Nollywood is a world associated with glamour and luxury life, that’s the perception held so tight by many people out there, especially Nigerians. But unfortunately, Nollywood is filled with too many ills and evil, perpetually meted out against the weak, poor and vulnerable young people who are eager and desperate to become great and successful in life, through the vehicle called NOLLYWOOD.
That’s why many people, once they hear that you are in the Nigeria movie industry, otherwise known as Nollywood, without hesitation they conclude that you are swimming in the ocean of wealth. Lol. What an irony! If most of these young people in the industry open their mouths to tell you their predicaments in that world of so-called glamour and luxury, you will even donate money to them without being asked to.
A lot of upcoming actors in Nollywood are treated like slaves, did you hear me well? They are treated like slaves by producers, production managers and directors. It starts from casting, he or she will be called by the production manager or producer to leave everything they are doing and come to the location/set were they are shooting at the time. Some will leave their work, office, school, children, business, etc and rush down there. Mind you, this is a role of maybe about two to five scenes, the actor will be on set from morning till night everyday, waiting to film, at the end nothing to show for all the time wasted.
You go home, they don’t care how you will make it home, and tomorrow same repeated. It goes on for countless times, maybe in the end you won’t even be the person to play the role/character, maybe one of their girlfriends or others, would have taken up the role, and if you call to find out when you will be on set they will just be shouting at you, that they will call you when you are needed.
On the other hand, if you eventually succeeds in playing the role, your artiste fee will turn into another sad movie story. These are things mostly orchestrated by the Producers and Production Managers, and because you do not want to fall into their black book you will ignore for the sake of next job, and that’s what you experience on many occasions.
And most times when you protest against their wickedness they stop calling you for jobs, which is one of their wicked tactics of continued maltreatment of upcoming actors in Nollywood. Yes, because most of these upcoming actors prefer to be casted in a movie than the money, so most of them will just keep quiet over the injustices perpetrated against them.
BuT this up and coming artists need money to take care of their needs; feeding, transportation, house rents, clothes, school fees (coz most of them are students), etc. But the slave masters in the industry do not care about all that, because of lack of conscience and human feelings in them. Even when they choose to pay these upcoming actors they pay them what ever they like, and not what is professionally due to them.
This is an industry I have worked for more than five years and there’s nothing in the industry anyone can tell me more than I know. And unfortunately, this is one of the most widespread evil in Nollywood that is constantly under-reported because of the fact that most of the victims are not coming forward to report it, for fear of being victimized, especially not being called for jobs afterwards, by those doing all these evil.
So, I’m urging victims of these evil to speak up, let the world know about this evil that has refused to depart from Nollywood. Speak up against this evil, against this man inhumanity to man!!!
Watch out for part-2 of this series…
(Photo credit: Google photos)
Written by Okwor Maxwell: (Nigerian writer and Author of Vengeance Of The Spirit, The Forbidden Son, Conquering The Needless War Surrounding Feminism Ideology and more).
