Remembering the Past A Conversation with Afolabi Adesanya as Film Exhibitor

Abstract

Afolabi Adesanya is known as a Nigerian filmmaker and a policy maker, but not as an exhibitor. His experiences at the first film exhibition company in Nigeria, the West African Pictures Company Limited (WAPCo Ltd.), have never been documented. Established in the 1930s by Syrian Lebanese brothers, the company’s ownership changed in the 1970s with the Indigenization Decree. Little is known of the early history of the company or its contributions to cinemagoing and film consumption in Nigeria; hence, Adesanya’s account of the period while he was at the helm of WAPCo Ltd. (2001–2005) is invaluable. In this interview conducted at the National Arts Theatre in Lagos, the first purpose-built multiplex facility in Nigeria, Adesanya reflects on the challenges of directing a cinema company that was bought by a real estate firm solely interested in turning a profit. It brings to the fore one of the reasons for the decline in cinemagoing in the 1980s and 1990s, which is the dearth of trained cinema business personnel and infrastructure.

Introduction

Nigerian film exhibition studies are rare, thus rendering incomplete the available histories of film in the country. Consequently, when there was an opportunity to make a short documentary on the Nigerian film industry,³ I chose to focus on the exhibitors. From a historical point of view, that proved to be a difficult task, since very little has ever been documented on commercial exhibition. The places⁴ to search have disappointingly insufficient materials for any completeness to be claimed. And the few surviving independent exhibitors prior to the video boom are either out of reach⁵ or remember very little.⁶ While lamenting this gap in cinema history, Jonathan Haynes writes that “memories also decay and those who hold them disperse and die, so personal testimonials need to be gathered systematically and preserved in permanent form.”⁷

The conversation presented below, held at the National Theatre (figs. 1 and 2), is a response to Haynes’s request, which seeks to preserve a remembered version of the past rather than a definite and complete one. In putting it together, I edited the conversation by deleting repetitions except in one instance where the repetition was about local takeover of cinema houses and the damage done to the cinemagoing culture because of that. The emphasis is important given that existing literature about the decline of cinemagoing often leaves out this important point, attributing it mostly to eco-security problems. Incomplete statements and on-set jargon were also deleted while retaining the sense of what was being conveyed.

Figure 1.

Main entrance to the National Theater in Lagos where the interview was held. Courtesy of the author.

Afolabi Adesanya has worked as a screenwriter, filmmaker, author, policy maker, film historian, and exhibitor in the history of Nigerian media and cinema, but he is mostly known for only two roles—filmmaker and civil servant—another piece of evidence that points to the incompleteness of Nigerian film history. He trained at the San Francisco Art Institute (1978– 1980) and Staffordshire University (2012–2013). From 1986 and under the auspices of the company A-Productions, which he founded with his brother, Adedeji Adesanya, he began his filmmaking career with two notable films, Vigilante (1988, Nigeria) and Ose Sango (1991, Nigeria). Adesanya is also a prolific author and contributor to several books including Nigerian Video Films (1997, 2000) and Reelviews (2012). He is best known for his major achievements while at the helm of Nigeria’s frontline film agency, the Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC), from 2005 to 2013, and particularly for the partnership he initiated with the Beijing Film Academy to train personnel for the National Film Institute, an affiliate of the NFC. However, the role for which he is least known and remembered is that of the General Manager and Chief Executive of the first commercial film exhibition company in Nigeria, the West African Pictures Company Limited (WAPCo Ltd.) from 2001 to 2005 (fig. 3). His legacy at the NFC is cherished, perhaps accounting for the oblivion into which his earlier stint at WAPCo Ltd. has been relegated. But the years he spent as an exhibitor are crucial to Nigerian media and cinema history as there are few survivors of a company that was established in 1936.

Figure 2.

Adesanya (left) and Ojie during the interview in Cinema Hall 1. Courtesy of the author.

By the time Adesanya took over the leadership of WAPCo Ltd., the ownership of the company had changed from that of a Syrian Lebanese– owned cinema company based in Lagos with outlets across the southwestern and northern parts of Nigeria to a locally owned one. As a filmmaker, he was acutely aware of the vacuum there was for proper distribution outlets

Figure 3.

Casino Cinema, Adesanya’s Office from 2001 to 2005. Courtesy of the author.

