Osuofia Kidnapped!

BY DAVID AJIBOYE
 
The President of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Mr. Segun Arinze has confirmed the kidnapp of ace comedian and multiple award-winning actor, Nkem Owoh popularly known as Osuofia.
 
Nkem Awoh 1Mr. Owoh was kidnapped on Monday along Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway and his kidnappers are demanding for a ransome of N15million about $100,000.
 
His kidnap came barely few months after the kidnap of veteran actor, Pete Edochie was kidnapped along Afor Nkpor road in Idemili North local government area of Anambra State.
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Tonto Dikeh Dates Fred Nuamah

BY DAVID AJIBOYE
David Ajiboye
Nollywood’s current hottest, richest and pretty-faced young actress, Tonto Dike, who once dated Nigerian top music producer, Don Jazzy, has found the best rhythm to her heart’s desire in Ghana, www.africanmoviestar.com has gathered.

The light-skinned actress, a close source told this medium, is having a clandestine love affair with Ghanaian new actor and producer, Fred Nuamah, who also doubles as manager of Ghana’s International Boxing Federation (IBF) Bantamweight champion, Joseph Agbeko and an erstwhile radio presenter. 

 

Tonto and Fred

Tonto and Fred

Not surprisingly, the two suspected lovebirds have denied having any amorous relationship. While the actor said he does not even know the sexy-lipped actress, she on the other hand informed that they are ‘just friends’. 

A couple of weeks ago, Tonto was in Ghana to shoot her new movie with Young Father Productions, owned by Samuel Ruffy of ‘Honey Kuchi-Kuchi’ advert fame. Fred, according to a  reliable source, was all over the place with Tonto.

On three different occasions, in the middle of the night, Fred was allegedly spotted sneaking in and out of the Genesis Hotel, located off the Accra-Kasoa road, where the actress had lodged.

Tonto, the source continued, could not make time to complete her production and had to leave for Nigeria. Some members of the production, the source said, blamed Fred for Tonto’s inability to finish shooting. Fred, the source disclosed, came to pick Tonto up while on set “and that was the end”.

The next time the production heard of the two, they were at the Kotoka International Airport as she sneaked out of the country.

However, the movie’s director, John Izedonmi, who confirmed Tonto’s inability to finish her job while in Ghana, said Fred could not be blamed.

“Fred has nothing to do with Tonto’s failure to complete the movie. It is not just possible that he would walk to location and pick her like that. Apparently, Tonto might have thought she had completed shooting her role and asked Fred to pick her up.

It was after she left that the Production Assistant (PA), after looking through the script, realized that she was left with four more scenes to do,” he said.

According to him, Tonto would be returning sometime soon to complete her scenes.

We gathered that a few days after Tonto left the country, Fred followed her to Nigeria “to continue from where they left off”’. But when contacted, the dark-skinned and afro hair-styled gentleman, in his reaction, said he does not even know Tonto Dike.

He admitted going to Nigeria, but said he was in that country to see Ramsey Nouah over his up-coming movie.

Sadly, however, Tonto let the cat out of the bag when in a telephone interview she said Fred was a friend. 

Hear her: “I have a relationship with Fred? Are you kidding me? Is that what people are saying? That is very funny. It is a stupid rumour to me. Fred is my friend just like every other person that I have met. I do not have any amorous relationship with Fred.”

Efforts to get Fred to react to Tonto’s claim proved futile as his close associates said he had left for Las Vegas to oversee arrangements for Joseph Agbeko’s next fight.      

Ramsey Nouah however confirmed Fred’s trip to Nigeria  saying, “Yeah, he came looking for me a couple of days back. He came to see me. He came to drop a script for me. He called me and we had an appointment. That’s it.”

Frank Rajah also confirmed reports that he introduced Fred to Tonto but denied they are dating.

“Tonto is my good friend and when I was going to pick her, Fred went with me and everybody in the industry knows Fred is a very kind-hearted person. When Tonto met him, she liked him because the guy is a kind-hearted person and they related very well.

