‘I Never Left Acting, I Only Took Appointment To Serve My People’ : RMD
Saturday, 28 May 2011 00:00 By Shaibu Husseini Saturday Magazine - Celebrity   
.Top rated actor, journalist, Public Relations practitioner, lawyer and now public servant Richard Wedson Eyimofe Enagwolor Evans Williams Edemajo Damijo or RMD for short, showed up last Sunday at the Stampede on the New Narratives in Nollywood organized by the Committee for Relevant Arts (CORA) in collaboration with iREP Documentary film forum.  At the Stampede held at Freedom Park Lagos, the accomplished actor who has had a remarkable career as an actor both on stage and screen and whose classical artistic contributions have permanently retained for him an irreplaceable place in the scheme of things, sat through the near three-hour panel discussion. Looking trendy as ever, the one-time publisher of the defunct Mister magazine, who has undoubtedly outlasted any other Nigerian actor in terms of sustained relevance at the apex, declared, when culture journalists covering the Stampede demanded to know from him his status as a performer, that he was still he was still very much a part of the industry. The Warri, Delta State-born star would not agree that he had become artistically dormant since he walked into the service of the Delta State government first as Special Adviser and later as Honourable Commissioner for Culture and Tourism.  Excerpts:

IS your attending this Stampede an indication that you are planning a return to the turf?

I have never left the turf. I am still very much a part of the industry. I only took up an appointment to serve my people, which I have been doing any way but using other platforms. Even at that, I have been in constant touch with developments in the industry and indeed in the entertainment and tourism industry as a whole. I trained as an actor and will always remain an actor. So, I only took up something new and that is because I just can’t sit still in one place. I started as a an actor, in the process I became a journalist, in the process I became a Public Relations practitioner, in the process I became a publisher, in the process I became a lawyer and today I am a public servant. So, you never know what next there is to become.

So how will you describe your experience as a public servant?

I will tell you what public service does. It gets you close to your people and takes the pressure that Lagos puts on your life away and exposes you to the amount of work that is needed in Nigeria, especially at the grassroots.  For me, it has been a very humbling experience going back home to be faced with the reality of what Nigeria is because when you are in politics, you deal a lot with more numbers and your priorities will begin to shift and your constituencies also begin to change because a lot more people have access to me. You become like a representative of your own people as it were. I am now in tune with my local government area and my people and when I say my people now, I am really talking about Deltans and people from my local government area because I am like a representative of their interest.  So, it is changing perspective all the time.

Today, the talk is on the new narratives in Nollywood, but what is your take on the industry?

My take is that there are diverse roads to the growth and development of Nollywood. They say if only one road leads to the stream, not many women will fetch water. Some people will tell you that it is distribution and that once you get distribution right, the other aspects will work.  For me, I feel it is a mixture of all the problems we have in trying to put up a film. For me right now, one thing that is close to distribution in my heart is engaging the private sector to look at our sector with a view to moving it into the main financial stream. Access to funds will only come when people who are in charge of fund distribution take an interest in what you do. There are people who are financial consultants, if they say to their client that Nollywood is the place to invest in the next five years, everybody will invest in Nollywood. Those are the people we need to actively engage to see how we can interest them in Nollywood. When you do that, you will open a new vista. People will not cry for funds the way they are crying. I believe that we are at that point in Nollywood where if we can engage the private sector, get the financial consultants to look at our sector with a view to recommending it to their clients, then we will be moving somewhere in the right direction.

What then is the role of government?

The role of government, whether state or federal, is, for me, basically creating that environment where private practice thrives. Once private sector thrives, once there is security, once there are amenities, the monies will come. Government doesn’t have a business really funding. What it creates is maybe endowment. But to fund the commercial viability of our films will never happen in a hundred years for government.   Government’s role is to create institutions that can drive the process of bringing in investors.

In my work as a culture and tourism commissioner, I had to engage the private sector and I succeeded in, through the instrumentality of the institutional backing that the state gives you, bringing in a set of people that are ready to invest in tourism in the Niger Delta state in spite of all the controversy that surrounds that area. That is what we need in Nollywood. It should be able to attract core financial investors to look at it with a view to recommending it to investors as a viable sector that you can invest in.

You don’t also think that implementing the cultural policy will help?

Well, whether or not the much-talked-about cultural policy is implemented today, if the other elements that will make for the success of the policy are not in place, it will not work. The story of Nigeria is one of good intentions that always don’t get implemented or fully implemented. Government has always had good intentions. It is the relentless pursuit, the doggedness in terms of people who drive those policies that has always been the bane. No serious commitment in the framework.

So will you encourage your colleagues to go into politics?

Of course I will. The more politically aware we all are, the better we will understand how government works. For instance, I know now how it works in certain areas that I see a lot of things that are said from the outside as not being educated opinions and that is because they do not know how government works.  Government works through budgets. I mean you jump into a state governor in July and you tell him to give you money for a film festival and you don’t get it and you think the governor is wicked.  Whereas it is middle of the year, if he doesn’t give you from his security vote or from other subheads, the proposal doesn’t fly. That is how it works. So, they must get into politics to influence decisions and help to make policies that will grow the arts.

So, will you go into full time politics or contest an elective post say in 2015?

I don’t think I have the capacity or the patience to do so. It is very challenging and I don’t think that I have the staying power.  You notice I am not saying never; that means I might consider it. May be in another four years, God will give me the grace to be able to do it because that is when you can actually begin to move policies.  The best place to affect policies and this to answer your earlier question is if they go into the legislature. That is where policies that affect us directly can be formulated or changed.

hmmm i guess his tenure wil soon be up, and the dude is preparing himself for a nollywood comeback,anyways we've missed you,