There is indecency in Nollywood movies because Nigerians buy it —Baba Wande

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2 years ago

Popular actor, movie writer and producer, Alhaji Kareem Adepoju, better known as Baba Wande, speaks to ADEOLU ADEYEMO about his life and his movies.

You clocked 50 years on stage recently, how many movies has Baba Wande produced so far?

The movies I have done are so many that I don’t know their number.

Which of your movies would you describe as your favourite work?

I don’t want to make a choice among my movies. The viewers should let me know which one of my movies is the best. I am not in a position to say ‘this is my best film’. Let the viewers decide, please. All the films I have produced are of high standard. The people watching the films are the ones who get to decide which one is the best. All my films are my best because there are stories behind them. When I find ideas that I know people will learn from, I pick up my pen and write.

Which was your first movie?

The title of my first movie is ‘Obuko Dudu’. It is about a guard who has a dream while on duty. He dreams that thieves attack the house of his boss which he guards. He decides to inform his master about the dream and then calls for the employment of more guards to be able to repel the impending attack. However, the master’s son, an educated young man, recommends the sack of the guard, saying he has not been doing his work. To him, a night guard who dreams must be sleeping on duty. Eventually, the father listens to his son and sacks the ‘dreamer guard’. Not happy with his master’s decision, the embattled guard goes fetish. He casts a magical spell on the son which makes him to sleep with his stepmother and is caught in the act by his father who then disowns him. But the young man’s maternal grandmother is a very powerful woman who finds the source of her grandson’s misfortune. She subsequently uses a black he-goat (Obuko Dudu) for sacrifice to undo the spell. As the grandson becomes normal again, the guard runs mad. That was my first film.

Which of your movies would you say made you rich?

I want to categorically and emphatically say that those who write and act movies do not make money like marketers do. Marketers and people who engage in piracy make much more money than us. We get cheated most of the time. Marketers do not pay us well. And those pirating our movies are not helping the situation. I can’t say we are making enough money from our movies, only the marketers are making money. I haven’t seen any artiste come out to say he made money from his film.

Why then haven’t you quit the profession?

Let me remind you that acting is a calling. We can’t quit because there must be people responsible for teaching morals, values and culture to the society. Money should not be the most important thing. We need to preserve our culture for future generations. We don’t have any other job; we must continue to do this so that people will not forget us. We can’t stop producing movies just because we are not getting enough money from them. We don’t have another job.

How did you start acting?

I started from primary school, following Baba Oyin Adejobi. He was the one who taught us acting at Ansar-Ud-Deen Primary School, Osogbo. Although I later attended Agbor Modern School, it was Baba Adejobi who taught me acting. Proceeds from the stage plays were given to Islamic teachers as salaries. I started following the late Adejobi in my school days. He was my master. He used to come to our school to teach us stage plays.

What motivated you to make the widely acclaimed movie, ‘Ti Oluwa Ni Ile’?

I personally wrote the movie. It was an inspiration I got when I visited Lagos at a time. I saw a site where labourers were working in the middle of the night, light everywhere. I was shocked. Why must a construction be done in the night? What could have necessitated this? When I asked some locals why builders were working at such odd hours, they explained that the owner snatched the land from someone and decided to build the house before daybreak so that no one would be able to claim the land again because of the building already erected on it. I was also told that people sold one land to two, three people. Then I thought that people who did this would see nothing wrong in selling Ile Orisa (land of the gods). This was what inspired the idea of ‘Ti Oluwa Ni Ile’.

How much did you make from the blockbuster?

I can’t say specifically; Tunde Kelani was the major financier of the film. I have to be careful here because I don’t want to be misquoted. A lot of things have cropped up on this issue. Some journalists came to me and said I was a millionaire because of the success of ‘Ti Oluwa Ni Ile’ and I told them that that was not true. But they quoted me out of context and said that I accused TK (Tunde Kelani) of cheating me. I only told them that I did not become a millionaire from that film. I am not interested in any controversy. What some people said I said about Tunde Kelani is not true. I had no intention of damaging his reputation. Those who came to ask me questions twisted my comments.

Is any of your children into acting?

Yes and no. Anytime I have a play, they take part in it but they have their jobs apart from acting. They all act but they have their separate jobs. I have a child who works in telecoms. There are a banker and a teacher among them. My children act on a part-time basis, not full-time. They come and go.

Actors seem to cultivate the culture of marrying many wives? The late Hubert Ogunde had many wives. You also practise polygamy.

Yes, the same thing applies to me. I am a polygamist. I have wives. Stage plays caused it. We acted a lot of films that had to do with husbands and wives. Women are needed in our films and this often leads us to having many wives. It comes with our profession.

How many wives do you have?

I have many wives. I can’t say the number since I have not stopped; I can still marry another woman.

During the period of stage plays, when there were no televisions, anywhere we went, if there were no ladies in our group, the people would not come out to watch us. Our plays also centred on women most of the time.

Sometimes after ladies had been trained for their roles, some parents would show up on days we ought to perform to withdraw our female theatre group members, thereby throwing our plans into shambles. That was why Baba Oyin Adejobi thought of taking them as wives. Things are a little better now because parents are now allowing their children to do theatre. During our period, parents did not allow their children to join theatre groups.

At almost 90 years of age, you say you still want more wives?

Yes, of course. But I am not yet 90, please. In any case, age has nothing to do with polygamy. If I had the chance, I would marry more wives because God tells us to marry and multiply.

But you need energy to perform the conjugal rights.

