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WALE ADENUGA: We stopped Ikebe Super when naira was devalued over 300 percent

Chief Wale Adenuga, (an Independent producer), had popular programmes: Papa Ajasco, Super Story, on the network belt of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). Now, NTA is partnering with him to produce Village Headmaster. He told FLORA ONWUDIWE the secret of his success and sundry issues in this interview. Excerpts…

When you started Ikebe Super Magazine, it focused on sizes of women’s buttocks, named after the cars driven at that period: Landcruiser, Igala, V. Booth, Volvo and so on. Some women might have seen it offensive even when your intention was just to make people laugh…

The women were not angry because they understood at that time that it was sheer Ikebastronomanatomicology that we were talking about. That’s the astrology, the anatomy that make up Ikebe. So they knew it was cartoon magazine. They were laughing it off, the women were making jest at one another, “You are Igala”, there was a car named Igala in those days. And another, “you are a Beetle”, “you are Volvo, Land cruiser”, so it was fun. You need to have sense of humour before you can enjoy such things. A human being should not be too serious all the time. Look at the situation in the country now, if we are too serious you might have mental problem. I am telling you the truth; you need to laugh a lot of things off. If you take your problems to the heart, and you are too serious about life, you will end up killing yourself. That time it was fun, the economy was good, everybody was having fun and it was a fun magazine. It was not seen as an immoral thing or something that will devalue women, no, women were my best customers then, they formed the majority of the readership.

Ikebe started very well but had competitors portraying same comic stuff but they were different from Ikebe…

What I call Ikebe was clean humour; it was on top.It was our competitors that were dishing out immoral things, sexy things, having sex in the magazine. If you look at all the editions of the Ikebe Super from the beginning till the time we stopped the publication, you will never see characters having sex or kissing, our jokes and humour was mature, it was clean enough for the whole family. It was our competitors that named a character the sexy guy, but we never engaged in that, that is the truth about it. The magazine really caught fire, the sales kept on rising because the whole family was enjoying it .

What tribe is the word Ikebe?

I did my National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in the then Bendel State, that is called Edo and Delta now. You know during the NYSC they will teach you some words of the local languages, so they were teaching us Edo, and one of the boys asked, Mr. Lecturer, what do we call a woman with a big behind and the teacher said Ikebe and everybody laughed, the name sounded so funny. So when I was about to start the magazine, coincidentally my wife is from Benin, in 1976, I told her, I will name the magazine Ikebe, she said you dare not and laughed. I said since you laughed that means the readers will also laugh, so I am going to use that name. So I named the magazine Ikebe Super. And it was indigenous and it spread widely and the name stuck in the minds of the people.

You said the magazine sold very well, so what spurred your interest in electronics?

Thank you very much, we were selling and selling; we had no problem with sales. The sales rose to 600,000copies a month at a go, because it was a monthly magazine. Ikebe Super Magazine set a record that is yet to be broken in Nigeria by any paper. The reason we stopped? That is the question, the economy suddenly slumped, most of the materials we were using in publishing the magazine were imported; newsprints were imported, the ink etc, so when the naira was devalued by more than 300 percent, all prices went up, and the prices of magazines, newspapers went up; these affected sales and so we stopped publishing and explored another way of reaching out to our customers and that was the television. Before 1997, we made Papa Ajasco future film in 1984 before the advent of the Nollywood in 1992. So we came out with a film in 1984, it went round the country and West Africa, and in 1995, we came out with a Home Video “Binta my Daughter.” In 1997, Papa Ajasco was premiered on African Independent Television (AIT), that was how we started producing on Television and it is more powerful than the magazine we were doing and so we decided to rest the publication.

You have produced interesting programmes that people enjoyed over the years, but we are no longer seeing more of your creativity on air. Have the ideas stopped?

The programme we started with is still on television. Super Story started in the year 2000, and is 21 years this year and it still remains number one Television drama programme in Nigeria, the advertisers say so. Papa Ajasco is still there and strong. The reason some people might feel some of these programmes are no longer on air is because, with development, more channels are now on television, more programmes are on television, unlike when we started Super Story. Then you could count two or three drama programmes that were on television but now with the advent of DStv we have about 50 drama pro-grammes running every day, so this is why some people might not see our programmes. So it is not possible for everybody to see every programme on air; that is the truth.