When Tonto was leaving, she called Fred to pick her up to the airport and he went to take her straight to the airport.

So I don’t see anything wrong with being a friend to somebody. Fred is a friend to everybody in the industry. Many of the Nigerian stars who come here stay in his house,” he concluded.

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6th Abuja Int’l Film Festival Press Release:Convergence Of Sport/Entertainment

By David Ajiboye

Come 27th to 30th October 2009, the beautiful city of Abuja Nigeria will witness the convergence of two great events in one city. It will be a meeting point for film and soccer enthusiast as the 6th edition of Abuja International Film Festival and the FIFA U17 world cup tournament take center stage.
 
The festival will be declared opened by the Honorable Minister of Information and Communication, Prof. Dora Akunyili at the Bolingo Hotel and Towers Abuja by 5pm on 27th of October with a red Carpet opening cocktail for the invited delegates.
 
Expected at the festival are delegates from over 20 countries who will partake in the festival screenings, awards, exhibitions, panel discussions and seminars that will run for 4 days at the Bolingo Hotel and Towers Abuja. The Theme of the festival is NOLLYWOOD What NEXT?
 
According to Fidelis Duker (Festival Director), Some of the confirmed speakers include the Director General of The Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation Otunba Segun Runsewe, DG Censors Board Mr. Emeka Mba, President Association of Producers Mr. Paul Obazele, Managing Director of VIASAT Network Ghana Mr. Lenon Jack, President Actors Guild of Nigeria Mr. Segun Arinze, The CEO of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council, DG National Broadcasting Commission Engr. Bolarinwa and DG Nigeria Copyright Commission Dr. Adebambo Adewopo amongst several.  From the International scene, speakers will include beat, a delegation from Kenya, Ghana and the United Kingdom will be running a workshop on script development.
 
The Festival Manager also informed that Some of the films for screening and the competition category of the film festival will be CLOSE ENEMIES (USA/NIG), Perfect Picture(Ghana), Smoke and Mirrors (Nig), Disoriented Generation (UK), Man is Star (Tunisia),  The PACT (Canada), Traumology (Spain), Men Enough (Uganda), Flower Bridge (Romania) and Razor (Australia) amongst  among the over 60 films that will be screened during the festival.

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Interview With Nkem Awoh

By David Ajiboye

Recently, the African Movie indus­try has seen a sig­nif­i­cant surge in the pop­u­lar­ity of African films  around the world. This is mainly due to the amaz­ing tal­ents of some of Nigeria’s finest actors. One notable Actor who has made an impact is Nkem Owoh. He has secured for him­self a mas­sive fan base from the liv­ing rooms of Lon­don to the countryside’s of Free­town.  Nkem Owoh is a Niger­ian come­dian and movie actor. His name, Nkem, means, My own. He starred in the 2003 film Osuofia in Lon­don.

 In 2004 Owoh was one of sev­eral actors who was tem­porar­ily banned from
appear­ing in movies by Nigeria’s Asso­ci­a­tion of Movie Mar­keters and Pro­duc­ers, who argued that the actors demanded exces­sive fees and unrea­son­able con­tract demands.

There have been rumours of Nkem Owoh being paid 1.75 mil­lion Naira
($14,000 US Dol­lars) for this film, although in real­ity he may have earned sub­stan­tially more than that, con­sid­er­ing his pop­u­lar­ity and that the movie was filmed across two con­ti­nents.

Nkem Awoh 1He is also known for per­form­ing the song  “I Go Chop Your Dol­lar” about advance fee fraud. The song was fea­tured in the film The Mas­ter in which Owoh plays a scammer.The Eco­nomic and Finan­cial Crimes Com­mis­sion and the Niger­ian Broad­cast­ing Com­mis­sion banned the song. Below is an excerpts of an interview with the comedian.

How has it been so far?

