Kunmi Oluleye is one woman, who could best be described as an enigma. She is many things rolled into one. She is a prominent entertainment promoter, international consultant and motivational speaker.
Born in Lagos, Oluleye moved to the United States at the age of 14, where she went to school. She has over 15 years of experience in food technology, consulting and corporate event planning.
Oluleye spoke on her role as a rebranding consultant and the movie industry generally.

The government adopted the slogan, ‘Good people, Great nation,’ as catch phrase for Nigeria.

Do you think this is appropriate?
It is appropriate because we are good people. This is a great nation because we have so many resources that we are abusing or mismanaging. Believe it or not, the people are one of the greatest assets Nigeria has and I feel that criticism of where we are is not the solution to getting us to where we need to be. We have to be able to criticize, on one hand and offer a solution on the other hand.

What I would be doing with the ministry is finding innovative ways to engage Nigerians abroad in being proud of who they are. Given the financial constraints of our brothers and sisters, it is hard to find trustworthy people, who you could partner with in Nigerians. Rebranding, for me, is kind of a re-orientation. One of my slogans is rebranding starts with me. You and I have to take the power of our existence into our hands. We can’t wait for government. We see that the government has failed in many ways. We see the government does not pay attention where there is need.

How would Nollywood assist in the rebranding project?
I’m not sure Nollywood would assist because those stars, who are in a position to attract attention are not taking, in my opinion, the rebranding initiative seriously. I am hoping that we can develop new stars and new producers, who are going to produce movies that edify Nigeria. I think if Nollywood quit making movies about voodoo, infidelity and other vices it would go a long way in helping us. It does not speak well of us outside Nigeria. For me, those producers should start making movies that would portray Nigeria in a better light.
For example, we have the electricity issues. Let’s make a movie, where we deal with the issue of not having light.

On-line streaming
This is where people watch the movie and shows on line. They log onto their computers and go online. It is a membership-based system. On the supply side, you the producer can upload your content to me. My system will encode it appropriately, so that she can now log in and pay in whatever the price is; watch it for seven or so days and then download it. So therefore it stays protected now. On the other side I also have the piracy law enforcement on my side. The ministry has given me authority to lock down the pirates in the US only. So if I were to find that movie on a DVD anywhere in a store in the United States, that person would have to pay consequences, they are no good to me locked up. I will make them to pay for whatever the damages I come up with and make it public so that other people would not follow suit.

How is Nollywood viewed abroad?
Nollywood has many fans, in the Caribbean and among African-Americans. For the Nigerian, it’s a way to connect back home, because they are not home. For the African American, it’s a curiosity thing; they want to see what is happening in Africa. The Caribbean feel the same way. They see the movies as different from the other ones they’ve seen. Most of the script is surrounding voodoo, witchcraft, things that don’t do much good for us. For the educated ones, they are not watching it. How can you make a movie in one week, two weeks or one month?

Filmmaker’s frustration
My take is that even if the government does not lend its support, there are many in the private sector that can be engaged to achieve the desired goals. However, the Nollywood house is dysfunctional. People are not together; they are backbiting each other. There was a Nollywood tour I put together last September and October. They didn’t seem to be coherent. Things were just not working out the way they should and I actually gave up on that tour. There was actually a person, who did something to circumvent my effort by putting together an identical Nollywood tour for Uganda. Instead of us working together, we try to circumvent each other. That is the issue with the Nollywoood camp.

I think that until Nollywoood puts its house in order, I don’t see the filmmakers making much progress. I fear that Nollywood maybe non-existent in two years because of piracy. No bank would be willing to invest in any of the movie production and if the story line continues the way it is, corporate body would not want to be identified with it. No company will want its brand associated with such derogatory exposure.
Don’t get me wrong. There are many great movies that have come out of Nigeria. Kingsley Ogoro makes great movies, like Wisdom, Osuofia in London, among others. There are great movies, but then we need to get a system in place for the distribution channels. Let us not look at government for distribution channels. There are rules of engagements that we must establish.

What propelled you to go into entertainment?
In 2003, my husband lost his job, six digits job in the US and I had to figure out how to survive. People always say Kunmi, you are such an awesome cook and I have to say that it is definitely the grace of God. I sat down, wrote Wal-Mart a letter. I filled out this form and sent them empty packaging. Three weeks later, they came back and said they would give me 29 stores. The rest is history. When the food business was not selling as fast as I wanted it, I thought of how to boost sales. Somebody approached me and said since I had such a relation with Wal-Mart and this other US buyers, could I take Nigerian films into the market? At that point, I didn’t know anything about Nigerian films.

This was in 2006. I was born in Nigeria but sent to the US when I was 14. They sent me a number of Nigerian films, which I watched. They were interesting. I had put up what I called the African dinner and 70 to 100 people would show up. They paid $20 and watched films from Nigeria. It actually helped me sell my food. So it did help me to use entertainment to boost my food sales.
Now, am no longer in the supermarket. I am strictly online and my online subscribers are about 33,000. I wish they would buy food every month and I figured that that would be a market to expose quality African market.

Where would you be in five years from now?
I should own a number of theatres, which will focus strictly on African movies. I should have Google buying this site am about to launch, for like $20b dollars.

What would you do with that kind of money?
I would come back home. I would help rebuild our country. I would set up shelter for the homeless. I would encourage and invest in agriculture. I would set up factories here and produce food in the quality and standards the global world accepts.

While most Nigerians are dying to travel abroad, people like you want to come home. Could you explain this contradiction?
We don’t know what we have. Why do the white people, who come into this country stay? There are white people in this country, who have been here for over 30 years. We don’t appreciate what we have. Ghanaians are returning home in droves because they have a leader and people say home is the best. When we did the nutrition fact for my food, ewedu has 210 percent Vitamin C, 100 percent Vitamin A. They were shocked when they did it and they did it three times because they didn’t believe that African vegetables have such level of vitamins and minerals. Egusi that we eat with the spinach is an anti-cancer food. If you eat it three or four times a week you will reduce the risk of contracting cancer. We don’t understand that we are so blessed in this country.