Pete Edochie is a well respected actor. In this interview with Senior Reporter, Ifeoma Ononye, he speaks extensively on politics and his love for acting
We would like to hear your view on President Jonathan’s intention to run for president in 2015.
Pete Edochie, Nollywood Actor
First of all, President Jonathan has the right. He has a constitutional right to contest an election. He is the incumbent. He is free to contest. If the country is not satisfied with his performance, they can vote him out. But does he have a right to contest? He does. That is an incontestable fact. I have read from the newspapers that he said he was going to run just one term. Whether he said it or not is immaterial. If he makes up his mind on running, he is free to run. That is what we must first acknowledge. The second thing is that as an individual, I believe what our country need is two party systems like you have in America. They have so many little parties in America alright but there are the republicans and the democrats. When one party is elected into office, you evaluate the person’s performance over a period of four years. If the opposition believes that he has not done well, it is incumbent on them to proffer an alternative manifesto to the country. And vote the person out. In our own case, there is what I consider as an immoral gang up. I call it immoral gang up because the people who are ganging up to form a formidable mega opposition have not come out to say this is what we are going to do that President Jonathan is not doing. So the entire thing for me sounds very silly. Their objective primarily is to get Jonathan out. In the face of it but if you look at the body language of the actors you will find out that they are trying to see if they can wrestle power from Jonathan and send it back to the North. There is nothing wrong in that. We became independent in 1960 and the North has been in charge of this country for more than three quarters of our existence if we must be frank with ourselves. Going from Tafawa Balewa, Yakubu Gowon, Shehu Shagari and the rest. It’s been the North all the while. Ant that which sustains the country comes from the south. Now look at the kind of language, bellicose language, employed to heat up the polity. I remember someone saying before the elections, ‘those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable’. Somebody else said, ‘we shall make the country ungovernable for you’; another person said, ‘if what belongs to you is taken away from you, employ all the force that you can to bring that thing back. These statements were made by three people. Two belong to one party, one belong to another.
You don’t want to mention their names?
It is not necessary. Nigerians who read papers know the people who are involved. Now a lot of people looked at the country ad they said we have a problem of insecurity and they cite the Boko Haram. One thing has enjoyed consistency in the evolutionary politics of the country. Anytime power drifts from the North, you have insurrections. These insurrections are criminal but you see they give them religious complexion. So that it will seem as if two parties are involved. It is time we told ourselves the truth. If we want this country to be one, we should all get together and discuss terms of coexistence. I remember late Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu saying, ‘rather than co-exist within a fixating political atmosphere, why don’t we pull apart slightly so that we can breathe easily. It was agreed. The BBC gave it some slant that did not help us so the parties again reneged on their agreement. This happened at Aburi in Ghana. I remember that during the coup of July 29, 1966. The person who emerged as the leader of the country gave a broadcast. He said earlier that the basis for unity in Nigeria does not exist. I remember that statement. I am not a politician, so I have no desire to misconstrue or misinterpret anything or to quote anybody out of contest, no. I will be 67 this month and I am older than most of the people who are in government, either at the federal, state or local levels. I saw Nigeria evolve politically. Now, President Jonathan has given us opportunity to discuss the basics of our continued existence as a country.
That is the National Conference?
Yes. And the people who are opposing him are mainly those who are in the current gang up and these same people were the once shouting that there is need for a national conference. Government is not a moral inspirer, no doubt but I think sometimes, we have to take a lot of things into consideration. Individual gains based on aggrandisement, these are normally the motivation for what a lot of people do in politics. Everybody comes and say ‘ah! Jonathan’s government is corrupt’. The government of all the people who have ruled this country before him have all been corrupt. All of them, no exception; therefore it is not something you can take out of any individual now in authority. Looking at Jonathan’s score card from my own point of view, I think he has done marvelously well. I am not holding brief for him but I think I am too old to be messed up by anybody who is aspiring to political power. Our railways was dead completely. Jonathan is now reviving our railways and he is doing it with great commitment. I am happy about that. There are so many other things that he has done so well. He has build schools in areas of this country where illiteracy promotes violence. He has tried as much as possible to ensure peace. Boko Haram is making it impossible for people to invest in this country. First, they attacked the United Nations office, went to church to kill Christians which has been their preoccupation. They have gone to schools to wake up students and shoot them. It has never been recorded in any part of the world but it has been recorded here in Nigeria. They have attacked prisons to release prisoners; now they are attacking soldiers.
