That is the only way to move forward in Nollywood. We must rise above the glamour and hype and begin to get things right. The Nollywood @ 20 Awards Night held on the 27th of November 2013 at the Intercontinental Hotel, Victoria Island Lagos.
In the best of cases, that hotel would have been superb for a show of that magnitude but on this occassion, the hotel itself aided the sloppiness of the show by incessant and disgraceful power cuts and interruptions within the show.
I counted such power cuts three times and it was more shameful when some young group of dancers were in the middle of their dance routine on stage! Hadn’t there been a year long hype around this event? Hadn’t we been inundated with television commercials on major national and satellite television stations asking people to prepare for a spectacular celebration? If this event was intended to be the Mother of all Nollywood Celebrations, then all we witnessed last night was an abortion and a stillbirth rolled into one. From the time-wasting red carpet event before the show which was scheduled for 5 pm but was behind schedule, to the avoidable goofs of the whole show, one can only shake one’s head in derision. This wasn’t Nollywood at 20. This was Nollywood at 2! The faux pas of the National Anthem which started the show prepared us all for a night of ineptitude. Singer, Mor Okonkwo, who is my friend (but I told her I would be hard on her in my review anyway) was announced by the compere, Olisa Adibua,to come up to sing the National Anthem.
As she got on stage,the DJ started playing the instrumental of the Anthem. Mor gave a few false notes and shrieked as she ran backstage into the microphone, ‘Stop the music!’. The guests were shocked and I caught the eyes of some foreign diplomats shaking their heads as if to say, ‘Oh well, it’s Nigeria for you…’. An embarassed Mor sat next to me through the evening and had to explain to a few people who walked up to her how it was supposed to be an acapella rendition and not the instrumental version the DJ trussed on her. I told her that she ‘yabbed’.
‘So, if the President was present in the hall, you would have done the same? That is a gross disrespect of the National Anthem!’ I summised. Sorry, Mor. I hope you take this in good faith but if you don’t ….well…( shrug, shrug) If Mor’s Mistake was the appetiser, some shoddy stuff which came after was the indisgestive full course. I do not wish to waste my time writing about avoidable flops but I just need to ask if there was a PROFESSIONAL Stage Manager or event planner for that show? Truth be told, I have attended better kindergarten birthday parties which were well organised than what I witnessed last night. Because of the lack of co-ordination, comperes Olisa Adibua and Marian Anazodo had a herculean task trying to prove their mettle which shouldn’t have been the case in the first place. Awards were given to deserving Nollywood Personalities who have contributed to the development of the industry over the years. Maybe that was the only good part of the show.
Even at that, the awards presentation looked like a charade and lacked the power of what an awards presentation should be. The hall was empty before the show reached its prime, if there was an intended prime part of the show. I guess many guests had reached the limits of their patience. But it is not all knocks for the organisers of the event.
I must commend them for bringing together all the protagonists of the Nollywood Story in one fell swoop. They did it before at the first dinner held on November 4th , which was a better sham than last night’s event. But bringing together major components of Nollywood to a Night of Guffaws and ‘Grin-and-bear-it moments’ wipes away the efforts the organisers made to host a great event. You know what the event really lacked?
Almost everything to make a good show. If the organsers are back-slapping themselves for a job well-done in their wildest imagination, then some people should be punching some of their faces for reasons I have highlighted above. It seemed to me that the event was planned the way a mediocre Nollywood movie is planned; ‘Kpa, Kpa, Kpa…make we do am!’ without giving a f..f..f..farthing about corporate and general perception.
Guys, we don pass that level. What the event tells me most is that the old guard in Nollywood either need to sit up or shift out. You can’t be messing with people’s expectations. You just can’t. All this chest beating about who and who started the industry is only good for the History Channel. Guys, you need to switch to the Discovery Channel if you don’t want to be counted among the dinosaurs soon. I am proudly Nollywood. My blogazine, charlesnoviadaily.com is a medium to advance Nollywood. But I cannot be proud of a charade.
Oh, for those who will vilify me for attacking my own constituency, take a prickly seat. I am attacking the personalities who try to put the industry to perfidy. I want and strive to be part of the solution and not the parallax of the problems.
With all the expectations for the event, it came and went like a promising stud who disappoints the expectatant Nymph with a pre-mature ejaculation! Sadly, only one person enjoyed the act itself ; the stud. Talk about ‘Coming Soon!’. Thankfully, there will be no ‘Part 2′ of this kind of shit.
And in case some upstart is planning ‘Nollywood at 25′, don’t even try it. Not with the crap of last night.
Source: CharlesNovia Daily
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