Stella Damasus
Except for actor, Richard Mofe Damijo, Delta state commissioner for culture and tourism, who represented the State Governor, Emmanuel Uduaghan and top actress, Kate Hewshaw Nuttal, no other notable Nollywood star was present at the burial rites of the father of one of their own, Stella Damasus, which took place last Friday in his home state.
Stella has excuse for their absence. ‘I didn’t invite them because I felt the burial should be more of a family thing”. she explained.
For Ogbueshi Samuel Kenneth, the father of the renowned actress Stella Damasus, death was not boring. His burial was a three day- event that started on Friday the 4th of February, with a service of songs which held at the deceased home in Asaba.
Next day, the 5th, a Commendation Mass Service was held at St Patrick’s Catholic Church, Asaba, following which the children of the deceased ran around the Umuezei quarters in line with tradition.
This was followed by interment. On Sunday the 6th, there was Thanksgiving Service at St Patrick’s Catholic Church, Asaba, for family members and friends.
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Nigeria's Nollywood actress - Ibinabo Fiberesima
After what looked like a temporary reprieve and as she still comes to terms with her fatal car accident over three years ago, former beauty queen and Nollywood actress, Ibinabo Firberesima is being sued once again.
She will now appear in court following a N200 million suit instituted against her by the widow of late Dr. Suraj Alade Giwa, Mrs. Olufunke Omobolanle Giwa, over the death of her husband.
Also sued alongside Ibinabo is a musician, Daniel Wilson.
Ibinabo, it would be recalled, was last year convicted of manslaughter and was sentenced to seven years imprisonment by an Igbosere Magistrate Court in Lagos but given an option of N100,000 fine.
After the judgment, Attorney General of Lagos state appealed against the judgment and in her final judgment, Justice Deborah Oluwayemi sentenced Ibinabo to five years imprisonment without optionof fine.
However, in the latest suit, filed by Bam Fashanu, SAN, on behalf of the widow, the claimant is demanding N200 million as damages for wrongful act and neglect of the defendants which resulted in the death of her husband.
In a 28-pragraph statement of claim, the claimant averred that the defendants were jointly responsible for the death of her husband who died in a fatal accident on February 26, 2006 through the negligent and dangerous driving of the first defendant (Ibinabo) and the second defendant (Daniel Wilson) being the owner of the vehicle used to kill the deceased.
The claimant maintained that as a result of the death of her husband, she and her children have undergone pain and suffering.
No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit filed by the deceased’s widow.
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Nollywood - Nigeria movie industry is enjoying rapid changes
By Vivian Onyebukwa
Divorce among Nollywood actresses is becoming a daily occurrence. As it is, hardly any day passes without the news of one failed marriage involving one notable Nollywood actress or the other. The rate is become so alarming that people are wondering if there is anything wrong with actors and actresses.
Many factors have been identified as being responsible for this development. Bukky Wright, a budding actress, reportedly said that these marriages crash because Nigerian men lack confidence, especially to manage successful women.
Whatever is the case, the list is increasing. Such actresses as Eucharia Anunobi, Bukky Wright, Monalisa Chinda, Chiege Alisigwe, Fathia Balogun, Clarion Chukwurah, Shan George, Regina Askia, Obot Etuk, Stephanie Okereke, Ngozi Nwosu, Ann Njemanze, Ibinabo Fiberesima and Sandra Achums, are among those whose marriages have crashed.
Eucharia Anunobi
Eucharia Anunobi
Her marriage to Charles Ekwu looked like one made in heaven. The then couple was so much in love, in the beginning that their marriage was the envy of many. Tales are told of how they would hold hands and kiss during night outing at Ajao Estate in Lagos, in expression of love. However, the cookies just crumbled.
Eucharia accused the husband of constant battering. She was reported to have admitted marrying her man out of infatuation. Her ex-husband was said to have dumped his matrimonial home in 2007, and in the process, also abandoned his child.
Fathia Balogun
The delectable Yoruba movie actress has twice married and divorced. Before she married Saheed Balogun, a fellow Yoruba movie actor, Fathia was once married to Tunde Anchor and the marriage produce a son. After her first marriage collapsed, she met and married Balogun.
The marriage also hit the rocks. The former couple made frantic efforts to come back together as husband and wife, which proved abortive. Fathia was even said to have dedicated an award she won in the United Kingdom to her former husband and enlisted top Yoruba actors, like Jide Kosoko, to plead her cause. However, Saheed has remained adamant, insisting that their union had ended. He has since moved on with his life and married another wife.
Shan George
Shan George got married at the tender age of 15, and after bearing two kids walked out of the union at 21. She allegedly pulled out because her husband did not send her to school, but rather turned her to punching bag. When marriage crashed, she went back to school and after her graduation, from the University of Lagos at the age of 29, she got married the second time.
However, that too was short lived. Last year, she was reported as saying that she deserted her matrimonial home because she was not ready for a servant/master relationship. Meanwhile, she has grown up kids from her first marriage, who are based in the United Kingdom with her first husband.
