Africa’s First Tv Producer Segun Olusola Talks

By  David Ajiboye

“WE WANT TO REVIVE VILLAGE HEADMASTER…” Ambassador Segun Olusola.

In this interview with the creator of the popular and first soap opera to air on tv in Africa, VILLAGE HEADMASTER, Ambassador Segun Olusola, who also doubles as the first tv producer in Africa, takes us back into about 4 decades of entertainment industry in Nigeria. He speaks on several issues  including his relationship with nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka among others. This interview with David Ajiboye, Staff Reporter/African Bureau Chief/africanmoviestar.com, was conducted on board Arik Airline, enroute Abuja and Enugu after the conclusion of National Art Festival (NAFEST).

Excerpts:

Can you give us insight into why you created the Village Headmaster? 

The Village Headmaster is a story that came out of the radio feature production, which I had written in 1958, to pay tribute to the experiences  the old headmasters shared with people. The roles of headmasters all over the Yoruba speaking  part of Nigeria  in those days were not restricted to the schools alone. They were building communities. They were not just headmasters in the communities and when I wrote this feature programme and produced it, it involved my going round to meet all the elderly people who still admired and remembered their headmasters. I spoke to the late Dr. Sabiru Biobaku, Chief A.Y. Eke, etc. Of all the people I spoke to about their headmasters, the most remarkable and unforgetable was the Oba Ademola, the late Alake of Egbaland. Oba Ademola, the old man sat with me and he was remembering his headmaster. That was magnificent; I think it was in 1958, the old man was recounting his experience with his late headmaster. I was barely 25 years old then. As a radio producer, I was about 23 years old. I couldn’t forget that experience. So when television was introduced to Nigeria, one of the promises I made was that if they accepted me as a television producer in 1958, one of the things I could love to do was to produce a television programme in honor of the headmaster. And that was it. I spent some years in Ibadan until 1964 when I took up the job of television producer with Nigeria Television.

Then at Victoria Island in Lagos, the challange came on, more vigorously,  that the only way I could justify the work of a producer on television in the federal capital territory was to be able to design a programme. So we then started it. And what we then had much later is now published into a book, which I have titled, the Village Headmaster. All the characters and writers of the first 13 episodes are also here. The main producer was Oba Dosunmu who is now the Olowu of Owu in Abeokuta.

That is how the Village Headmaster began. It was inevitable that the characters should include Clara Fagade the wife of the headmaster and Clara happened to have been played by my late wife who was an actress in her own right, got married before she joined broadcasting. As for Amebo, that idea is a later story. By the time Amibo came into the Village Headmaster, it was obvious that we would be able to pin-point a major character  which will not only be unforgettable, but would be long lasting because Amibo’s character in the Village Headmaster setting is bound to live forever.

If it didn’t happen to the actress playing the role of Amibo in the Village Headmaster, we would recreate that’s how the Village Headmaster started. If you had been around at that time, you would have been part of the people to work in the Village Headmaster. The character, Amibo, has transcended Nigeria’s boundaries.

 You mean the Village Headmaster will come on screen again?

(Laughs). Let me put it this way, we are very eager to have it on screen. More than a year ago the founding members of the Village Headmaster including, the Olowu of Owu, the late Alaiye Ode of Ode Remo, Oba Fundo Adeolu, the late Oba Wole Amele of Aramoko and one of the senior producers of the series, Segun Akinbola, gathered at the residence of the Alaiye Ode of Odr Remo, planning the resuscitation of the Village Headmaster. It’s been a long while now, many other things had happened.

We left much of it in the hands of Segun Akinbola who was the longest serving producer of the Village Headmaster, who marked his 60th birthday a couple of days back. We charged him with the responsibility of redesigning and rebuilding the Village Headmaster, and all of us are working towards sponsorship. We are talking to some highbrow funding agencies in Nigeria and outside of Nigeria. And I can tell you that by the grace of the Almighty, as a testimony to the contribution the founding members have made, will be back not only on television but also as a major film in a matter of months.

On a lighter mood, do we expect to see our royal fathers acting on the screen or some new faces?

Well, no. We have not taken a decision on that. But the resuscitated Village Headmaster must include news of happenings around. As they say; who has ever seen the thunder? You will hear the sounds of thunder, but you may never feel thunder. Those revered personalities will be involved in more ways than just being actors. And I am going to leave you guessing about it. We will talk about them, we will feature the characters but the whole personalities will be reference point. But the Village Headmaster will come alive.

