Movie producer, writer and actress, Lilian Amah-Aluko, has declared her interest in the presidency of the Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Nigeria. She made this known to the media penultimate Saturday in Lagos.
“What I want to do in the next two years is set structures in place,” she declared. “Again, I am saying it with all sense of responsibility, with the assistance of my colleagues, because no tree can make a forest. I can’t do it alone. I have the plan. I have the mission. I have the vision. But I need the assistance of others to realise it. So basically, the next two years, we want to set structures in place because we have a lot of estranged members”.
The actress, who has since veered into movie production and served as the vice president of AMP for two tenures, said that in the course of those four years, she came to realise that there is a disconnect in the industry.
“I just came back with some of my colleagues from the University of California, for training. While there we discovered that they have very active guilds. You cannot go into America and start carrying camera and doing anything; you must contact the guild in charge. A scriptwriter is protected by the Scriptwriters’ Guild, producers are protected by the Producers’ Guild. They have very strong unions, rules and regulations,” she said.
She explained that the Nigerian film industry, Nollywood, is an all-comers affair, where people come in and do whatever they want with little or no professionalism. She said the result is that not only is piracy rampant, the practitioners are suffering.
These are some of the things she intends to change as president of AMP, which she said is the employer of labour in the industry and should by right set the tone.
“There has been so much ups and downs in the industry and a lot of our esteemed colleagues have decided to stay away from the guild. You have to beg people to pay their dues. People don’t pay dues because they don’t think they benefit anything from the association. But when the association is functional, nobody will tell members to come and pay dues. They will want to belong because they can see what is in it for them,” she declared.
Amah-Aluko said there is a dire need to reconcile present and past members of AMP, “bring people together and together map a way forward for our industry”.
She said the right structures must be put in place or Nollywood will lose out on the benefits that should accrue to the industry.
“The government of the day in Lagos has decided that it wants to use entertainment to push its agenda, to drive employment, tourism; all of these things are the things the governor wants to use entertainment to do. If we do our homework and structure ourselves properly, then the government will be able to engage with us to drive that process,” she said.
Aside bringing people in the industry together, she plans to engage the international community.
“We need to have treaties with other movie-producing countries. We don’t have those in place now, so it is not easy for us. South Africa, even Ghana here, has signed so many treaties; we need to start doing that. Those are some of the things we have in store. We don’t want to unveil everything; election has not started yet,” she said.
She also dwelt on the sad occurrence of practitioners having to beg for healthcare when they work in such a prestigious industry as Nollywood.
“Every other day, you journalists help us to announce that one practitioner is down with one ailment or another and we call on government and kind-spirited individuals to come to our rescue. Whereas the profession we hold is such that we should not be begging for food or for healthcare,” she said.
These things, she said, set her thinking and she came to the decision that what the industry really needs is for guilds to take their rightful place and she has the wherewithal to bring this new era about as AMP president.
However, there are unconfirmed reports that Lagos State governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, has bought into Amah-Aluko’s dreams for AMP, and is in support of her aspiration.