Following the demise of Nollywood’s Amazon, Amaka Igwe,
various movie practitioners have expressed their deep sadness, pointing out
that she left a vacuum that will not be filled in a hurry. However, film director/producer,
Charles Novia has disclosed that Amaka Igwe is not dead afterall, and that
tears shed for her are futile because she lives.
Read his full story below:
"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."
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