Things fall apart inside the actors' guild

By Joseph Akahome

On Wednesday, May 2, 2012, popular actor, Segun Arinze, finally bowed to mounting pressure and relinquished his position as the president of the Actor’s Guild of Nigeria (AGN).

In a statement addressed to the Chairman of the Guild’s Board of Trustees, the actor attributed the decision to the events which took place during the recently botched elections in Benin on Friday April 27, 2012. It seems that for Arinze, this was the final straw.

‘It is indeed a sad development for AGN. In actual fact, my tenure as president ended on the 9th of December 2011 but (I) stayed on as president in deference to the BOT and the vast majority of our members, who prevailed on me to oversee a successful transition to a new president through a free and fair election …I wish the guild the very best as we move forward‘, the statement said.

The ‘sad development’ includes the alleged disruption of the electoral process by certain members of the state chapter, who didn’t agree with the electoral process and allegedly set about making a mess of Baden Hotel, Benin City, the venue of the election, on said date.

There were reports of ‘fetish objects’ used in the disruption of the process, including the smashing of seven eggs at the venue by unnamed delegates, leading to those present at the event making a swift exit.

In the face of these adversities and more, Segun Arinze’s resignation was the next, and the best step.

‘It was the honourable thing to do‘, the actor said in  a conversation with NET. Maybe it was, seeing as he had achieved far less than what he initially hoped for in the course of his two year presidency, especially considering the continuous opposition from members, notable among them being factional leader, Emeka Ike.

He’d also been at the receiving end of allegations of financial impropriety by some who claimed he collected large sums of money from President Goodluck Jonathan on behalf of the guild but diverted it to personal use, a claim he has vehemently denied. ‘How can people say such things? I am really fed up, I can’t wait to hand over‘, he said to a NET reporter earlier this year, during a stakeholders meeting over the fuel subsidy fallout.

With continuous postponements, changes of dates and venues, from Lagos to Ekiti and then Benin, as well as the resignation from the race by obviously disenchanted contestants, like Stella Damasus, it seemed the elections, and indeed, the entire guild, had been jinxed from the very beginning. Where did it all go wrong then for the association?

Popular actor and aspiring director, Ramsey Nouah has said ‘there is no unity among Nigerian actors that is the reason we have not gone as far as we should.’

One might call this a keen observation, because in its nearly two decades of existence, the AGN has persistently been seen as catering to the needs of only a select few, an opinion echoed by Emeka Ike, who also asked some thought provoking questions about the guild and its leadership in a press conference late last year.

‘We only parade a two-bedroom apartment which laughably serves as office, it is deplorable’, he stated. Whatever happened to the land at Epe given to the body by the Lagos state government for use as an acting village? We are 90 percent dead. Our colleagues have over time been oppressed and subdued, they cannot even speak out‘, he said.

True to his statement, this reporter has, over time, sought the opinion of several actors on their position about the challenges the guild is facing, but have met with no success in that endeavour.

‘Please I am not aware of what is going on, I have not been around much‘, said actress Eucharia Anunobi when asked about her views on the issue.

‘I don’t want to say anything on that, I have no comments please‘, stated yet another top notch actor pleading anonymity, towing the line of a few more.

With this resignation by Segun Arinze, will there now be a light at the end of the tunnel? Will the guild, through its BOT, get its acts together and put their house in order once and for all? Or is this where it all ends? In effect, can the centre hold?

Only time will tell.