Chief Chika Okpala became a household name as ‘Chief Zebrudaya’ when he produced and acted the lead role in one of Nigeria’s longest running comedy programmes on television, ‘The Masqurades’. He speaks with CHIKA OTUCHIKERE on a range of issues and harps on the need to harness the entertainment industry to give Nigerians a better orientation.
How will you assess the Nigerian police and security in the country?
I feel that there are still some loopholes. We are not getting the best of it yet. They need to go back to the drawing board again and do some home work. People have to tell them when they are doing well and tell them when they have to tighten their seatbelt.
Are you also worried about the incidents of terrorism in Nigeria?
Everybody is concerned. We are concerned because everybody has his or her own relatives and associates everywhere in the country. Even you, you are my person, you are in the media, and if Boko Haram claims you, we won’t get your flank clamps, so we are all concerned.
Are you worried that they may come to the South East?
Well, there are threats and rumours of threats here and there that they are coming here: that they were caught at Obolo Afor; they were caught at Nsukka axis; they were caught in Port Harcourt.? There are so many stories of the Boko Haram around there. So? it’s important to know how safe we are.
What do you feel about Nigeria?
We feel it is great, it is moving. The country is still moving despite the threat of some people who want to distract the movement of the train. Of course, that is how it should be. There must be challenges in life.
Things don’t go smoothly like that, no matter how it is. Even in your own family, when you go and marry a wife and come into the house, there are still challenges in the house and there are obstructions here and there, but you begin to work on the obstructions as a project.
What will you say about the cost of living in Nigeria, are you comfortable????
Thank you for bringing it up. I think I buy the idea of agricultural transformation of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture. They are coming up with so many strategies that would help us become self-sufficient in agriculture. If the youth can imbibe the culture, I’m fighting that this project permeates down to the youths, especially at the secondary school level. I want them to begin to see the joy in farming; for them to begin to see that when they see the farmers in their new dispensation, the farmers have to be given a status.
They would be attracted to it. Those who come out of the university would want to start their new life by farming because there is an improved farming system being introduced in Nigeria. It is important that we feed ourselves; nobody will come to feed Nigeria.?
We will do it ourselves. We used to do it before; our forefathers did it; nobody came to feed them. Importation of rice was from Britain, otherwise, everybody grew his rice and ate. We ate it once a year during Christmas. It is only during Christmas that we eat rice. These days, you eat it in the morning, afternoon and night. I didn’t say we must limit it to that because population has exploded. It’s not my fault; it is me and you – we continue to pump the population, we pump and pump.
So as the thing is coming, we should get prepared to cater for the problems of population explosion. Secondly, I think that the Nigerian government, now having the thought of improving agriculture, is on the right track. So, this is the dimension we have. It is on the right track because some other governments we have had in the past had nothing to show in practicality.
They only mention agriculture and pump in money for fertiliser and go home, whether the fertiliser is actually fertilising or not, nobody can tell about it. They vote so much money for tonnes and tonnes of fertiliser, those who get this fertiliser we don’t know; it doesn’t get to the grassroots.
This time, we’re are not talking about only fertiliser; we are now talking about other means of cultivation coming with modern gadgets of cultivation; bringing in tractors, doing aquaculture, trying to go into fishing some other crops that usually we do not look at before.
We are going into diversification of growing of our products. It is no longer concentrating on one thing, on rice or groundnut or palm fruit; we now get other products that we eat everyday; that is important to us. So, that is why I think that we are moving forward.
How will you assess the entertainment industry?
The entertainment industry in Nigeria, thank God, is going in character with what is obtainable in the world today. It’s no longer what it used to be before. We were learning now. It appears that we have grasped one percent of what they have been teaching us. But we should wait again and learn more so that we can implement at least 55 percent of what they are teaching us, so that we don’t go astray.
Entertainment is supposed to entertain and educate. It is not just about entertainment for entertainment sake; go and grab money and go home. It is entertainment education; that is what we are talking about. And that is where I think our entertainment should still focus. And if you watch my show from time, you’ll find out that it is entertainment education.