Clarion Chukwurah
Clarion Chukwurah
Clarion Chukwurah came into limelight in 1984 when she starred in the now defunct popular soap, Mirror in the Sun. She is one of the best Nollywood actresses and has appeared in several stage productions, soap operas and over 74 home videos.
Her Non-Governmental Organization, Clarion Chukwurah Initiative, is geared towards touching the lives of the underprivileged in the country. Chukwurah has been married twice, one of which was into the the late Moshood Abiola family. Later she became Mrs. Oduneye. She now bears her maiden name. In all, she has five children, two biological children and three adopted ones.
She said that marriage is a fusion of two minds on the platform of joyful co-existence and, therefore, one can walk out and the two parties remain friends instead of living in misery. However, it is reported that she is friendly with the fathers of her babies.
Monalisa Chinda
The crash of Monalisa Chinda’s marriage is the latest in Nollywood. In a statement by her lawyer, Mr. Festus Keyamo, Monalisa said her marriage to Segun Dejo-Richards, an artist manager, broke down due to irreconcilable differences. It was believed that this incompatibility led them to disagree on many issues. At the end, they could not manage the situation, which led to the crash of the five-year-old marriage.
This came as a surprise to many Nigerians, especially as Monalisa, on several occasions, vowed that nothing could separate her from her husband. Indeed, before the marriage broke down, Monalisa had described her husband as God-sent. The marriage is blessed with a child, Tamar Kirejesu.
However, Monalisa’s husband expressed surprise at what could be called sacked letter from his wife. He attributed the crash of the marriage to bad advisers. However, he denied the allegation that he physically assaulted his wife. He also denied that his break-up with the wife was caused by the N10 million Glo Ambassador endorsement deal Monalisa got recently.
Ayo Adesanya
Ayo Adesanya
Ayo Adesanya, one of the notable Nollywood actresses, reported packed out of her matrimonial home owing to irreconcilable difference with her husband, Goriola Hassan. In order not to die in frustration, the actress decided to call it a quit. Ayo has since moved on with her life and now having a good time with an Abuja-based contractor, Tunde, who met at a party. A graduate of the University of Ibadan, she shot into limelight with the movie Out of Bounds.
Foluke Daramola
She was married to Mr. Shobowale for four years and the marriage was blessed with two children. In an interview with a national newspaper, Daramola said there were frequent crises in the home, to the extent that the condition became traumatic to her children. She packed out about a year ago and has not filed for divorce.
She said that she had endured, believing that it would be in the interest of the children, but that she later discovered the continuation of the marriage would be to the detriment of the kids. The actress is not willing to go back to her husband’s house neither is she thinking of divorcing him.
Ann Njemanze
Her marriage to Segun Arinze crashed as soon as it was contracted. Shortly after the marriage hit the rocks, she was involved in a car crash, about eight years ago and was bed-ridden for a while. She could not walk for two years. Though she would want to go into another marriage, she was reported to have said that she would be very careful this time.
However, she still relates with her former husband, as their marriage produced a child. She had wished she listened to her parents and waited much longer before jumping into marriage. She is now a single parent. After she recovered from the car crash, she went back to school to study Visual Art at the University of Lagos.
Stephanie Okereke
Stephanie Okereke
Stephanie’s marriage to a former Super Eagles player, Chikelu Iloenyosi, is another story of failed marriage. The top actress sought the dissolution of the marriage on the grounds that her ex-husband had extra-marital affairs. Stephanie said she had no regret whatsoever that the marriage crashed. She is quoted as saying that she is a better person now than when she was in marriage.
Sandra Achums
Sandra Achums was married to an Amakohia, Owerri man who was living abroad. The marriage crashed as soon as it started. The marriage would have produced a child but the baby died during delivery. Sandra has two children for two different men.
Ibinabo Fiberesima
The Rivers State-born actress, who was recently convicted for killing a medical doctor in a car crash, has her own share of failed relationship. Her affairs with Phillip Trimnell and top singer Daniel Wilson were widely celebrated on the pages of newspapers.
Recently, it was alleged that Ibinabo and ace actor, Fred Amata, are having an affair. Her two failed marriages produced two children from the two ex-husbands.
Bukky Wright
This popular face in TV soaps and home videos has been in and out of marriage twice. Perhaps, owing to bitter experience, the Economics graduate was reported to have said that marriage was no longer in her dictionary. She did not lament over what could have been her mistakes. Rather, she sees the experience as an eye-opener. However, the beautiful actress has moved on with her life, while hoping to get married again.
Chiege Alisigwe
She came into limelight in 1998 when she played a role in the movie called Igodo. Her marriage crumbled as soon as it was contracted in 2002. Chiege attributed her failed marriage to incompatibility. She was reported to have admitted that she was naive when the union was contracted. Chiege was heavy with three-month pregnancy before their union crumbled. And since then, the Orlu, Imo State-born actress has picked up the broken pieces of her life and moved on.
In the meantime, Chiege has not ruled out remarrying, provided the right man comes her way.