Do you think people are using them against Jonathan’s government?
There is no doubt about it. I remember someone coming out on television talking about dialogue and the Boko Haram said they don’t have time for dialogue; the leader said the country has to be islamised. God created all of us in very different and unique ways for a reason. If he wanted the whole world to be the same, he would have done it. Because most of the children who belong to Islam are not offered opportunities to be educated, they become willing tools for those who can manipulate them. There are many people in this country who are established and educated Muslims. They appreciate the value of education. They send a lot of their children overseas to be educated. They don’t encourage their children to go and become suicide bombers. Osama Bin Laden was married to a lot of women; had a lot of children. He never used any as a suicide bomber. He was a very educated young man, working in America. Employing violence to tackle problems in this modern era does not work.
If the opposition wants Jonathan out, fair enough. They are entitled to want him out. Let them articulate a programme. Let them give us a critical evaluation of Jonathan’s score card and then say these are the things he has not done well. If a coach keeps recording failures, kick out the coach and get another coach. I don’t think the country generally can tell you that they are absolutely dissatisfied with Jonathan’s performance. He is not a perfect human being but in the name of God he has tried to bring peace to the country. I am not scoring him 100 percent, no. I have seen other governments before his and I know that he is performing well. He tries to listen to people whenever they talk. Not every administrator or head of state is a good listener. So, he is entitled to run. The opposition should give us the reasons that they will be an improvement from what Jonathan has done and we will vote for them. At my age, I cannot be bossed around without reasons.
Would you also say that what is happening in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the division and all, are part of the plot to pull Jonathan down?
I am not going to comment on what happens in the PDP, it’s their business. I am not a politician and I don’t give a damn what happens in the PDP. They are in authority. It is their business to put their house in order.
Nigeria is a centurion this year, what hope are you looking forward to for the future of Nigeria?
It is difficult to tell what to expect from our leaders. I was the chairman of the National Rebranding Committee and what we were trying to do was to redirect Nigerians. Let them once again be on the right part. Well, unfortunately, our efforts did not attract the endorsement of the ruling party. There was a time this country had discipline. When Muhammadu Buhari was the president and Tunde Idiagbon was assisting him. They managed to inject discipline into the system, then progressively we developed a carefree attitude and we lost the gains of that period. We are trying to see if we can recall those circumstances. Not really whipping our people into line but persuading them to look inwards to change their attitude to a lot of things so that we can inspire others and attract international prospectors, but we were disbanded. Yes, we are 100. We are not a people. There are factors that tear us apart. Whenever there is a conscious attempt to address those factors, you see some ugly opposition rearing its head. I really don’t know what the country wants. We have 36 states and if we go to the national conference, dialogue and agree on terms of association, every state has a right to state what they want from anyone coming into the state, otherwise, don’t come. There are some states in Nigeria that does not allow alcohol in their hotels. The visitors should not take it out on people who own the state because they said they don’t want alcohol. There is a lot of hypocrisy in this country. It took the lives of youth corps members that were beheaded in Bauchi to reevaluate the National Youth Service Corps scheme. Now if you are a Christian, you will not be posted to a Muslim state.
