INTERVIEW: I didn’t get a dime from ‘Living in Bondage’ – Okey Ogunjiofor

Many who saw the history-making Nollywood movie, ‘Living in bondage’ released in 1992, must have been wondering where ‘Paulo’ (Okey Ogunjiofor), the guy that lured Andy into occultism, has been all these years.

With a target of only a hundred thousand homes and at N300 per copy of the film, as the producer, Okey was certain he would strike gold after ‘Living in Bondage’ was released.

His prediction was correct as over 750,000 copies of the movie were sold across Nigeria.

The son of M.C. Ogunjiofor, a renowned Nigerian poet, sculptor, and writer of the famous – Anthology of Modern Igbo Verse, Okey’s dreams never materialised. His sponsor and partner reneged on their original agreement of sharing the proceeds equally after he would have recouped his investments.

In this interview, originally published by mytori.ng, the veteran actor recounts his horrendous experiences in filmmaking and his latest project, ‘Amina’, which has been 25 years in the making.

Living in bondage

Okey hinted that he got his inspiration for the movie ‘Living in bondage’ which was released in 1992, from a real-life experience.

The veteran actor recounted that the inspiration for the history-making movie was borne out of his working experience with the then famous wrestler, Power Mike, who provided video coverage for a supposed cultural festival.

According to Okey, the festival was for a group of opulent, traditional cultural people who had what they called a festival at the handball pitch of the National Stadium in Surulere, Lagos. He was paid the sum of N7,000, which was a huge sum of money during the late 80s.

Little did he know It was an occultic celebration. The actor said the attendees of the festival donned different regalia and were all tied from their torsos down and wore beads all-around their arms and waists.

The person who had invited him to cover the event began to woo him into joining the group. When he later discovered what the group was about, he vehemently objected to the invitation. The actor was warned that if he did not join the group, things would never be all right for him. This became the inspiration for the movie, ‘Living in bondage’.

Okey, who became popular as ‘Paulo’, the role he played in the movie, said that the movie made it difficult for him to live a normal life, as people hated him for his role in the movie.

He said, “people wanted to stone me for luring Andy into the occult to kill his beautiful wife, believing that, in real life, I was a cultist. I could not board public transport. I needed to have some semblance of security, rent a good apartment, instead of being a squatter.”

Thrice beaten

Aside from social stigma, Okey was indeed living in bondage. After producing the movie ‘Living in Bondage’ which was believed to have netted at least N20m at the time, the actor was greatly exploited by his partners and was sadly remunerated the sum of N3,500 as allowances from logistics.

“I didn’t get a dime from living in bondage, I was a novice. I was a hungry boy from the streets who did not have anyone to plead his cause, who did not have any idea or experience in business or filmmaking, because (this home-movie business) had not been done before…. (I was dealing with a) more experienced (businessman) who saw every loophole and explored them,’’ he said.

In addition to ‘Living in bondage’, the resilient actor continued to produce other movies in 1995 despite experience, his movies were best sellers at the time. They included ‘Nneka the pretty serpent’, “Brotherhood of Darkness’, and ‘when flowers turn black’.

However, the narrative did not change; he continued to suffer from what he described as “a trailblazer with others taking the glory and reaping from my mistakes, correcting the mistakes and standing firm.”

Okey narrated how he had suffered huge losses from dubious and horrendous marketers.

He said, “I would borrow money to produce a film, buy the empty cassettes, dub the materials into the cassettes, print packets for the cassettes, and give the marketers to sell. On my return for my portion of the agreed proceeds, to defray my cost and have some profits and make returns on investments to my investors, the marketer would take me to his warehouse where the packets were stacked, and all the copies delivered to him would be there. All. Because we would count, one by one.”

“What usually happened was that the marketer would take your film to mass production studios, the packet to printers, and mass production of a multitude of copies of the film and packets would be done. That is the version that is sold in the market. So, of course, the marketer would tell you that your film has not moved.”

Breakthrough

He said his first breakthrough came in 1996, after the then First Lady, Maryam Abacha, returned from the Fourth World Conference on Women Action for Equality, Development, and Peace, in Beijing, China.

Okey sent proposals to make a film on the life and times of Queen Amina for the office of the First Lady’s project on women empowerment initiatives.

Whilst the proposal was accepted, the First Lady’s Office did not fund the project, rather he was given recommendation letters which facilitated his meetings with high net worth individuals and concerned parties to help ensure that he produced ‘Queen Amina’ and make it the most acceptable story.

The journey

Okey, through the aid of a researcher, commenced the daunting investigations. However, in 1998, when the then Head of State, Sani Abacha, died and was succeeded by Abdulsalam Abubakar, he continued working with the First Lady, Fati Abubakar.

He noted that he and his researcher visited thirteen emirs. ‘‘We travelled everywhere there is history, on good, bad and hazardous roads. Oh, we travelled. From Dass to Kano to Bauchi to Jos to Ilorin to places in Kogi State to Suleja to Abuja,’’ he said.

The hurdles

It was indeed an uphill task for Okey as he noted that nobody really wanted to talk to him about the story of Amina. He hinted that at a point, it seemed that there was a conspiracy against that woman.

