Dayo Ogunde is a chip of the old block. As a moviemaker, she is following the footsteps of her father, the late Hubert Ogunde. She was at Independent Newspapers Limited (INL) corporate head office last week and had a chat with Senior Correspondent, Hazeez Balogun. She speaks about the 25 years remembrance of her father which starts today and the life and times of the Nigerian cinema legend.
This year marks 25 years of the death of Pa Ogunde, what are the line-up of programmes to celebrate him.
Dayo Ogunde
There are lots of programmes we have lined up. Today for example, we will be commissioning a museum in his honour. The Museum is located in his hometown in Ososa, Ogun State. In the museum, there will be a lot of his materials including personal ones and those pertaining to his works. There will be some of his clothing items, some of his movie posters, his props and just anything we still have of him that will interest visitors and scholars who visit the place. We also want to show one of his movies, ‘Aropin ni teniyan’ for free.
There were talks of a Film Village in his name, how is that going?
Yes, we are working towards that but that will not be part of this 25years celebration. There is a Film village coming up and we are almost through with that. When we are ready to launch that as well, we will keep the media abreast.
One would think that by now, a film on Ogunde will be made especially when he was into films himself.
When he died, we did a stage play on his life. We had planned to adapt it into a film but we are yet to do that. For now, we are not doing a movie on him. You also know that we have a documentary on him that is shown even on BBC. It is called, ‘Making of Nigerian Theater’. But for a full length movie, we have deliberated on it and very soon we should start talking about production. Ogunde was not an ordinary man, he was and still is an icon. To do a movie on him, we should be able to make a movie that meets his own standard and even surpass it. It is not a kind of project that should be rushed.
Selling movies in Cds right now is not profitable and pirates have taken over the business, is it true that Pa Ogunde while he was alive had warned that all these will happen?
I was still very young at that time, but I can remember vividly that he used to drum it into other movie makers ear that they should not record their work into cd for sale. They should try and continue with the cinemas. Many of the practitioners at that time took heed of his advice but many did not. At that time, he was shooting on 35mm, and shooting on 35mm was very expensive. Some thought he was giving them wrong advice since he was one of the few that could afford to shoot on 35mm.
They asked him, “what about us that cannot afford it?” He would tell them that it is not a must for one person to shoot one movie. Three people can come together to shoot one film. But I understand that working together to make a film can be very cumbersome and messy. But some movie makers took his advice. People like Oga Bello and Ajani Ogun who did movies on 16mm. But everyone else went into home video. It was cheaper to make and the quality does not need to be very good. But home video came with it’s own disadvantages and that is the piracy that is plaguing the industry today.
Now the industry is so poor. Many people shoot very poor quality movies just because it is cheap to make. Some make movies for N400,000, can you believe that? It is now an all comers affair. When we stopped making films for cinema, many people lost the interest in going to cinema, and that is why you see that it is not thriving as it used to be. In fact, it is just coming back slowly. I am not saying that it is movie makers that made the cinema industry crash, there are a lot of factors, and I can tell you that making home videos is one of the reasons.
Despite all the poor quality and poor distribution structures, Nigeria movie industry has become a big deal in recent years. If Ogunde was alive, do you think he will give Nollywood a pass mark?
Some people are doing very well with their works. Look at the works of Amaka Igwe, or Tunde Kelani, there is no way Pa Ogunde will not be happy with the kind of films these people are making. There are a few who are doing very good works and their works can be presented anywhere in the world. Ogunde was all about quality. It is not about making movies just to get by, but by making movies that is world class that you as a movie maker can be proud of.
Before, you had to have gone to school to study theater arts or you are under one movie maker or the order. You cannot just get into the industry without having a root from somewhere. Today all you need is a fine face and the next thing you are a star. But it is these set of people that do not last in the industry. If Ogunde sees this trend, he would not be happy. He believed in hard work. No matter how fine you look, talent always comes first.
He was very keen about standards. When you make a film, you should be able to take out there to film festivals and it should be accepted. That is why you see someone like Lancelot Immasuen or Kunle Afolayan being able to take their movies around the world and they are put on a pedestal. How many movies can boast of that? We should have more of these quality film makers than we have mediocres, but sadly, reverse is the case.
Pa Ogunde had a lot of children and you are one of the youngest, did you have a close relationship with him?
Yes I did. In fact my elder brothers will tell me that I am lucky because I was the only one he did not beat. He was very strict on the other ones, and I was the last one at that time, so he was more of pampering me. I stayed with him for the last four years of his life. I was always with him following him everywhere. Except when I go to school, I was always by his side. When he was about to die I was in school at the time, if not I would have been by his side.
What did you learn from him in terms of life lessons?
The first thing that anybody close to him, will tell you is that they learn hard work. He would say that without pain, there is no gain. He taught us to be hard working. Even as a young girl, I was already working in his theatre. I learnt to be humble and generous as well. As a moviemaker myself, I learnt from him that one has to be passionate about the work before even embarking on it. You must be knowledgeable about the arts and also understand that our culture must be reflected in your works.
He was also a very wise man and the way he handles situations usually baffles me. You know he had a lot of wives, and he was very good in handling all of them. Even if there is a quarrel, the way he will handle the situation, you would think there was no quarrel at all. He never takes sides and he treats everybody equally.