It required the sacrifice of those youth corps members to make us have a rethink. I remember the governor of the state was quoted that that was how God wanted it. We have seen what has consistently been our experience in the country, particularly where politics is concerned. If we are going to write rotational presidency into our constitution, the dialogue will determine that. Today it will be the North, next tenure it will be south, next the eastern part and so on. So that no one will say we are being deprived access to the presidency. May be if we get that done, all these problems will cease. I read voraciously and I watch the international electronic media. It is easy for you to tell how much a senator earns in America. There is nobody in this country that can tell you how much a senator earns. We have done everything to find out, but nothing. All sorts of journalistic tricks have been employed to get that confession out of them and no way. If the people who draw the laws that should govern you cannot be honest with you, what are you going to expect. So, as far as I am concerned, Nigeria, I would wish should remain a country but it will be difficult for me to conclude from available facts that there is a serious possibility of our remaining a country. I think Nigeria has been projected to disintegrate by 2015. The signs are there and these signs are very ominous. You look at the kind of bellicose language that is being employed across the country and you wonder. Like somebody saying “we shall make the country ungovernable for you…” the other says “the oil is from our place, if you prevent our son from running, come and take the oil let me see…” these are not empty threats because if you break away from a church and form your own church, you must have followers. I went through Biafra by the grace of God. I will go through anything that is created by man in this country. I wish Nigeria well. I pray to God that we remain one and remain a country. But where prevailing circumstances does not make us one country, like Late Ojukwu advised let us device some means of pulling apart politely. If it means making the federal less attractive, let’s do that and give more power to the state. Look at what happened in Anambra during the election. It was farce, it was not an election. The chairman of Independent Electoral commission, (INEC), Atahiru Jega, admitted it by saying “we did not perform creditably but we are going to improve”. As far as I am concerned, I don’t know what sense there is in that statement. You admit you did not perform well in choosing the governor of a state, in other words, by implication you are inflicting somebody on the state. What happens to that state? Nigeria is one of the most gifted countries in the world. Natural disasters are not part of our daily experience except out of incompetence we create weak structures that collapse on our heads. We have enough money in this country to finance whatever project we want. A few individuals corner this money and they are sucking the till dry. Some governors are working. My favourite governor is, Enugu State Governor, Sulivan Chime. I live in Enugu and for God’s sake you can close your eyes and drive around Enugu. Chime doesn’t advertise himself. I recommend that governors should go to him and find out how he gets the money he uses for these projects. If you drive around Enugu you will not agree that this is the Enugu you knew about 10 years ago. If you go to Akwa Ibom, governor Akpabio is structurally transforming Akwa Ibom State and attracting white investors. I also hear that governor Fashola is also doing well in Lagos. Another place we are lacking in Nigeria is tourism. What do we project when we talk about tourism?
We used to have Durbar in Kano. Do we still have it? I don’t think so. We used to have the Argungu Fishing Festival, it has not been on for a while. There are so many things in the North that are fascinating to the tourists. I was born and raised in Zaria and I tell you, the best years of my life were spent in the north where I grew up. The best friends that I have were Muslims who schooled with me. Whenever they have their feasts, we would visit them. They will kill their rams and bring some to my father. My father was a very fair complexioned, handsome man and they called him Bekin Bature meaning black white man. Till tomorrow when I go to the North there is this nostalgic feeling about how I was raised and it touches me a lot. I remember then they had traditional boxing there in the North. They call it Darmbe. The boxing was seasonal. Then they have these people who tame wild animals like hyenas popularly called Kwura by the Hausas. They tame hyenas, snakes, they play around with monkeys. I think all these things have disappeared and these are tourist attraction. If you organise them into a circus, people will come and watch. There are people that will sharpen knives and try to cut their tommies open just for entertainment. All these have disappeared. Politics have buried all those things. In athletics, the North was producing the best long distance runners just like they have in Nairobi because they have the same kind of weather. They are all gone. There was a time a lot of money was made in this country in Kano where they had groundnut pyramids. By the way when it comes to fishing, the Hausas catch the biggest fish in the country. I am saying these from experience.
We came down to the east because of the war. Back in those days in the North, we, Igbo and the Hausa, play together and we fight at times. We still come back together. Almost everybody that grew up in the north will tell you that the best friends they had were Hausas they grew up with. I can say I am 90 percent Hausa and 10 percent Igbo. I believe that if we put our heads together we can run a beautiful country. All we require is to decide on a few things.
End of Politics talk
You were once a very good broadcaster. Are you satisfied with the quality of broadcasters we have today?