Figure 4.

Casino Cinema, being repurposed for residential flats. Courtesy of the author.

for films like his. He therefore sought an opportunity through WAPCo Ltd. to revamp the distribution and exhibition spaces (fig. 4) to create the much-needed routes that Nigerian films needed to reach their intended audiences. He hoped to turn the company into a media conglomerate which would engage in all relevant business activities including but by no means limited to motion pictures distribution and exhibition, but that vision was not shared by the company’s proprietors.

Adesanya’s Vision

Añulika Agina:

How does it feel to come back to the National Theatre after thirty years?

Afolabi Adesanya:

Coming back to the National Theatre after all these years is a wonderful feeling. It brings back a lot of memories, some outstanding, some not too heartening [laughter], particularly when you have a film here, but you don’t have the crowd. And at times you’ll see old friends with the ticket for your competitor’s film [laughter]. I would say to them, “but don’t you know I’m showing here today . . .” And they would say, “yes, I’m coming . . .” [laughter]. And you can see your competitors’ cinema hall jam-packed with people sitting right up to the foot of the screen.

But it was quite an exciting time, coming here (fig. 1) either to see a film or to screen one’s film. You will have a Yoruba language film in one hall, an English language film in another hall, a mixed audience with people from all walks of life. The cinema halls, one and two, have about 900 seats each. The main hall is about 3000 or so. And I sought to create that at WAPCo Ltd. Now the National Theatre is the forerunner of the cineplex in Nigeria with about three dedicated cinema halls. The main multi-purpose hall was ideal for large screenings. Then the exhibition hall could also be converted into a cinema hall although flat in its seating arrangement, unlike the theatres. There’s another hall for general purpose, which could also be adapted for film screening. So, you had about five halls. Therefore, when you’re talking of cineplex in Nigeria, this is the forerunner, with 35mm and 16mm projectors.

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Agina:

As the General Manager of West African Pictures, can you take us through the history of that institution?

Adesanya:

The history of West African Pictures Company Limited, as the forerunner in terms of a private enterprise promoting motion picture distribution and exhibition in Nigeria, predates me. It was founded by Arif Barakat and Raakh Khahi, two Syrian⁸ brothers (although some mistakenly attribute its founding to the Lebanese only) in 1936 during the colonial era primarily as a film distribution and exhibition company with cinema houses across Nigeria, mostly from Lagos up north. They also had one in Port Harcourt, but it was discovered that there wasn’t much market in the southern part of the country then, and if you look at the history of the theatre and cinema-going, it has always been from the southwest to the north.

I’m probably synonymous with the history of film distribution and exhibition in Nigeria. The grand vision was to have cinema houses across the West African coast, showing Hollywood blockbusters, popular Indian films, and then the Kung Fu martial art films from southeast Asia. Indigenous films didn’t come until the 1970s.

And then gradually other players came onto the scene: Plateau Cinema, Agadama Pictures and others. And it went on like that until the Indigenization Decree⁹—which demanded that businesses in Nigeria, including the distribution and exhibition of films should be largely owned by Nigerians—was promulgated. One of the companies after Indigenization was implemented became known as Bendel Cinema.

With a loan facility from the National Bank, a Nigerian, Chief Theophilus Adebayo Doherty bought over West African Pictures. Unfortunately, he defaulted on the repayment of his loan. The bank foreclosed the company, took over the assets, and eventually West African Pictures ended up with Wemabod Estate Limited.¹⁰ As at that time, both Wemabod and National Bank were part of the Odu’a Investment Company.¹¹ So WAPCo Ltd. was ceded to Wemabod Estates to run because the owners felt that as a real estate company, they should be able to manage the cinema facility.

Agina:

What vision did you have for WAPCo Ltd. and what informed that vision?

Adesanya:

I joined West African Pictures as the General Manager and Chief Executive in 2001 because I had expressed an interest in the company. I wanted to turn it into a giant media conglomerate. I thought something could be done with the assets to turn it around and fashion it into a twenty-first century business with the kind of global development going on and the yearning for cinemagoing experience all over again from people. As a child I was indulged by my parents just for asking for permission to go and see a film and that was at night, in Kano. Then, on one or two occasions while I was in Osogbo Grammar School in what was known as the Western Region then, I sneaked out of the boarding house to go and watch a Kung fu/martial arts film. I was lucky I was never caught. So, you can see that I loved films; I wanted to make the pleasure of watching films accessible to all. And even when I returned to the country after my studies in 1981, people were still going to cinema houses, going to Trenchard Hall at the University of Ibadan to watch plays. Then in the cinemas, we were watching imported films. We were not making them. My love for films made me want to make them and show them to people.

