By Ishaya Ibrahim
Acting News Editor
Six years into a promising broadcasting career with the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Alex Byanyiko found his job as a cog in the wheel of his filmmaking adventure. So he resigned.
While at NTA, he was juggling his routine with doing his films, writing scripts and rapping.
He joined the network in 2010, during which he did reporting, cast news, directed, edited and wrote scripts for Tales by Moonlight and Weekend Deal.
In 2013, he did a short film, The Wrong Number – a story of a man who takes the wrong decision in solving his marital issues and, in the process, compounds it.
Other works include, Mr Rendel, a film, ‘Getting High’, a rap song on the dangers of drugs and ‘Oluwa Mi’, a video he shot, edited and directed.
He said he left the NTA in order to have enough time to actualise his dream.
“Even before going to Kaduna Polytechnic to study mass communication, I already knew what exactly I wanted to do. When I finished studying, I wanted to go straight to Lagos to develop myself, considering that Lagos is the hub of filmmaking.
“But just as I finished my studies, I learnt that NTA was employing. So I took on the NTA job just as a stepping stone. I knew that I wasn’t going to build a career there. That’s the more reason it was easy for me to leave because I knew that if I stayed there I won’t be able to use my full potential as a filmmaker. I could be limited. You know the industry is very competitive. So I needed to constantly learn, which I think, while still in NTA I wouldn’t be able to do,” he said.
Byanyiko started off loving rap music in 1996. “All I wanted to do at that point in time was just to rap. Later around 2001, from reading novels, I fell in love with writing. And the novel that inspired me was Oliver Twist (by Charles Dickens). When I read it, I just fell in love with storytelling, so I started trying my hand at writing short stories,” he said.
In 2008, a story he wrote fetched him N91,000 from a Kaduna-based filmmaker, Hakim Sani. Although he said that was small, it felt good knowing somebody could actually pay him for what he has passion for.