My own view is that they have access to electronic means of acquiring information which we never had. Regrettable, the broadcasters we have today do not read. That is the most tragic aspect of broadcasting. When we went to cover the all Africa Games in 1973, the ace commentator, Ishola Folorunsho, was drilling us on how to run commentaries. We had Earnest Okonkwo, Sebastian Opurum, Yinka Craig, Yemi Fadipe and the rest of them. When I did a course in journalism, I was thought that you must know a ‘little about a lot and a lot about a little’. It has guided me up till this moment. I took my mind back to when we were running commentaries on the all Africa games. There was hardly a contingent worthy of note we did not talk about. When the Ghanaian contingent drifted past, we talked about the fastest woman in Africa then. Her name was Alice Anum from Ghana. When the Ugandan contingent drifted past we talked about John Hakibua, he was the best huddler in the world as at that time. We had the history of these performances at our finger tips. I was taking commentaries on boxing because I was once a boxer and Christopher Kolade listened to my commentaries and instructed them to shut down the television commentary and feed my own commentary into television because the man on the TV didn’t know what he was saying. I was covering boxing and judo and also cycling. In cycling we have to come from Ibadan to Lagos. So if I say I am disappointed with broadcasters we have today, it is not because I want to run them down because I am no longer in the field, but because most of them are not doing their home work well. I was doing a production called Music from the Masters which involved classical music. If you can appreciate classical music then you are an accomplished human being because it is music that helps the cerebral appreciation. All the records I was using were from my library. I still have them till date. There was no radio station that has classical music like I did in those days. It is because we were encouraged to work hard. You have to spend a lot of money on your own to endure yourself to your audience. Amongst all the people I mentioned earlier, Earnest Okonkwo, Sebastian Opurum, Yinka Craig, Yemi Fadipe, Pete Edochie, none of us went to the university to study all these things. We got in as young men from secondary school and we were encouraged to read voraciously so that we can pick up the materials we require for the industry we find ourselves in. If you want to be a strong broadcaster, you have to train yourself to be a professional. We all met on the job and we found out we had one thing in common. We read up all that we knew. I went to Yinka’s house. It was as scattered as my house is. We worked extremely hard to find ourselves on top of our profession. I think those of us, who were lucky to be alive, we retired as directors.
I am not satisfied with the level of professionalism. No, I am not. The people are not working hard.
What of our sports commentators?
There are competent people who discuss sports but commentators, no. There is a particular girl that discusses sports, I am sorry, I can’t remember her name. I feel very happy when I see people injecting professionalism in what they are doing. It is like in the movie industry. In our own time, there was nothing like Nollywood. We were inspired by the people we watched on TV. John Wayne, Yul Briner, Dean Martin and so on. They are all dead but they inspired us. In fact, my son who is now doing well as an actor, I named him after an actor called Yul Briner and he looks like Yul Briner when you look at him. None of the actors today will agree that he was inspired by anybody. They will tell you their mother told them they were going to be actors. Or they started acting from the womb. I don’t know why people are that hypocritical or that ungrateful. If you want to be a footballer, you must model after somebody who inspires you. When I was playing football, I started using my right leg. But after I watched a young man called Elkanah Onyeali who was playing inside left for Nigeria, I decided that I was going to start playing left. I started practicing to play left and before I knew it, I became left footed. Anybody who aspires to be something in the professional circuit must have a mentor directly or indirectly. In the movie industry today we are doing well. The girls in the industry are more enterprising than the men. Well that is why they are girls. We are going places. Some of our female actresses are involved in transatlantic collaborative productions. Omotola, Rita Domnic, Genevieve, Stephanie and others. The men are okay in making the money from here. We are doing well but technically we can improve. We can still improve in terms of our grammatical interpretation because a lot of us are not at home with English language; it becomes difficult for us to be extemporaneously creative. We are not supposed to follow the script verbatim, if you do, then you are not acting. You have to read, understand and then interpret.
We are made to believe that Nollywood is very big, is the industry is that big?
It is the second biggest employer of labour outside the government. That is incontestable. Government also makes money out of Nollywood.
Do you miss being a broadcaster?
I think I do once in a while. I mean, I was in broadcasting. My wife was in broadcasting. My wife inspired me a lot as a broadcaster. She challenged me and I decided to make a profession out of it. She didn’t see it as a profession that was why she went to read law. I believe that with a strong sense of commitment, with diligence, you can make a profession out of it which I did. My wife influenced me into appreciating classical music. She was a very good singer.
We heard you also sing, do you still sing?
Yes I do but not as a profession. When we began to appreciate each other, we joined broadcasting. I discovered she was very much into classical music. She influenced me and I over took her because she pursued other interests but I cannot deny her that credit any day.
Can you go back to broadcasting now?