He was also a good father. You will be surprised that he is a very jovial man. You would think he was a clown. He would sing and dance for us. I mean private show for the children. If he really wants to pamper you he may go as far as cook for you.
After 25 year, do you still think of him or even miss him?
Yes sometimes. Especially when people are talking about him, I would in my mind start to think of the days when he was alive. Also, I still listen to his music till today, and that is a part of him that is always with me. If I can’t see him again, at least I can always hear his voice.
He was the one holding the family together, how did the family cope after his death?
There was no problem really. When he died, they were still shooting ‘Mr Johnson’. So the problem then was how to finish the movie the way he would have wanted to. As usual, he brought in an overseas producer and we had to make sure that he and the rest of the crew were treated well. We were more concerned about his legacy than any other thing.
We were all united when he died. You know before, when there was an issue, we would run to him. But with the realisation that there was nobody else to run to, we had to come together as one family to keep the peace and be one happy family. God had been good to us. You can tell that we are united because, we have kept his legacy long after he dies. Now we are celebrating his 25th anniversary, if we are not united, we won’t be doing it as one family.
Usually, when a popular and rich man dies like that, we hear stories of the family fighting over property, how was Ogunde’s estate settled?
He had always been saying it before he died that he does not have any property for any child. He had made sure we are independent and do not rely on anything he has. Thank God, we are all doing good. In fact he did not leave a will yet there is no one fighting over anything. His houses are still there, they are still a family houses. It is part of our upbringing, why look up to inheritance when you can work and make more money than you parents? The only thing I think some of us were interested in was his clothes. We wanted a piece of him that we could remember him for. But today, most of all his clothes and shoes are now in the museum.
Even his equipments were not really utilized because many of us had our own. In fact only very few of us are in the theatre industry. Others are in Oil and gas, some are lawyers, some are doctors. It’s just I and two others that have decided to follow his footsteps. When he died I was still in school and I already knew that there was nothing coming to me. All I needed was to finish school and all our family made sure that those of us in school finished school.
So can we say that his production outfit died with him?
Like I said, we are not many following the theatre line. Also, when he worked, he brought in most of his crew from abroad. It was a bit difficult for us to get to those people and bring them here. Also, we could not make anything that was not up to the standard he left behind. You know the kind of movie he did was deep and you need a certain kind of inspiration to do it. I don’t think any of us had such in us. It is better that we did our own personal works and people will say this movie is done by Ogunde’s daughter or son. That is better than saying a movie is done by Ogunde theatre, when the man himself is not alive. Uncle Laja is the most busy amongst us three, and he has been able to carve a niche for himself. He has his own trademark, just like our father had his own.
Are all his works still with the family?
We have an agreement with a studio in the UK. They store all the master of his work for us for a fee. It is safe there and well preserved.
It’s been a while you shot a movie, why is that?
Well, you can blame it on the industry itself. It is not encouraging. The last one I did, I had an unpleasant experience with the marketer. Same thing for uncle Laja, he has also been complaining about the marketer and the distribution channels. So for now, I have been doing some other personal works. I don’t know if it is getting better now. I would test the market once more, if it is conducive, I would release another movie.
Ogunde is believed to be deep in the occult, how true is this?
What I know is that his father was a traditionalist and he grew up with such tradition and culture. You may not know this but his father did not want him to be an actor or a movie maker. He first had to be a police man just to satisfy his own father. It was later he had to go back to what he loves doing. He is not an occultic person. People misunderstood him just because of the kind of movie he made.
It is not as if he belongs to any cult. I used to stay with him in the same house and there is no room in the house that I do not enter. There is no room that has anything occultic in it. When you come to the museum, you will see all his gear, there is nothing like that. Yes, you might see some of these spiritualists sometimes come around, but they come just because of the respect they have for his father. When you see them doing Egungun festival or the Agemo festival, they would come to the house dance and go, it is out of respect and nothing more.
So he was a strict Christian?
I would tell you this. He used to be a member of the Grail message and we all attended the church. As a grail member, you had a different view of the bible and you might think that he was strange with his beliefs. After some time he left Grail and we moved to Anglican. He later became a born again when he was in the UK. He is not an Ogboni member.
While you were young, were people pointing it at your face that you father is a cultist?
A lot. Even till today. When my father died, some of my teachers and friends were afraid to come to visit me. When I eventually met them, they said they were afraid to come. They had heard stories that they would need seven people to bury along with my father and they were not sure if we already had the seven we needed and that is why they could not come and visit me. It is not a joke o. They were very serious. Even in the university, I was always getting people coming up to me. Some girls approached me one day and said that they would like to join the Witch occult, that I should help them. Some guys also came one time and said that they would want me to assist them with money ritual. I get all sorts of things like that. They think I was a powerful person.
Even my lecturers think that I was very deep in the occult. There was one who called me to the front of the class and asked me to recite Esu’s panegyrics. She was so convinced that I knew it that she thought I was just lying when I told her I don’t know it. But we don’t worship Esu in my family.
For artistic purposes, like you father did, did you learn all these spiritual incantations?
No. Most of what my father was reciting was not the full thing. He would change some of the words. Chanting those things in real life has it’s own repercussions. He knew how to work around it, but I do not get inspired for such.
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