Local production didn’t start until about mid-1970s, really inspired by FESTAC, Ajani Ogun, Kadara and others but people did not embrace them immediately. There was a kind of dislocation. The audience (and I include myself here) was used to seeing their stars live on stage: Ogunde, Baba Sala and co. But suddenly we started seeing them, not in the flesh, but on the screen. And we thought, ‘no, this is not acceptable’ [laughter]. As a young boy, I remember seeing Ogunde stage his plays in Kano. My friends and I would eagerly go to sweep the hall and arrange the chairs. For that, we’ll be allowed into the hall free of charge after a head count of those who participated in cleaning the place. This familiarity of the audience with Ogunde and his team made me want to make films. Besides, it was difficult for the general audience to adjust to the screen, so it took them a while to make the necessary adjustment. And don’t forget that those who were followers of the Yoruba traveling theatre were not the initial cinemagoing audience in terms of preference. The theatre-going audience for stage plays was different from the cinemagoing audience. So understandably, it took a while for theatre goers to integrate themselves into this new era of their stage stars being screen idols.

Gradually indigenous films started to evolve and became acceptable. But some damage had been done by the indigenous film distributors who could not effectively and profitably run the cinema houses because they did not know the business. Consequently, they ruined the film distribution and exhibition business they bought because the era of having mass importation of foreign films from Hollywood, India, and Southeast Asia was more or less gone. Again, those who took over these businesses were not into it. They thought it was lucrative, but they didn’t know how those foreigners who started the business were doing it, or maybe they were even being used as a front by the original owners. So, the whole idea of developing indigenous production, distribution and exhibition was defeated. It affected the business generally. West African Pictures taken over by Nigerians collapsed. The bank foreclosed, ownership changed hands over the years, and those who took over the reins didn’t understand it. I looked at what was on ground and thought, “This thing can be revived, why not?”

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Agina:

WAPCo Ltd.’s history is largely unknown by cinema operators and the general moviegoing public today—why is that so?

Adesanya:

I don’t think I agree with you totally. You know about the cinema houses operating today. You probably don’t know the owners. But people knew about Casino Cinema, even if they never went there to see a film. You’ve heard about Super, Roxy, Queens, Royal cinemas and so on. You’ve also heard of Silverbird Galleria, you’ve heard of Filmhouse, Blue Pictures. Do you actually know their history? Do you know their directors? But you have an idea of their line of business. And for the average filmgoer that’s all you need to know. If you need additional information, then you have to go to the corporate registry to find out who owns what. But if you are looking for data as of 1936 in the colonial era, I doubt if you will find that [laughter].

Modalities, Operations, and Audiences

Agina:

Let me get a clear picture of your role in WAPCo Ltd. So, you joined the company, went about viewing its locations nationwide, saw their “current” state, and then sought to replicate what existed at the National Theatre, which was like a cineplex of some sort?

Adesanya:

Yes, indeed. But it was more than that, being a filmmaker myself, producer, director, writer, who had been on the road because that was how independent films were being distributed and exhibited in Nigeria in the 1970s, the 1980s, right up to the 1990s. As a producer you must be prepared to take your film to the road just like the old days of the travelling theatres because there were no distributors. So, I thought that could be a launch pad for one to create such a cinema conglomerate that would take that burden off the independent producers because in between projects you are taking your film to the road, and not until you make some good money you are not thinking of your next project. And even if you are, you are constrained by the movements, you cannot work on it.

Banks did not fund the industry during my time as a filmmaker. You had to go to individuals to raise money, use your own savings, ask your wife, children, extended family, or friends to take money from their piggy bank. The ideal thing would have been to have a distributor investing in a project, optioning the rights for distribution, exhibition, and the residual value windows. And then syndicating it around all cinemas as is done internationally. That way, you leave the producer to go and exhibit his film in a film festival, but the commercial aspect which is handled by the distributor was lacking.

