Veteran comic actor, Chika Okpala, popularly known as Chief Zebrudaya has lamented that foreign Television Channels like Telemundo and Zee World have won Nigerian fans over to the bletrinent of local channels as indigenous drama series were being ignored.
He stressed that foreign soaps like Mexican soups, Telemundo and Zee World and the rest of them have flooded our TV screens now and our indigenous TV series are suffering. Those popular programmes like The New Masquerade, Cock Crow at Dawn, the Village Head Master, Hotel De Jordan etc were left to slip away.
The legendary actor disclosed that the lack of sponsorship has hindered the production of most TV series in the country,. The 69 years old comic actor also noted that old TV series were left abandoned because sponsor withdrew.
He said the dwindling economy is the major problem of production in the country and lack of sponsorship has contributed to the dearth of programmes on TV stations in the country.
Chief Zebrudaya expressed optimism that if those programmes were still being aired, actors, actresses producers, directors and many Nollywood practitioners be employed and people will be entertainer also. The private sector complained about the economy and without the economy being vibrant you cannot push the people, they cannot do productions without it yielding something substantial to take care of the families.
“If you engage an artiste and he performs for free today, tomorrow, he may not because he has to pay his rent and take care of other things”, he said.
The Nigeria comedy pioneer and entertainment icon his advised the Federal Government to factor in the role of the entertainment industry in national development stressing that key actors are not recognized in Nigeria. They were being celebrated in other countries like Gambia, where the president of Gambia honoured over 17 of them with a plot of land in choice locations in the country but generally I have not seen the Nigerian society being special to us, they don’t even know that we exist”, he stressed.
Okpala who spoke during a press briefing in Abuja to announce the public presentation of a new movie titled “I Believe” which stars Desmond Eliot, Patience Ozokwor and other key Nollywood actors supported by the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) disclosed that government has not been supportive to him and some other colleagues who were part of the popular 80s comedy show, “The New Masquerade.” They only think of themselves and ignore others.
He noted that only one individual called prophet T.B. Joshua of the synagogue Church of All Nations responds to the problems of people “if he calls you and wants to honour you, he will give you one car and one million naira, which Nigeria as a whole cannot do”. He cried out that even the suggestion by the former finance minister Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala that the nations entertainment industry was adding a lot to the growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Nigeria has been swept to aside and thrown away”.
Okpala stated that they know that there is no event or gathering that takes place in Nigeria today without entertainment, yet government don’t want to recognize the industry.