''AMAKA IGWE IS NOT DEAD'' - Charles Novia

Amaka Igwe lives. The tears we shed for her are futile. She lives. The shock we express over her passing on is carthatic. She lives. Amaka Igwe did not die. She just built her loving ‘house of commotion’ in our hearts. Commotion with co-relation; commotion with emotions. 

The brilliant lady who could unarguably be credited as the progenitor of Nollywood as we know it today still lives. Immortalised in our hearts. If there was no ‘Checkmate’, that superb soap opera which had a chart-topping five year run on national television, there would have been no Nollywood. For the tested and trusted actors from ‘Checkmate’ were mostly cast in the trend-setting ‘Living in Bondage’. Amaka had groomed a new generation of Nigerian actors through ‘Checkmate’, she had prepared our minds for something explosive with her creation. There is yet to emerge a soap opera since then which has all the thrills and frills and popular appeal like ‘Checkmate’. Forget all these tin imitations. Amaka’s soap was solid steel. Unbreakable. Unbeatable. And you say she is dead? But Amaka lives! 

She created characters which blew our minds.

Anne Harthrope, Segun Kadiri, Chief Fuji, Peaceful Peace, Alika, Akpan, Barry Hughes, Nduka, Bennie etc. She held the nation spell-bound for five years every Thursday 8pm on the network service and gave people gossip points for the next week before the next episode. ‘Checkmate’ was her creation.’Checkmate’ was her success. She brilliantly wrote all the epsodes, over 500 of them and produced carefully. She was far ahead of her time. The most intriguing thing about her concerning ‘Checkmate’ was that she knew when to pull the plugs. She broke our hearts by resolving the plots and finishing the soap opera on one Thursday evening in 1995.

The country was shocked and mourned. But Amaka was done with the soap. She had checkmated our expectations to see the soap opera run forever. She just knew when to stop. And that last episode of ‘Checkmate’? The best ending I have ever seen in Nigeria for any serial and come to think of it anywhere in the world. It was so brilliant. Amaka ended the plots and sub-plots and showed us all why the serial was titled ‘Checkmate’. Anne Harthrope (played by Ego Boyo who was replaced by someone else for a few months while she was on ‘maternity leave’) married Segun Kadiri ( played by RMD who gave the character a brilliant interpretation with a raspy voice and finger-on-the-cheek affectation) and just as we all sighed that at last the two enemies had fallen in love and tied the knots, Amaka gave us a twist. Anne cleverly ‘divorced’ Segun Kadiri, warning him that she only married him to give her baby a father but that she would never sell or hand over her company to him! The last scene ended with a stupefied Kadiri laughing in shock, knowing he had been ‘checkmated’. 

So classic. And that was not all. She brilliantly had the cast talk to the viewers before the end credits in scripted lines about how the soap opera made its run. That episode was so good and popular that NTA Network had a re-run of it the next week. 

On the set of ‘Violated’ in 1996 ( her post-’Checkmate’ opus in which I was cast as Jide, the banker) she told me how agonising it was to write that final episode. ‘I was pregnant then and I would write and discard. I can’t count how many scripts of that final episode I wrote and tore. The denouement just was not clicking. Then, finally I got the muse. And I just kept scribbling on my bed. When I finished I was so happy and screamed out to Charles (her husband) ‘Honey, I got it!’ and we both screamed and hugged ourselves!’ That piece of information stuck on my mind. 

But Amaka is not dead. With enduring works such as ‘Violated’ (which re-defined and triggered the romantic drama genre in Nollywood) ‘Rattlesnake’, ‘To live again’, ‘Forever’ and ‘Fuji House of Commotion’ , how could she be dead? This lady who has been the subject of various dissertations and academic theses changed our creative landscape. 

Her contributions to the creative industry cannot be quantified. She was an advocate for professionalism. She was a stickler for excellence. A cerebral contributor to Nollywood’s trudge of progress. She wanted what was best for the industry. She was behind the founding of the Movie Practitioners Council of Nigeria bill (MOPICON) which has been gathering dust at the National Assembly for years. That bill is supposed to be to Nollywood what NBA is to the Lawyers and NMA to the Doctors. Amaka wanted this bill passed. Could our fractured Nollywood please unite to ensure that this is done if only to honour and immortalise her? 

Thank God she got a National Honour from President Jonathan a couple of years back. An MFR. A well-deserved national honour for an Amazon of Nollywood. She believed in young talents and had an open door policy for any talent who came to her office. She had an academy too, where young and ambitious filmmakers were trained. 

What about her film and television bi-ennial festival in Abuja; Best of the Best (BOB) TV? Or her radio station, Top FM? Or her painstaking contributions to the committee set up to give guidelines for the 3 billion naira grant given to Nollywood by the President? She fought tirelessly for the industry to maximally benefit from the grant. 

