Wednesday 12 October 2011

IN THE TIME THAT I WAS GONE:

I had a baby. She’s the cutest little thing in the world and I do not say this because she is my daughter. She really is cute. Of course she has my genes.
I made a movie: OkonLagos which was financed by my brother. It is only family and friends who will take the risk of investing in your first work. I set out to make a commercial movie and I succeeded. It’s done very well, particularly in Akwa Ibom and Cross River states for obvious reasons. My feeling is that of gratitude because it could easily have gone wrong. Despite putting what I considered the elements for a successful Nollywood movie, there are simply no guarantees. As one of my friends would say, Nollywood is spiritual. You can’t explain why one person would rise to become an A-lister in one year and some others will remain D-listers for a lifetime despite being better actors. 
I celebrated 5 years in marriage. Who would have thought. Even my husband is surprised I haven’t yet cooked him for dinner. Yes, he has plenty wahala but so do I.
I visited home: Ikot Ekpene. I couldn’t believe how much it’d changed. Expanded roads, street/traffic lights, more companies etc. PHCN remains a problem. One day maybe. 
Zazugist.com was born. Unfortunately I am anti-pidgin so that one would be passing over me. I do not listen to Wazobia or any of those stations.  I think that there is already a huge divide between the upper/middle class and lower class and pidgin just makes it worse. You know, like we’re saying, we’ll speak Queens English and teach our children same, you guys stay down there and speak your pidgin. Everyone in my opinion should have a chance of getting to the top and language is key.
Steve Jobs died. I didn’t know him much while he lived but in death we seem to be getting close, I know, that sounds spooky,right. I read his Stay hungry, stay foolish speech and what popped out at me was not that he dropped out of school but that he dropped in on some classes, one of which was calligraphy which laid the foundation for the gadgets he would later create. In Nigeria, we’re quick to mention that some of the world’s geniuses were school drop outs but we quickly forget that they never stopped learning.  Something we seem to be averse to in Nigeria. Everyone wants a university degree but no one wants to read and actually learn. Your certificate may get you the job, but it’s your knowledge/skill that will keep it.
I’m making the blog more personal, we’ll still talk Nollywood and Arts but we’ll talk me too.
Enjoy the rest of the week.

 PS. Congratulations to Adeleke Adeyemi who just won the NLNG prize for literature for his children’s book: The missing clock. Adeleke and I attended the first Fidelity bank sponsored Chimamada Adichie’s workshop.  Yes, I’m famzing.