He said “Even when I went to the Zazzau and Kano Chronicles to check the period that Amina reigned, the thirty-four years of her reign was absent. You would see where the reign of Bakwa of Turunku, King Nikatau, her father, ended, but you would not see (records) of another person reigning for another thirty-four years until the next king came. Then you would wonder whether some people want her reign obliterated from history.”

“It appeared that there were some fears that men did not want to tell the story of how a woman-dominated or expanded or developed the far and vast Zazzau Empire which transcended (so many territories). Today, it is thirteen emirates, but it was way, way bigger than that, in those days, and she had (extensive) influence up to the northern parts of Africa.”

He wondered why a powerful woman reported to have done such great exploits, yet there is no monument anywhere in Nigeria named after her, except a small statue at the entrance of the National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos… And, maybe, the Amina Hall in some of Nigeria’s universities.

The soft-spoken filmmaker said some of the drawbacks for the projects were a result of the lack of relatively meaningful cooperation from concerned parties.

“When we presented our letter to some of the emirs and the custodians of history we met, they did not want to say ‘No’ to General Sani Abacha, but they were reluctant to tell me (and my researcher) all I wanted to know. They tried to dismiss us without saying it. In some cases, I would be asked to wait, that I would soon be seen, and it could take as long as seven days of waiting. Every morning, I would resume from my hotel to (start the waiting game).

“Sometimes I would be pressured and would not leave to (go and relieve myself, to avoid a situation) where I would be told that I was called, and I was out. You know that when you miss such an opportunity, you cannot say that you were not called, it would be that you were called but you were not available, and then who knows, you may not be called again,’’ Okey narrated.

Finally

However, he endured the pains and kept the faith. Okey was resilient. He said the breakthrough for the movie came after he had met the Emir of Zazzau.

“After waiting for some time for the (then) Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero, he directed us to some historians and that was how we got to (now late) Danmasanin Kano, Ambassador Yusuf Maitama Sule. The same thing happened in Zaria after waiting so many days, we were directed to the chief historian, (now late) Ahmadu Fatika (Sarkin Fadan Zazzau and a minister in Nigeria’s First Republic).

‘‘I was also referred to Nuhu Bamalli, (who was once Nigeria’s foreign minister), a literature specialist and the Magajin Garin Zazzau – his son, His Royal Highness Alhaji Ahmed Nuhu Bamalli is now the Emir of Zazzau – who talked with me for so many days, and gave me a handwritten recommendation on his letterhead, which he said I could use to open any door anywhere I wanted. That was a breakthrough on this journey.”

Lifelines

Okey did not just experience breakthroughs. He was also given lifelines that facilitated the research and development of the movie.

“When the John F Kennedy Centre for Performing Arts came into the picture, they gave me some money through the assistance of Masoma African Foundation for The Arts led by Mrs. Sylvia Bello, the chairman and Mrs Funke Akinyanju, Board Member and two of their top artistic directors which included Alicia B. Adams, travelled with me to all the emirates, the doors opened faster, even one of two of the emirs became more relaxed. That was what the involvement of the Americans did, along the way.

According to Okey, in 2014, when the federal government rebased the Nigerian economy from the base year of 1990 to 2010 and decided to support the Nollywood industry, he applied for a production grant, and it was approved.

He said he used part of this funding to go for training at UCLA (University of California Los Angeles) where he had instructors such as Barbara Boyle, Joe Rosenberg, Neil Landau, Donald Martin and John W. Simmons.

It was after he had returned from UCLA that he began the groundwork for the production but funds were not sufficient for the project, but it was enough money until some other investors could come into play. He also got a loan from the Bank of Industry.

Queen Amina

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Okey cast a crew of 86 from Nollywood and at least 1000 actors from Kannywood, in a bid to bridge the gap between the north and the south when it comes to the creative divide.

He said that the development of the story hinges on the fact that it does not matter how far people try to stop Amina’s name from being heard.

Okey said “At a point, people were beginning to talk about how she was supposedly wayward; that she would take men in, have sex with them overnight, and in the morning, kill them, but nobody is saying that Amina did all those things because there was the traditional system and culture of the people, which resisted the rulership of a woman, and so, oftentimes, planted surrogates or what you can call enemies who purported to be lovers; and she would take them in and always found that they were armed and plotted certain booby-traps for her to be exterminated.

Each time she discovered that; being a military strategist, knowing that any enemy you keep alive means that your life is in danger; she would eliminate them. This continued up to a point when she said she would no longer marry. Then the talk of her being a hermaphrodite started a lot of stories, but it was all because of the gender prejudices that men had.

It was a period of complete female subjugation, a timeless season of wars and terror everywhere. For a woman to be equal to all men and hold her own was worrisome to a lot of people.”

It has taken the filmmaker 25 years to make the movie from 1996 – when the research started – to 2019.

The post-production was completed in 2019 and it was marketed to Netflix. ‘Amina’ is now ready for release to a global platform on November 4, as a Netflix Original.

This interview was originally published by mytori.ng