And with all these achievements, you say Amaka Igwe is dead? No, she lives. Her footprints on the sands of achievement on the beaches of our creative economy are there for all to see. Too large to fill. 

Written by Charles Novia

a respected Nollywood film maker

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Charles Novia Steps in to address Tchidi & Sophia's saga

After the enthralling twitter battle between TChidi Chikere and ex-wife Sophia, Nollywood producer Charles Novia steps in to address some of the sensitive issues that the saga generated. Charles might have a loud mouth but he does delivers.

Also note that TChidi has deleted all the tweets he posted yesterday but Charles Novia has weighed in on the marital strife, writing about it on his blog in an article titled, Tchidi, Talk Not.

One of the best brains we have in Nollywood would be Tchidi Chikere, a celebrated scriptwriter and movie director. With an impressive body of work in the past decade and a capacity to discover new stars or to enhance sagging careers of others, Tchidi is not a personality one can ignore in Nollywood.

I have known him in a professional capacity for close to fourteen years and I relate well with him in the few instances we have met and had discussions. Tchidi has a burning desire to make a change in Nollywood, to shoot movies which somehow should re-calibrate society’s moral journey. I particularly love some of his movies for the uncanny way he brings out everyday characters in simple lifestyles and turn them to complex evolutionary beings in complex situations. As a movie director and a scriptwriter, Tchidi is gifted. Very gifted. Take it from me.

In my usual no-holds-barred critique of his acting, I would be less charitable in my accolades. But I am not writing this to detract from his credentials as a celebrated auteur. I am writing this out of concern, perhaps more professional but with a huge personal slant to it as well.

It is a well-known fact by now that Tchidi got married to an actress, Nuella, a few days ago. First of all, Tchidi, I must congratulate you on that. Whatever the opinions people have, we must all respect the wishes of consenting adults when it comes to tying the knot. He made a choice and we should respect that, no matter how much the slanderous anonymous commentators on social media think they know.

That Tchidi got seperated from his former wife, Sophia who bore him three children is perhaps unfortunate but like I said, consenting adults take decisions which they believe is best for them at certain stages in life. Such decisions might come much anger and recriminations and would always leave scars in the hearts of both parties. Divorce or seperation are never pleasant.

My concern in this case has to do with the open fights between Tchidi and Sophia on social media AFTER Tchidi’s new marriage. On face value, it would seem to have started with Tchidi’s rant on twitter a couple of days back against his ex-wife.

The tweets were quite shocking and less than charitable, to say the least. Though from the tweets, one could psycho-analyse that Tchidi was really angry, hurt and perhaps deliberately hitting below the belt at his former wife. My first reaction when I read those tweets on a blog was one of shock. Those tweets were totally uncalled for. Totally. Granted, they might have been written in a miasma of negative volcanic emotions but total restrainst is required from a man in those kind of circumstances. And such restrainst is justified when the mother of your blood children is involved!

Sophia had a riposte which I read as well and she had a moral right to respond too. But something tells me that Tchidi would wish to fire another salvo at that response and thus start a social media bric-a-brac which would inflict more wounds on all parties. That is why I had to write this open opinion.

In Nollywood, and perhaps to a small extent the entertainment industry in general, most of the creatives tend to look away when acrimonious matters befall one of their own. First reactions would be one of aloofness, followed by private gossip in meeting places. Sometimes, colleagues and friends of such personalities would whisper malicious things about the subject in private while pretending to be all coy and concerned when they meet the suffering subjects in public. Oh Yes! My sector have some psychophants and pretenders as with politics but isn’t that how life goes?

Perhaps Tchidi and Sophia are being wrongly advised by masquerading friends? Or maybe they are not even being advised at all by anyone but are just ventilating on social media, giving bloggers more hits and the country one more piece of idle gossip?

Whatever the case, I will openly advise Tchidi to stop further tweets or replies on this matter. For the record, I don’t know Sophia or Nuella and haven’t met with any ever and don’t wish to. My concern, as a father, is for the kids from Tchidi’s first marriage and perhaps future kids from this new marriage. Do not celebrate your misgivings on social media. Sheath the swords. Think of the children. The children. The children.

Those poor kids are going through indescribable torture and pain already. You don’t need to add fuel to their discomfort. Angry words once written and published are hard to take back, even with the passing of time.

Celebrities are human too. That you see us on the screens or read about us does not make us less human than the other fellow. Fame and fortune only hide our foibles and finicks. But we are human. However, whilst we are human, there are expectations of decorum we all must adhere to. And if it is just for the kids, Tchidi and Sophia (and perhaps Nuella) must adhere to the dictates of decorum.

I am not writing this to take sides or blame any of the parties involved. I am writing this openly because whatever linens being displayed by all parties in the open should be brought down immediately.

May God help all parties pass through this period and bless them all as they move on to the next phase of their lives.

Amen.

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