Foremost actor and chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Actors Guild of Nigeria Prince Ifeanyi Dike speaks with Gboyega Alaka on his travail and recovery from a life-threatening kidney illness, Nollywood, the Ibinabo Fiberesima/Clarion Chukwura rift and the values that make Nigeria a unique country.
IT’S good to see you looking so hale and hearty, what’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt coming out of your illness?
Actually nobody is above sickness and I thank God that I have a very wonderful wife who took care of me while I was down. I tell you, it was not easy. Of course you know the Nigerian mentality, where when celebrities are sick, they don’t want people to know. But it got to a stage when my wife said, “No, you can’t keep quiet anymore.” The truth is that you will eventually get poor if you have loads of money and have to spend a minimum of N250,000 every week on dialysis, because you don’t even have the strength to make more money. So I struggled with my situation for about one year until my wife picked up her phone one day and started calling people. She could not understand why I, who had always been caring and ever ready to help others, would now choose to suffer and die in silence. The news got to Segun Arinze, a former chairman of the Actors Guild of Nigeria, who immediately rallied round and got the support of Mr. Babatunde Fashola, the action governor of Lagos State. In fact, his reaction time was so quick that before I knew it, the cheque was in my hand, and written in my name! I must say that even the president also responded at some point. But again, that might be because I am an actor, and popular; and my heart goes to other people who are suffering from the same ailment and have to go through dialysis without the help I got.
We hear you’re planning a foundation in that regard.
Yes. I’m working on establishing the Ifeanyi Dike Kidney Foundation to assist people suffering from kidney failure. The problem is not just about the money or even the kidney transplant. People are scared of organ donation. And you need another human being, whose organ matches yours to agree to willingly donate his kidney. Some people look at me today and wonder if I really went through a kidney transplant. But the truth is that I went through kidney transplant twice. The first one failed. Yes. But I didn’t want to make any noise about it and had to go about the second transplant quietly. That was why I was away for one year. Besides I was wary of Nigerians, who might easily conclude that I was using it to raise money.
People might even say that you got careless with your health
Yeah. But let me tell you, it is not only smoking or drinking. These may be factors that contribute to it, but one thing that causes it especially in Nigeria is too much self medication to suppress pain. Too much use of analgesics. I think that was what knocked my kidneys down, because I used to work very hard; and every time I came back home, I’d just swallow two tablets to quell the pains, without giving my body the chance to rest and reinvigorates itself.
So how are you adhering to the regiment that comes with such transplant?
After the transplant, the doctors in India would tell you to go back to your normal life. But the reality is that they’re probably assuming that we eat the same kind of food as they do. So when we come back here, we start swallowing wraps of pounded yam, eating loads of meat and all those heavy food. Would you believe that eating animal skin is dangerous to our health? And this includes cow legs, where unfortunately the illnesses in the animals settle. So I eat right, and that is probably why people say that I’m looking finer than even they who hadn’t been ill.
Now to Nollywood; you’ve been reacting to the Clarion Chukwura /Ibinabo Fiberesima imbroglio. What exactly do you think is the way out?
But for the fact that I am also a journalist, that is a question I would ordinarily not respond to. You see, you don’t poke your nose into what you are not a part of. I keep telling people, it’s not all actors and actresses that are part of the Actors’ Guild of Nigeria, irrespective of how popular they are. It’s like the Guild of Editors. You have editors of publications who don’t belong there. Can somebody in such publication come and be saying that Femi Adeshina is not qualified to be president? So I think she made a big mistake in taking her on in such a manner. It is possible that some people might have been inciting her to go after the lady based on her popularity, but as a senior person in the industry, I think the right approach would have been to call her and register her displeasure. Do you know this whole quarrel began when the young lady took some actors to meet the president?
Part of her grouse was that she is not qualified for the position and that she is an ex-convict.
The issue of ex-convict does not arise. And regarding her qualification, Ibinabo has been the chairman of Rivers State Actors’ Guild. And that was after participating as a member and as an executive. Tell me the chapter Clarion Chukwura has headed. It was after this that she decided to go for the presidency of the national body. So she graduated. In fact her election was held twice. Rachael Oniga was the chairman of the commission that brought her in. I was not even around then.
We hear that it has been near impossible to access the fund the president promised the industry.
If the bank says it is going to give you money and at the end of the day, you are not able to fulfill the requirement, do you blame the bank? Jonathan is not going to give anybody free money. The truth is that people have been accessing the money. The trip to Abuja was to make the president understand the problem the industry was facing; and also make him our grand patron. Do you know that the Nigerian Actors Guild is a member of the International Film Federation? And that foreign visitors come to meet us in Nigeria and we receive them in our little flat office in Surulere? Ibinabo presented this problem to the president during that visit and he immediately promised us a plot of land in Abuja and also promised to build it for the association. This young lady also struggle to raise money to assist industry member who fall sick or are in need of help. How many members pay their dues? I think it is time we stopped the PHD (Pull Him Down) syndrome.
Some people still think that Nollywood is a bit behind.
The area I think the government should assist Nollywood is in the area of props. Like you see a police uniform in a movie, and you immediately know that it is not real. At times, we use stick guns and plastic guns in our movies, and this does not make it look real. These are the things we need in our movies. The airports should not charge us money, because these are movies promoting Nigeria! People are willing to produce epic stories to promote Nigeria, like ‘Madam Tinubu, Aba Women Riot;’ like ECOMOG and how Nigeria liberated West African during their conflicts. Do you know that the American dollars became popular through the movies? So if you want Nigeria to become as respected as the United Kingdom or America, all you need to do is project it positively in our movies. There are ghettos worse than Ajegunle in the US, but they’ll never project that. People sleep on the streets in London. Do you know that we are the kindest people in the world? Here if you go to a party where you’re not invited, and you get food to eat, because we have compassion. You don’t have that in Europe or America..
Let’s talk about your television programme Sunday Delight.
At the moment, I have developed about 15 TV shows, but Sunday Delight is the one currently on air on NTA 10. It is a talk show/business programme where we advertise a lot of people, promote businesses, bring some clips from the Youtube that will interest Nigerians; entertainment generally. I also conceptualised the Traders’ Cup. It is coming back bigger and better this year as the Centenary Traders’ Cup, with a big company coming sponsoring. I am also working on a television sitcom to be called Mazi and family.