There is no show that goes on without educating you on one thing or the other. It is either telling you to leave this and come over to the other. That is entertainment education. And while we are doing it, you are laughing at yourselves and laughing at us who were doing it also. That is what I mean by entertainment education.
Compare comedy in your time to what we have now?
That is exactly where I’m hitting the nail on the head or vice versa; that the youths of these days are not patient enough to learn 55 per cent of they have to learn. They are implementing only one per cent. It all about how to make show and get money quick, get Onitsha traders, get Idumota traders, get this money and get this money.
Whether the message they are passing through their entertainment has anything to do to uplift the life of the people they are entertaining, they do not care. I bother about that; I care about that. Whatever we are dishing out as entertainment should be able to give focus direction to us, rather than make us believers in obnoxious things that will not help life or make us grow.
We should concentrate on things that will teach us how to live together, how to improve what we have and how to help the economy of this nation.
With money coming into the industry from corporate sponsorship and the planned N200million grant from the federal government, what is your take on this?
I have no take o! No one has given me kobo o! I don’t even know where they shared the money, whether they have shared the money or not. Chief Zebrudaya, my hands are not there. Even when my boy died, Gringory Akabogu, my colleague (May God Rest His Soul) I came with cap in hand begging for people to help me bury him; not to bury him as the honourable poor man like his plays on the television, but at least to give him some kind of status that he has left some legacy.
If he did not leave any, he left legacy that the Akwa Ibommites have now begun to see with their third eye and their governor has now said no youth will go uneducated from elementary school to university level. Hitherto, anybody who wants a house boy ran to Akwa Ibom. When you are looking for one they say ‘ah, go to Akwa Ibom you’ll get them’.
But now he has promised them that every person in Akwa Ibom must go to school. In fact, it is a crime if a child does not go to school in Akwa Ibom today. He insists that they should all go, because he doesn’t want anybody from the state to be called Gringory Akabogu anymore. If we did not do that, he wouldn’t have taken us seriously.
And we thank God, of all the governors who have passed through till date, it is only Dr. Godswill Akpabio that has taken it up and been able to read with his third eye what we are talking about in ‘The Masquerade’. Secondly, when (Gen Ibrahim) Babangida was around he used to have ‘The Masquerade’ as his cup of tea at the State House.
He would want to get the feelings of the people he’s ruling through the performance of? ‘The Masquerade,’ because we didn’t care; it’s the Masquerade, and so we told whoever is on top or who ever is at the bottom the ills of the society for him to make amends.?
When Late Emeka Omeruwa was the governor of Anambra State, we advocated through our show for there to be public toilets in Enugu and its environs, because it was too embarrassing to see a vehicle stopping and people running to ease themselves publicly like that, especially women; it’s an eyesore. We put up a three weeks’ show on television; then we went to the State House and performed that same show.
So, he promised us that he was going to build public conveniences throughout the municipality of Enugu – and he did it. Unfortunately, the subsequent governors that came up did not see any reason to retain public toilets for the people. All they did was to convert those places to stores and rented them out to traders.
But these were the legacies ‘The Masquerade’ has left and this is what I think the entertainment industry should be able to pursue and let the people change from their bad behaviour to a good behaviour. Let the powers that be take up what the entertainment industry is saying about the feelings of the people; after all, that was what William Shakespeare used to do.
He was very close to 10 Downing Street which is the seat of the UK government. He used to be there; his house is very close to it and he performed, telling the government then what was happening in the society. That’s why you had Macbeth and Julius Caesar.
They were things that were happening within the community at that time. And so, I don’t see why our government should shy away? from what the artistes constructively say,? because they don’t? just say it, they must have researched on it. They have seen bad things? happen and they want them to stop.
On the N200million the government is promising the entertainment industry, what do you say?
I have not seen where the money is. I don’t know when they want to share it, but if you know tell me I will go. I have shows to present; I have films to shoot which are in the cupboard, but I don’t have sponsors. I have ‘New Masquerade’ to bring back, to bring up shows but I don’t have the money to prosecute the production.
I cannot write or source writers, pay them, act myself, pay fellow actors and also come and pay NTA to play these things free of charge for people like us. So people like us need such funds to revive our programmes and give Nigerians what they want.
Has society rewarded artistes in the country?
I hope they would do better.
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