Jonh Makaffy Adegbola keeps dream of making his own movies alive with an outline of projects and movie scripts. Along with his partner, Offin Osadebe, they conceived Makaffy Entertainment. Unlike many others who can’t wait to join the craze for wealth, they are stepping out with a programme that targets children in primary and secondary schools. Adegbola spoke to Reporter, Adedayo Odulaja.
John Makaffy Adegbola
What is this programme all about?
We are floating a project for the 1st of October. We are actually targeting children in primary and secondary schools around Lagos State. The core event of the day is a live performance by renowned playwright, Ene Henshaw. We have a trainer coach who would train these young minds as well as those who want to come into the creative arts like acting, directing, scriptwriting, costume making and every other thing involved in creative arts.
Why Ene Henshaw?
Because of Henshaw’s exceptional ability. The production can cause changes in the mindset of the young ones. That is because Henshaw has a dramatic ability to positively influence a young child
Where is it holding?
At the Cubicle Event Centre in Isheri Olofin and by the grace of God, we have the backing of the Lagos State Government and the Egbe Idimu LCDA. By the grace of God too, we hope to have a successful programme for the basic thing. Apart from the performance, it is also to have our elderly people mentoring the younger ones because we are going to have career talk and so on for the young students.
And we are going to make the children understand what they really want in life. We have the support of sponsors like Promasidor, De United Foods, makers of Indomie; and CWay who will be coming to advertise their products and give out sourvenirs to the children. And apart from that, we also have programmes lined up for the whole year. For instance, we have the Centenary project through which we will celebrate the 100 years anniversary of Nigeria. We have a live project in respect of that and it is going to be a theatre event. But that will be in 2014. As it is now, we are focusing on the October 2013 programme.
One would expect a young entertainment house like yours to focus on film and music because those are more preferred in the society. Why did you choose theatre?
Basically, I studied theatre arts in school. I am a graduate of theater arts from the University of Ilorin. I also went to South Africa to do a film course and that is why I am into film, it is not like I just dabbled into it for the money although we all know there is more money in the film industry now. I do both theatre and film but we are using theatre on this occassion to reach the young ones and make a stronger impact.
What is the title of the play?
The play is, This is Our Chance by Ene Hanshaw. We carefully studied Nigeria in the last five years and we have been blessed, so to speak, with a lot of chaos and we observed that the young ones in primary and secondary school learn more from what they see and that is why we have decided to come with live theatre, otherwise we would have just done a jamboree where they would come and enjoy themselves and go back home. But we want them to catch fun and to go home with something tangible. Now, the play is one that focuses on an oil community and the kind of dramatic technique that would bring peace which we think could be used in Nigeria. It will be very useful in Nigeria. Some people believe that Nigeria can’t get better than it is right now but we strongly believe that Nigeria can get better and it will, if we want it to.
In terms of modalities, the number of schools and all that, what are you looking at?
We have enumerated a lot of schools, talking about the numbers of schools we have invited, we talked to Legacy College, we talked to a lot of schools. I can’t really get their names now but we are dealing with more than fifty schools.
Are public schools also invited?
We actually have invited a lot of public schools within the LCDA. We also invited some not-yet-approved schools. We are not looking at the profile of the schools but the change we can bring to the children.
If you are dealing with about fifty schools, how are you contemplating handling the sitting arrangement in the hall?
The hall is big enough to accommodate all the expected students
What kind of support is the State government giving?
They are actually coming in because before you can carry out any educational project, you need to involve the Ministry of Education in the state due to the importance the government places on the sector. We have gone to them and they have given us backing, a go ahead to organise the programme, especially as it concerns the government schools. We can’t invite them without informing the government.