Now, coming to Mrs. Ibidun Allison, how was it thought that tha Amibo role should be hers and she has come to be an embodiment of Ameboism, if I may use that word? 

That’s the glory of television she herself has as a person. But the Village Headmaster became a darling of viewers for many reasons, top of which was the character of Amibo. And luckily for the person who played Amibo, she is still very strong and alive and willing. So you never can tell, she may, infact be one one of the restart writers who wolud also write herself into the new Village Headmaster. But we were all surprised just as I am surprised that one character in the Village Headmaster whose character was total as the Oba of the village, the leader of the community, the everything of that village, became even more than that. It then created and brought other characters that have remained unforgettable. One of them was our dear Amibo. It will come alive and we will make sure we feature Village Headmaster.

In the original cast, there was one Mrs. Francesca Emmanuel…? 

No. She was not; she was with us on television when we were doing one play a month. We had done very good plays on television together at about thids time. For instance, she was involved in the  the play by J.P.Clark, titled, Song of a Goat, which we had put up in Ibadan, many years before television. In any case Francesca was with that creative crew of people at Victoria Island. But we could not afford her in the Village Headmaster because the programme demanded almost a permanent living culture in the studio. Don’t forget that she was a very senior government officer. That is one of the reasons we couldn’t carry her along.

At a point you had some creative relationship with professor Wole Soyinka, can you give us an insight?  

What do you mean by at a point? We are still relating creatively. We were together at Port Harcourt just about two years ago where his big book, I call it the “big book” was launched and he signed a copy for me. Our creative relationship commenced in the late 1958, 1959. He was already back at the University of Ibadan. He observed Christopher Kolade and me working on Players of the Dawn. Players of the Dawn was the only amateur dramatic group in Ibadan in those days. And each time he came to watch us, to see us rehearse, it was as if, to say, “I am no longer in the amateur dramatics with you people.”

But on one or two occasions, he was drawn into actually going on stage and act because may be the actor was not around or travelled out. So, we worked together even on Players of the Dawn until “1960 Masks”and the 1960 Masks got all of us involved including Francesca, Christopher Kolade, myself, including Ralph Okpara who has now passed on. We were all involved in pushing the idea of what we wanted to designate the first ever professional theatre in the country. And we remained members of the 1960 Masks. Most of the older ones peeled off and Wole then kick started the Orisun Theatre and all that.

At no point, not even during the terrible political days that we all think the herd swerved, in which he was an active impact and motivator. At no time did we not remain family friends. Don’t forget that I am from Iperu in Remo, Ogun State and he’s from Isara, also in Ogun State. I keep reminding him that, you know…that the Abeokuta people must not think that Wole Soyinke is from Abeokuta. The father of Wole Soyinka was from Isara and I am from Iperu. We still stay on….

But he calls himself an Ijegba man?

(Laugh) Ma da lohun Jare (don’t mind him). There is nothing like Ijegba. that’s the kind of license that writers at his level are allowed to make. We, the Iperu people, Remo people do not accept Ijegba. It is his own creativity. But we allow him to have it. Certainly, he is the Remo son-of-the soil. We don’t mind the Egba or Abeokuta claiming, because his old woman was from Abeokuta, from a renowned family but certainly we own the father in Remo in Isara.

Can you look back into the good old days and how you started in the entertainment industry?

I am grateful that the younger generation seized what could have been a run away market for nonindegineous  cinematic material. I was part of that. I was part of the eagerness to go into film production with some Lebanese and Egyptian film makers. We did films like Son of Africa, and Golden Woman. Even before then, I had worked with a German professional colleague, Klaus Stephan, to produce Taiwo Shango on cinema, which was shown all over the world.

The dubbing of Taiwo Shango was done in German. People who saw Taiwo Shango on Eurpoean television  would see the actors and actresses speaking German in a dubbed version. And I was saying that inspite of that uncertain beginning, of the Lebanese and Egyptian film groups to produce films like Son of Africa, Golden Woman…Funso Adeolu was involved in that. That’s the late Alaiye Ode of Ode Remo, the younger people came on their own in the 80s and I was very pleased with the way Nollywood started developing; they ensured that some of the well trained film makers who used cine film also got involved in the production of Nollywood. I am waiting to even get involved in Nollywood.

You cannot take away creativity from these Nigerians. They may not have mastered the technology, but they established it and they are going to master it.