Ngozi Nwosu
Ngozi Egonu came into limelight when she played Ego in the popular home video, Living In Bondage. She is also popular with Fuji House of Commotion. Ngozi was married to one Mr. Huessnon from Badagry, but the marriage was not sustained.
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Nigeria's Nollywood is the world "acclaimed" third movie producer
Just after 10 a.m., with the sun still rising overhead, film director Ikechukwu Onyeka stood on a loud street corner and considered his accumulating problems.
His lead actress was more than an hour late. The owners of the restaurant where he’d planned to shoot had suddenly refused to allow it, and by day’s end he needed to get through that scene and more than a dozen others.
The production had stretched into its 18th day, a marathon by Nigerian standards, and Onyeka was due on another set the following week.
“We’ve had a lot of setbacks,” said Onyeka, a trim man with a neat gray goatee. “This is how it is in Nollywood.”
Forget the slick cinematic tricks and big-money excesses of Hollywood; this is Nigeria’s scrappy young movie industry, known to everyone here as Nollywood.
The budgets are meager, the plotlines fantastical, the performances hammy, and the breakneck shooting schedules an affront to logic and the elements.
Yet Nollywood is staggeringly prolific. Using digital video cameras and desktop editing software, Nigeria churns out more than two feature-length films every day — nearly twice as many as the United States does — and has become the world’s second-biggest movie-making country, trailing only India, according to U.N. statistics.
In less than two decades, Nollywood’s straight-to-video artists have built a $250 million industry with fans throughout Africa, a continent with few multiplexes and limited disposable income.
The movies are shot in the streets of Lagos and elsewhere in West Africa, lightly edited, burned onto DVDs by the tens of thousands and hawked for $2 apiece on street corners or beamed by satellite into homes across the continent. The films have spawned imitators from Ghana to Kenya, seemingly confirming the cultural reach of Africa’s most populous country.
Behind the scenes, the twists and turns of a Nollywood production reflect nothing so much as the nature of life in Nigeria itself: chaotic, whimsical, sometimes verging on violence, swamped in an endless sea of delays and breakdowns, yet ultimately a triumph of will over experience.
“The movies remind people of reality,” said Ini Edo, one of Nigeria’s best-known actresses, who claims more than 100 film credits. In Onyeka’s new movie, the curvy, long-lashed 27-year-old stars as a college student who falls in with a female cult called the Jezebels, which uses its powers to seduce rich men.
“Reality” probably isn’t the best description for a film about campus witches, but Nollywood films do follow an appealingly earthy formula. Family bonds are strong. Tribal chieftains are wise. The forces of evil, often represented by philandering husbands and demonic cults, eventually are punished — or find Christianity.
Stories set on college campuses are also popular, Edo explained, because they usually mean pretty girls and a generous shot of sexuality. Her career has included roles in “Sleek Ladies,” “Ghetto Queen,” “Slave to Lust” and “Fatal Seduction.” On the last day of shooting for Onyeka’s as-yet-untitled film, Edo didn’t perform so much as prowl about the set, all nail polish and neckline. The film would be an easy sell. Making it, however, proved more challenging.
One actress showed up nine days late because her previous job ran long. This is common, Onyeka explained. The average Nigerian movie budget is about $25,000, meaning that even an A-list actor’s paycheck is rarely more than $4,000. Most movies are shot within about 10 days, so casts and crew members cram their schedules with as many jobs as they can get.
Onyeka (“Throne of Tears,” “My Everlasting Love,” “Tomorrow Must Wait”) does about 25 films a year, and after this one wrapped, he was heading immediately for another shoot. It doesn’t leave much time for rehearsal, but in Nollywood, everyone improvises.
Onyeka, whose crew travels with a generator in case one of Nigeria’s frequent power outages strikes, shrugged off the loss of the restaurant and moved on to a backup location in a nearby hotel. Shortly before noon, the lone camera rolled on the first scene of the day. After one take and a couple of close-ups, they were finished.
“We don’t really rehearse. We start practicing the lines 10 minutes before we get on set,” said Halima Abubakar, a petite 26-year-old actress (“Area Mama,” “Sin No More”) with almond eyes and long, dyed brown hair.
In the next scene, Abubakar and Edo livened up some clunky dialogue with a few alluringly wicked laughs. Their unfamiliarity with the script showed, however: “Conrad” came out as “comrade,” “waltzed” became “whilst,” and “archenemy” was pronounced “ark enemy.” It’s easy to nitpick, but the man known as the “father of Nollywood” says the business is still in its infancy.
In 1992, Okechukwu Ogunjiofor made the movie that launched the industry, “Living in Bondage,” a VHS hit about a husband who is forced to sacrifice his wife to appease a cult. As discs have replaced tapes, Ogunjiofor said, sound and picture quality have improved steadily.
With so many films flooding the market, few producers make real profits. Surging sales of pirated discs, which go for less than half-price, also are cutting into Nollywood’s business as producers complain that authorities would rather take bribes than crack down on copyright violators.
“People make these movies for love, and for survival,” Ogunjiofor said. “If there was no Nollywood, there would be even more poverty, unemployment, mischief and violence.”
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