Best Of Nollywood (BON)’s Head of Jury, Niran Adedokun, has reacted to the viral reports that Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi,
‘insulted’ Nollywood practitioners and described them as ‘products of
circumstances because they had failed in other fields.’
According to Adedokun, Amaechi was
only trying to explain the current situation of the country viz massive
job unemployment. He said:
“Amaechi never said that. What he said was
that a lot of people are into acting because of the situation of things
in the country. He said many of them probably studied other courses and
didn’t get jobs in those fields. He wasn’t talking about the movie
industry alone; he actually mentioned the case of people who read
Engineering but work in banks…that was exactly what he was talking
about; that because there are no jobs in the country, a lot of people
are working in fields they didn’t study for.
Speaking on the quality of the event, Adedokun said,
“My assessment of the award ceremony was that everybody was pleased
with the event. It went well, and I was glad,” he said.
On reports of low-turnout of actors, he said, “There wasn’t any low
turn-out. As a matter of fact, we had a lot of actors in attendance. I
really can’t speak much on that because I wasn’t in charge of that
aspect, but to be frank with you, I was shocked because 90% of the
awards we presented were collected by the recipients themselves, either
individually, or by a member of the production team. To say that there
were few actors there is totally wrong,” he stated.
BON has also issued a press release:
“At no point did Governor Amaechi insult Nollywood practitioners. Instead, he
commended them for growing the industry into a multi billion naira industry
without any form of institutional or government support.
Nollywood, he says, now employs hundreds of thousands of Nigerian youths who,
despite their qualifications, may have remained jobless because of the
unemployment challenge in Nigeria which has led to a situation whereby
graduates of medicine, law and other such disciplines end up in Nollywood.
At that point, popular entertainer, Okey Bakassi, interrupted the governor,
saying he is an agricultural engineering graduate of the Rivers State
University of Science and Technology, which threw the whole hall into laughter.
The Governor then recalled that at the 40th birthday party of Kate Henshaw a
while back, Basorge Tariah Jnr reminded her how they used to slap the streets
in search of jobs and that it was Nollywood that rescued them.
Governor Amaechi also cited the example of the banking industry which has
become a dumping ground of sort for graduates of different disciplines that are
not even remotely related to the banking profession.
More so, at no point did the Governor say he gives Kate Henshaw money. He did,
however, say that the state has contracted Mrs Joke Jacobs to turn Chinua
Achebe’s political satire, A Man of the People, into a movie because of its
inherent, timeless social message.
We therefore want discerning Nigerians to discountenance this ill-intentioned
report as it is not only the product of warped reasoning and deliberate
misinterpretation, it is most uncharitable to Governor Amaechi and demeaning to
the Nollywood stars and stakeholders that were at the event.”
See photos from the event and full winners’ list below:
Here are a few photos from the Best of Nollywood Awards which held last
night in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. See more pics and full list of
winners after the cut…