West African Pictures, before my time, had invested in some of the indigenous Yoruba films, but not as a distributor nor as an exhibitor. It was just like an upfront loan which people were expected to pay back from their earnings. But that is not how to do the business. You have to option rights. That is the essence of a distributor’s investment in a film project. You don’t leave your rights and say pay me. So, if the filmmaker defaults and says, well the film didn’t sell, you are left with the short handle. There’s no money being paid back.

So, I thought I could transform that company and make it into a real film business concern. I was fortunate enough to meet the group MD, Sir Remi Omotosho. After going through my proposal, he said, why not? And I was asked to meet with the board for an interview, I did, and I was appointed as GM, which led to the tour of the cinema houses in Nigeria to look at the conditions to see what could be salvaged. We came up with a proposal to develop Casino Cinema as a flagship cinema, but that was never approved.

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Agina:

About how many cinemas nationwide did WAPCo Ltd. have when you became the GM? Which were the most popular locations and what drove the popularity?

Adesanya:

Shortly after I assumed office, I had to visit the various cities in Nigeria to have a head count of the cinema houses, and we had then about four or five in Lagos operating under different names such as Rex Cinema in Shagamu, after which its street was named Cinema Road. Later, Cinema Road became Joshua Road named after the boxer, Anthony Joshua. Ibadan at Epetedo had Queens Cinema, Rex Cinema in Ondo, Royal in Kaduna, Rex Cinema in Jos, another in Katsina, so about ten or eleven existed at that time. And of course, they were in various stages of dilapidation: a lot of them still uncovered, meaning you could only screen at night. When it rained, cinemagoers had to run under the projection booth to avoid getting soaked because the show must go on. But in the twenty-first century, that was no longer acceptable. And it was the pit toilet in use, not Water Closet. This certainly did not bring in the new class of audience that one would have loved to have. And, of course, as of that time, indigenous cinema (which predated the home video) had become well-established and accepted.

Each of these locations had its own catchment area in the neighbour-hood. Middle class workers, residents, people from neighbourhoods who didn’t have cinema houses nearby would come and mostly at night also. And we had gone beyond that era. The National Theatre had redefined [the] cinemagoing experience then. Monday to Thursday you had evenings screenings, but Friday, Saturday, Sunday, you had three shows: 12:00 p.m., 4:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. and we had one hall per location, not a cineplex.

Some of these were built ages ago. And it was like community cinemas basically: one hall per location. So, it was more of the interplay between the cinema business owner’s offering and what the community would want to see.

Casino Cinema in Yaba generated the highest revenue. Next was Super Cinema in Surulere. The one in downtown Lagos, Rainbow, followed. The least performing I think was Queens at Ebute Metta. During its heydays it used to be one of the very popular ones because we had people from the railway compound coming out. But things changed because they moved on [laughter], their tastes evolved and I think Roxy also came up in Apapa, which was roofed and air conditioned. And there was another one on Joseph Street in Lagos Island that was equally roofed and air-conditioned. The new middle class as well as the younger university graduates would rather go to Roxy in Apapa than come to Casino and of course, the facilities were not at par.

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Agina:

Who went to the cinemas and what kind of films were the audiences watching?

Adesanya:

Cinemagoing is a cultural thing. The kind of entertainment that obtains in the north is close to that of the US southwest. They love traveling theatre in the north too. To draw a parallel with southern cinemagoing, you had these traveling entertainment groups with hyena, monkeys, and other animals all over town in the north with itinerant musicians, which people came out to watch. But that did not prevent them from going to the movies. Both the Hausas and the Yorubas love going to the cinema. The difference is that the Yoruba man will go with his wife and family; the Hausa man—and I don’t mean to be derogatory, but that is what I’ve lived through, because I grew up in Kano—goes alone or with his girlfriend, never with the family. The Igbos don’t have that type of culture. They would go and watch football instead, and more recently, they would go to the night clubs and bars to drink and eat nkwobi (spicy cow foot delicacy).

The films shown were mostly videos. Well, call them pirated videos of Hollywood blockbusters featuring Steven Seagal, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rambo (Sylvester Stallone), and the rest of them. And of course, Indian films, martial art films, which we would rent from a video store were also available. We had people who were handling video distribution for renters, different from the regular home video rental shops. These ones were dedicated for the cinemas.