There has been the neg­a­tive and the pos­i­tive sides. It’s like every other thing in life. I believe once you have the zeal and God gives you the health, you have to forge ahead. When­ever I meet the hill I believe I have to climb the hill and that’s life. So I just take this indus­try and what God has given me and I thank God for the spe­cial tal­ent which I never rec­og­nized, until peo­ple started rec­og­niz­ing in me. Now, when I look back­wards I always feel I have
some­thing that peo­ple love and I am happy and I thank God for that.

Com­edy in Nige­ria

Com­edy was intro­duced at the incep­tion of this branch of art as slap­stick. At that time, you would come across peo­ple putting on funny glasses, like the one I am putting on. I am the only per­son autho­rized to wear a sun­shade at night. You see peo­ple try­ing to whip up laugh­ter from dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions. But now we have grad­u­ated to a level that you can really make peo­ple laugh even if you are putting on suit. If God gives you a gift, it is not an easy thing. I talk, you laugh. I don’t know how I do it, some­times. I am embar­rassed.
A long time ago, I was asked to say the prayer at a func­tion and I said in Jesus name and peo­ple started laugh­ing. I take my prayers very seri­ously and I became very embar­rassed. You see there are good and bad sides to those things. Any­thing you say, you wouldn’t be taken seri­ous even when you are dis­cussing seri­ous issues. It hurts when such treat­ment is meted to you. But I think it is more on the pos­i­tive side.

Most paid comic actor

I haven’t said that I am the high­est paid. It depends on what you mean by pay­ment. I feel very happy as one of the high­est paid comic actors, and I am not com­plain­ing.

Embar­rass­ing moment

It depends on your def­i­n­i­tion of embar­rass­ment. What you might con­sider embar­rass­ing to you might not be embar­rass­ing to me. Except when you begin to go into my fail­ures in life that’s when I get embar­rassed. But if you are talk­ing about every­day life, I don’t get embar­rassed eas­ily. I might, I don’t know. May be along the line as some­body might do some­thing. I have not seen or heard before and be embar­rassed.

Stronger than pain

It went like any other movie. We are not act­ing for our­selves, but for the peo­ple. The crit­ics and view­ers’ opin­ions deter­mined the qual­ity of the film. Act­ing with Kate Hen­shaw was fan­tas­tic. Kate is some­one who has a mea­sure of the char­ac­ter­is­tics I have. So we blended, it was nice and the film came out fine.

Niger­ian movie indus­try

The indus­try is very big and heavy. The thing is that we stay here and do not know the weight of this indus­try because prob­a­bly every body knows the other per­son in the indus­try. But when you go out­side the shores of this coun­try even out­side your state, you could see the impact we have been mak­ing not only in Africa but around the world. I am talk­ing from expe­ri­ence.

Worst day

The worst day in my life is when I will make peo­ple laugh too much. I don’t like mak­ing peo­ple overdo things. I don’t think I have ever had a worse day. I am a per­son who believes that the world is like that. You go up and down. If I have some­thing peo­ple could describe as the worst, I have hope that I can always sur­mount it.

Between fam­ily life and act­ing

It’s very tough thing to do but by the grace of God we are try­ing to marry every­thing together.

The Hol­land expe­ri­ence

I was not arrested in Hol­land last year. It was a kind of expe­ri­ence that left a bit­ter taste in my mouth. For a bonafide cit­i­zen of a rec­og­nized coun­try to enter another coun­try and peo­ple saw him as a sec­ond class cit­i­zen. I was there and their police came in their num­bers about one hun­dred of them. They came in their ambu­lance, on air, police dogs and all that. They told me to end the show. I told the man it’s unfair. I told them that if I was the per­son they were look­ing for, they should take me, but should not embar­rass the audi­ence. The man said no and that caused my anger. After that, we arranged and staged a demon­stra­tion to relate my own side of the story. If that was the option left to us, I don’t think we were wrong in fol­low­ing it. Nobody arrested me the way it was reported.

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