing it. Also, the judiciary should ensure that these laws are being enforced because you see a lot of children on the street hawking, instead of being in school and most times, the young girls among them? are abused, so something really needs to be done to alleviate this.
Regarding human trafficking, don’t you think it would be better if you work with state government in the states that are mainly affected?
Well, it is a good idea, we have to exploit that action but we are actually trying to be very careful so that we do not end up running out of track. But with films of this magnitude, we are trying to appeal to people’s conscience because if we go cohesively, people may think that you are trying to force them but with soften approach, we think they will comply. Most times you see the government doing a lot of campaigning yet people are not moved but when you do it in a movie, people will watch it and get touched. Even, we have more films to do in other social vices.?