Only God grants this energy. God is the One feeding us. A mistake we often make is to wonder where to get the money to feed them, forgetting that we cannot feed them by ourselves. God is the One feeding us all.

What have been your experiences on polygamy and why are you in support of it?

I will not condemn either monogamy or polygamy. Each of them has its advantages. Let me quickly tell you a story. One time, I fell ill and one of my wives was not around. Because she was not my only wife, my other wives nursed me and I got better. Had I had only one wife, I would have suffered a lot. Another thing is that instead of a man being promiscuous, you marry more than one wife so that you will see all the qualities you are looking for in a woman. In essence, polygamy gives room for various beauties, complexions, behaviours, etc. If one of the wives is good at cooking, another may be good at washing; one may be light, another may be black; one may be prayerful, the others may be good at different other things. So, you don’t have to look outside at all. All you are looking for are present in all of your wives. Polygamy promotes fidelity. You have heard of one-wife men who impregnated their house maids. It is not that they want to marry them; it is just that as African men, one woman is just not enough for them to sleep with all the time.

If a man marries one wife, if he is bound to face problems, he will face them. I have seen a lot of men who married one wife but later divorced. I have also seen men who married more than one wife and they have all lived together for long. That is the way life is. The advantage I see about marrying more than one wife is that you will find all you want in a woman in them. Their characters and attributes can never be the same.

One of my wives once travelled to visit her daughter. If she had been my only wife, I would have suffered while she was away visiting her daughter. Monogamists will realise their folly in their old ages when their only wives go away to take care of their grandchildren.

Which one of your films do you think mirrors what is happening in society now?

Virtually all of my movies mirror what is happening in the society at any given time. But the one in the pipeline matches our current situation. My next film is titled ‘Iwa Eda’. It has to do with the issue of an ancestral land. Diamond is found on the land and the family that owns the land appoints a literate member of the family to relate with the white men who mine the diamond. The representative of the family that owns the land is a cheat because instead of representing the family well, he collects money from the white miners and pockets all the money. At the end of the day, nemesis catches up with him and he faces a lot of consequences. The film teaches us not be treacherous or selfish or covetous. We should have contentment in our dealings with one another. Selfishness cannot take us anywhere. We need to be transparent in all we do and remember that God is there to judge us based on our deeds.

There are concerns about the kinds of dressing and language used in Nollywood movies nowadays. What are elders in the industry like you doing to address this?

We have been talking to them about it but the issue is that what they are wearing and saying are what most people really want. The people who watch such films are interested in those kinds of things. Am I the one that will tell the people not to watch skimpy skirts in movies? It is not only about the artistes but it is also about our society. As we blame the artistes who reveal all that are supposed to be covered, we should also blame the society that encourages what they do. It was not like this when we started, but people these days like movies that are full of nudity and obscenity. Many people only enjoy scenes where actors and actresses romance and wear revealing clothes.

That is what the society wants. Some actors are as much to blame as members of our audience. We condemn these every time but they won’t listen. At this age of my life, I will never support immorality. Even I condemn the way some Yorubas speak in movies. Our culture and values suffer at their hands but we have been talking to them.

What was the reaction of your parents when you decided to go into acting?

They vehemently opposed the idea because they saw acting as a beggarly profession. I had to wriggle my way through and today, I have no regrets delving into acting.

No parents wanted their children to do theatre back then. There was a time my father went to Ghana, and his elder brother I was staying with called me with his colleagues and told me to stop following the theatre group. My uncle told me that ‘we are a noble family of means; in our family, people come to dance for us, why will you now be dancing for people?’ But I didn’t listen to him. I didn’t know what the future held then but I thank God that it is a success story today.

You seem to also have a talent for singing.

Yes, I sing sometimes but I have not made any records. I do sing in the movies we produce.

Osogbo is renowned as a town of culture. When we talk of legends like Duro Ladipo, Oyin Adejobi, Kola Ogunmola, King Sunny Ade and many others, we link them to Osogbo. What is it that makes successful actors and musicians come out from the town?

Apart from the ones you have mentioned, there are others like Orlando Owoh. Osogbo is a town of culture. We are the centre of the universe when it comes to culture. People come from all over the world to Osogbo because of culture. It is a gift from God. There are a lot of people that have succeeded here.

What is the story behind your stage name, ‘Baba Wande’?

I did not give myself that name. A professor in Ilorin wrote a story book titled ‘Ile Ti A Fi Tomo’. He gave the book to us to act. My stage name in that play was ‘Otokiti’, the father of ‘Wande’. It was a popular play. The book was being used in schools at the time. That was how people began to call me ‘Baba Wande’.

Is any of your children named Wande now?

No. But if I have another child, I may name him or her ‘Wande’. Since my mother is dead, if the child is a girl, I will name her ‘Yewande’. If he is a boy, he will be ‘Akinwande’.

Among Yoruba movie greats like Oyin Adejobi, Hubert Ogunde, Duro Ladipo and Kola Ogunmola, who was your favourite?

I enjoyed all of them, really. They were all my masters. But I would go for Oyin Adejobi, from whom I learnt for 25 years. He gave me the chance to act. He gave me the privilege of taking the theatre group around because of his other works and that made it easy for me to lead people anywhere today.

What is your advice for Nigerians and the incoming administration?

The incoming administration needs a lot of prayers. Muhammadu Buhari’s successor needs our prayers. The country needs prayers to survive and stabilise. We need God’s intervention in our affairs. We need to call unto Him. We all should pray for the incoming president to succeed so that we don’t go from frying pan and end up in fire. We should pray that people who mislead leaders will not mislead him (Tinubu). By God’s grace, he will succeed.

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