One such distributor was this Nigerian known as Boss, a Yoruba man called Alhaji Sikiru Sonubi who worked at Central Cinema, Lagos Street in Ebute Metta. And then, of course, the indigenous film producers would come. In their own case they rented our facilities to show their films unlike the National Theatre that would go on a percentage sharing basis, 70:30 percent. The independent companies would rather you paid upfront to rent two or three days or even a day with no risk taken, and you would come with your mobile projector. And that was it.

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Agina:

How were the cinemas funded? Would you say it was a profitable business?

Adesanya:

They were not funded by our principals. We were basically recycling what we were earning to run and meet our overheads. It was so bad that even when we came up with a development plan for Casino Cinema, it was eventually turned down because the Board just didn’t have an idea of what it was all about. It was on paper and they saw it. I remember the group auditor said to me, people like me don’t go to the cinema. I don’t see us supporting this. And I said, well, you don’t go, but what about your wife and children? Do they watch videos at home? He said, yes. And I immediately replied, that is our target audience, not people like you. I know you’d rather go to the staff club or your watering hole and hang out with your friends, so we’re not talking about people like you. Your wife and children, the market women, provision sellers, butchers, taxi drivers, mechanics, tailors . . . are the ones who patronized the cinema houses, not people like you who sit in your offices and don’t know any other form of entertainment other than to hang out with your people in the club. But this is what we want to do. If you buy into it, it will work. The group General Manager [of] Operations, Jide Ikumoluyi, was mandated to talk to me and he said, “Look, I understand perfectly well what you are proposing. Ben Bruce who was just starting out with Silverbird Galleria, was my junior at King’s College; we used to call him showbiz impresario [laughter], so I understand perfectly what you want to do. But then Odua’s policy is Odua’s policy.”

And that was what led to my resignation. This had become a dead end because if we cannot revitalize the cinema chain, turn it into a proper business, a conglomerate in itself, then what am I doing here? It’s not about me building an empire. It’s about me as a filmmaker realizing a need, seeing a platform that could be used to achieve a vision, but if you say you can’t buy into that vision, then I have no business remaining in your employment. And that was why I left in early 2005. Before then, we were essentially just breaking even. It was not what you would call a profitable enterprise because what we made was just quite enough for us. Anything outside the norm for us became a challenge and there was no way we could run to our parent company. I mean, Wemabod saw it principally as a kind of real estate thing, go and set up more shops to make more money, and get your rent.

The whole idea of obtaining the options and your rights to a film, the residual value windows, the whole value chain of the business just didn’t make sense to them. They didn’t understand and they did not want to, obviously. It was so bad that I had to meet the then Chairman of Odu’a Group, Chief Felix Kolawole Bajomo, who years later had become a senator in Abuja, to make a case for the cinema houses. I was also in Abuja, so I went to greet and congratulate him for rising to the position of a senator. We spoke about his tenure there and I told him about mine, which overlapped with his. And he said, “You know, this was never brought to the group board for consideration.” He never heard of it. Interestingly, thereafter a new managing director for Wemabod Estates was appointed. This was long after I had left. We met at the airport and he remembered my proposal and he said, “Look, I can’t find a copy in any of our offices in Wemabod, Lagos or the group head office in Ibadan. If you have a copy, can you send it to me? I want to take a look at it.” I was able to get my own copy. I photocopied it, sent it to him, but he did not last six months in office when he died and that was the end of it.

Reflections on Government Intervention and Achievements

Agina:

What was the business and political environment like when you were the GM?

Adesanya:

I think the government lost interest in the sector with the failure of the indigenization decree¹² to effectively hand over the businesses to Nigerians. Independent filmmakers like Ola Balogun, Adeyemi Afolayan, Hubert Ogunde, Baba Sala, Eddie Ugbomah, Ladi Ladebo, despite their box office successes, were not getting any kind of cultural or arts funding from the state or federal or local government or any cultural institution. They were left to their own devices to raise money through loans, money from friends or from other enterprises they were engaged in to make their films. So, there was no involvement of the government or even the private sector or the banking sector to say we have dedicated funds for filmmaking. There was nothing like that. And up to now we still can’t—despite the proposals on the table to have either an arts, culture, or film fund—fund the industry satisfactorily. It’s not that efforts have not been made; it’s not that we don’t have the expertise, but somehow, they’ve just failed to materialize. Yes, NEXIM and BOI¹³ came up, but how many people were able to access those funds, and when you’ve gained access, how do you repay it? They invested so much in equipment that were not generating revenue to repay the loans. But you see, you need to understand a business to be able to say I’m putting money on the table for this business, and you know how to make that money back. If you invest money in film equipment and I do the same, then, who’s renting from who? Or if I say, “I’m going to make a film.” The next questions would be “what kind of film? Has it got commercial potential?” Our bankers understand selling and buying. They understand the capital market, how you trade in treasury bills, they understand the energy sector, but for most other sectors they don’t have no clue. Even when there’s a proposal on the table, they still don’t get it. I don’t think this is one of those things they train them in [laughter].

I went to the capital market to raise one million debenture stock for my second film, Ose Sango. But how many people could do that then? Oladele had money raised by the International Merchant Bank Limited Lagos for his film, but how many of us had that opportunity? Very few, very, very few— you can probably count us on the fingers of one hand.

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Agina:

So, in the four years you spent at WAPCo Ltd., what would you say was your biggest achievement?

Adesanya:

First and foremost, we were able to streamline the way we got returns from the outstations because the head office was in Lagos. Before my time the outstation managers would call all supervisors to report the earnings and various activities. And I said, no, you call now and later you say no, that was not the account I gave you. I don’t want any arguments. Set up an email address. This is the head office’s email address. Send us your written report. We were able to meet our overheads monthly, pay salaries and then quarterly pay our directors their seating allowances. We also made enough money to rent films. So, we were operating on a shoestring budget quite alright, but we were managing on our own because we didn’t get any kind of financial support from our parent company, Wemabod or the Odu’a Conglomerate.

But it was obvious that people liked a very decent environment to go and watch a film. And of course, the National Theatre, which is where we are today, had become established as the number one event place when it comes to going out to see a film.

________

Agina:

In your experience and understanding of the history of WAPCo Ltd., and more broadly exhibition and distribution spaces in Nigeria from, as you’ve mentioned, the 1930s to date, when you sit back at home and look at the industry today, the exhibition space and Nollywood, how do you feel?

Adesanya:

I’m a very happy and fulfilled man. I’ve worked as a filmmaker. As a technocrat in this sector, I rose to the pinnacle to become the Managing Director and Chief Executive of the Nigerian Film Corporation. At that level, I was responsible for policy development in the industry, so that gives me an advantage to have an overview of this sector. And we were, in partnership with others, among those that supplied the data that made the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to recognise Nollywood as the third largest industry to start with before becoming the second. But personally, considering that I started my career making films during the indigenous film production era of 1980s and segued into Nollywood, I’m very happy.

I’m also pleased that I worked with Ladi Ladebo on some of his independent feature films, and Truth Collector, which he made for TV. I span the indigenous cinema era and Nollywood, and I can see the growth. I can see the results. I’ve been part of taking Nigeria to film festivals, positioning Nollywood within and outside the country, going with filmmakers all over the place. We’ve made tremendous growth. So, when you talk of a quantum of production, we are right there, up there, and the productions are getting better. Sound used to be a problem; we’ve overcome that; the cinematography is better, the storyline is our story, and that was something I learned from my children much earlier when they were younger. At that point in time, they said, look, daddy, forget about quality, forget about everything. It’s our story and the stars are our own people, and that was what sold the indigenous cinema to Nigerians and the world, telling our story, using our own people, making stars out of them, making a business, a living out of it all. One can only be grateful.

Distributors and exhibitors, to go back to the focus of this conversation, still have challenges—mainly from aggrieved independent filmmakers—to contend with. This is a problem that could lead to anti-trust legal tussle between independent filmmakers and the distributors/exhibitors who are also producing their own films. But I’m happy that this generation of Nigerian distributors/exhibitors have a better understanding of the business. Some of them have worked with cinema chains in the UK, and the South African NuMetro, which operated in Nigeria for a couple of years. The opportunities for further growth are out there, but the dynamics might be decided by online streaming, an apparent threat to cinema theatrical release tradition, no thanks to Netflix et al.

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Agina:

Thank you very much, sir!