So, just who is left in Nollywood and our music industry? Every actor, every actress, every musician who is anybody wants to run for political office in 2015. Everybody wants to go Abuja to claim his or her portion before Goodluck Jonathan, his billionaire retired militants, and his gun running, moneychanging clergy area fathers finish carving off the national cake. From Desmond Elliot to Kate Henshaw, from 9ice to Tony Tetuila, everybody is abandoning movie and music for politics. The scramble for and the partition of Abuja by Nollywood and the music industry call for sober reflection. When politics is the biggest food in town, when political office is the only business in town and is even capable of rendering the homestead of culture desolate, a people needs to think. In an old interview with Suraj Tunji Oyewale, I called for a new understanding of service. I called for a redefinition of what it means to serve Nigeria and the Nigerian. I told my interviewer that I am doing more for Nigeria in public intellection, public instruction, and civics advocacy than I can ever hope to do for her in public office. But lack of civics and a perverse national understanding of service have reduced things to political office. Hence, folks still ask me: Prof, when are u coming to serve Nigeria? Hellooo, what do you think I am doing by answering the call to reduce the notorious status of Nigeria as an unreflected Hobbesian contraption? I am serving her by thinking her and struggling to make of her a reflected society. If you are in Nollywood, if you are a musician, nobody has served Nigeria better and more than you have done in the last two decades. Your labour has repositioned us globally and redefined our humanity positively. It is largely your work in the entertainment industry that got us our rebasement as Africa’s largest economy. Whereas Goodluck Jonathan and the members of the political class are a monumental embarrassment, dragging the name of our country in the mud with their irredeemable looting and corruption, you, movie actor and musician, have been our hope and source of pride. You have been giving us a good name across Africa And the black Diaspora. And now I hear you say you want to go to politics and serve? Na lie. There can be no greater service than what you have done for Nigeria and the Nigerian in the domain of culture. If you go to Abuja, we might as well start writing your epitaph. For you will be dead unto us once you join them. Here lies XYZ who served us as cultural ambassador plenipotentiary. And went to eat...
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 18:47:08 +0000
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