You’re now embarking on an iconic project, the Village Headmaster. It ran in series with its titles revolving on the characters, roles and even costumes’ are fans of the programme expected to see it as a series or serial?

I will say both. It is serial but then it is broken down into stories, the first three four weeks might be the whole thing is topical in a way, the first three four week s might be having its own subtitles. Or maybe the Coronavirus break into Oja village; so we treat Coronavirus in three, four weeks then we can move to another story, the same village, the same people. So it is a serial.

What makes Village Headmaster programme unique was originality of its concept, setting, costumes and the actors, now you selected other super actors from the other sides of the entertainment, don’t you think they will overshadow the few legends of VHM and fans of these groups may be faced with clash of interest?

I am happy you raised this fear; I called it fear because everything has been taken care of. Producing Village Headmaster is a big challenge to any producer in the sense that you want to take care of the old generation of viewers who want to see Kabieyesi Oloja , Eleyinmi , Ameb0 etc, and then don’t forget that youths must also be considered, must be taking care of but as we speakmyouths form about 70 percent of the total population; so if you just say you want to concentrate on or satisfy the old fans, the youth will not watch it and the programme will not be popular. So you have to take care of the interest of the old viewers by giving them all these their old characters and then the youth we are also giving them characters they are used to, the stars they are used to, so it is a pot pourri. You merge the two in the same story and the popularity will go up fast, that is the strategy. You have to take care of various interests, because if you show only the old characters , the youth will not be attracted to the programme; so they are still very good I mean the old actors, in fact they are masters of the game .But for television to attract attention you need to show some current champions, that is why we mixed the old actors and the new actors, with the likes of Jide Kosoko, Adekola and all these people.

What’s the situation with copyright ownership now?

I will not call it a war. I like what is happening, this is democracy, any citizen that feels aggrieved about any issue should go to court; that is the most decent way of handling situations. It is better than trying to settle your scores yourselves. If I am doing something you don’t like or I am infringing on your right, you take me to court, we meet in court that is decent way of doing things .The Segun Olushola family, the eldest son felt that his father should be the owner of the copyright and NTA felt that it is not possible, this thing we have done for 20 years without any contention about it. Even when the old man was alive he never even contested copyright with force? So the son went to court and NTA said let’s react, so as we speak the case is in court. It is a court matter, it is not a war because NTA is like grandfather to all of us, it had been around before everybody. What I see playing out now is, they are exhibiting a high level of maturity over the matter. So we should expect that the imbroglio over the copyright will be resolved within the next few weeks.

You are aware that the programme had been aired twice since it started in 1968, and it’s going to be thrice if the court eventually resolves the issue. Then people like Tade Ogidan, Bayo Awala, Jimi Odumosu, Baba Babs, Dejumo Lewis, the late Tunde Oloyede and so on, these were the best hands of NTA staff before it finally got rested over three decades ago. Now this is the first time NTA is partnering with an Independent producer, WAP; are the fans going to see something different from your predecessors?

A producer is a producer. This programme was rested 31 years ago. Our people say time changes and the ways of men must change with time. So people should not expect us to produce the programme exactly the way it was produced 31 years ago. Drama is not done that way, drama is like a living soul, we cannot do it the way they did it 31 years ago, we need to modernize it. We need to introduce a lot of modern things, so the programme has to be alive, the programme has to relate to the present day socio-cultural milieu. So that is the only way we can make it to be attractive, if we decide to do it the way it was done 31 years ago, it will not work .Let me say we have upgraded it to the level viewers will love it.

What are those new ideas you are injecting into it?

The creators of the programme, they had set of objectives they wanted to achieve with the programme. So we had to key into the same set of objectives. And we are not expected to digress from the set objectives. And one of the set objectives was to project the culture of our people. You know when NTA created Village Headmaster, it was created to project the culture of the South West, New Masquerade was for the South East, then Cockcrow at Dawn… so they were together, not that we would neglect other tribes. That was the sole objective, to project the culture and the tradition of our people; we have to key into that, that was exactly the way the various producers had done it. But what are we doing that is new? We are injecting modernity into it, so that when you see the drama, you will see it is combination of old, new and future, so in that case all the generations are taken care of. So we have done it in such way that it will appeal to both the young and old.

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