I do miss it but I can’t go back to broadcasting. No matter the persuasion. No matter the incentive.
Speaking about Nollywood actors, in the past three years, we have lost very competent hands in the industry. What is your opinion on that? Do you think we can still get the quality of people we lost?
The people who died were all destined to die when they did. That is the way I look at it. Sam Loco, Ashley Nwosu were first to go, Pete Ene was my age mate, Enebeli Elebuwa, David Ihesie, Justus Esiri. They were the elderly ones in Nollywood and they were inspiring others.
Do you miss them?
Come on. Anytime I am watching television and I see Sam Loco, I feel he is still alive. Sam Loco was very close to me. We did ****Things Fall Apart**** together. We have been very close friends. Enebeli Elebuwa lived with me in my father’s house in Zaria before we ran for the war. Again we were mates, so I can’t help but feel sad when I remember them. I said to myself, Pete, one day you will be gone. Man’s destiny is the grave that is what one poet called Thomas Grey said. We are here doing our best.
About the money that was said to have be set aside for the entertainment industry by President Jonathan, do you have any idea if the money has been accessed?
That I can’t tell. When we hear such things we are supposed to see someone that will come and say he or she has gotten so and so amount. But I have not heard such and I cannot discuss it. I thank the president for voicing such commitment but that is an aspect that I, Pete Edochie, will not know. I am not involved in such things. My job is to read the script given to me, you pay me, I act and I go. I cannot go to Abuja and start hobnobbing with characters that have access with people in power.
Your passion for broadcasting and acting which would you say has more weight?
One came before the other. First, it was broadcasting, now I am acting. I love it as much as I loved broadcasting. Acting is my life now. I am happy that people appreciate what I am doing.
In the kind of movies you act, people see in different ways. Some see you as very serious, unsmiling; others think you are strict and conservative; many think you are proud and majority think you are very wicked, so tell us who you really are?
If I am wicked in real life, then I am not acting. I mean if you are playing yourself, then you are not acting. They see me as a strict person, yes I am strict. I am very, very strict. Having to cope with five sons and graduate all of them, you just have to be strict. You have to be an iron man. Sometimes you pack your car, you come out and it is gone. You just have to be strict so that you can make the young men responsible. If you are loose with them then they become useless. I am a very strict father; my wife is a very strict woman. Now they are all grown. They have given me 10 grand children and they will give me more. Am I a proud person, the answer is no. I am a very simple person but I believe in self discipline. I also believe in contentment. So when I play my characters in the movie, I don’t accept roles where I will be rolling in hay with girls and women. I don’t accept such roles. The reason is that people believe me a lot when they see me do anything. When they see me doing that, they will think it is normal and they will want to do it. For me such roles are not my specialty, it is difficult for me to fit myself into such roles.
If people see me as a serious person, yes. If they see me as a conservative person, yes, I accept I am. I am a conservative, if you are not, you cannot appreciate art. If you are not conservative, you cannot have values.
Are you also a very strict Christian?
Yes I am.
Your first movie, how much were you paid?
I don’t discuss such things.
What project are you working on now?
We are compiling Blessed Iwene Tansi movie which we will be moving round the country. I am a Catholic by the way, and I will die one. My parents were Catholic. We are expecting the first saint from Nigeria anytime from now. I was asked to do a film about his life which I did. The Vatican approved it. The Conference of Catholic Bishops approved it. They wrote me a letter and said ‘Pete, congratulations, take the movie round the whole country. So for the past eight years, that is what I have been doing. It gives me a lot of satisfaction to stand in the sanctuary and address people in the church. In addition to being a lawyer, my wife is also an evangelist. I bought one bible and my wife decided to improve on it by buying more. We have taken the movie to Lagos to celebrate the feast of Blessed Tansi. That was on January 20 at Holy Family Church FESTAC. So I am working for the church and I love it.
Are you going to produce more movies aside the Father Tansi movie?
There is a movie I swore before the Blessed Sacrament to produce. I will produce it by the grace of God. It is going to be very challenging but I will produce it. I have not written the script, the story is still in my head. There is another that will be an international affair but I am not letting the cat out of the bag yet. Nothing like it has ever been done. I hope that God gives me life so I can do it.