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Clarion Chukwura Bombs Ibinabo Fiberesima

Clarion ChukwuraClarion Chukwura’s story in showbiz reads like a fairy tale. She has acted both on screen and on stage for over 30 years, yet her star is yet to wane. The actress spoke with ORUKPE NELSON about her issues with AGN and life at 51.

There was a photograph of you posted online recently that created some buzz due to how much younger you looked; did you post those pictures for any reason?

It was my birthday three Fridays ago and a set of photos of me were posted to celebrate my birthday. Last year, I did the same and essentially I was saying, ‘it’s my birthday and this is what I look like right now’.

You turned 51 three weeks ago, do you feel slowed down by age?

I’m a very athletic and hardworking person. I still feel very agile and the best way to answer your question is that you’re just as old as you feel.

Do you think you should have done certain things differently?

Life is a journey and we travel different roads we’re meant to travel. If you were not meant to travel certain directions, you would travel there. There’s no road that I have traveled and didn’t come out successfully. I don’t feel there’s anything I should have done differently because I didn’t come out losing.

From your formative years, is there anything you missed and wished you still had time to do?

Yes, there is. I had to grow very quickly because I lost my father when I was 11 years old. I became a star when I was 18 years of age and I was thrown into a life having to watch what I do and then I became a mother as a teenager. I didn’t really have that luxury and opportunity of enjoying teenage life. I became responsible for a whole lot of things that early.

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In 1982, you won the best actress award at the All African Film Festival held in Burkina Faso…

No, the award was given to me in 1984 because Ola Balogun’s film was shot in 1982, but the All African Film Festival gave me the award for the Best Actress. The award was what they actually give for films reviewed in every decade. That was for films from 1974 to 1984 and I won it for my appearance in Ola Balogun’s film that was shot in 1982.

How do you now rate the number of awards meant to honour members of the industry?

Everyone knows that the award issue has become a money-making affair, most of them lack credibility and they’re with genuine interest at heart. They don’t really add value to the filmmaking industry and I’m sure that nothing about this is new.

A few months ago, you asked that the president of the Actors’ Guild of Nigeria, Ibinabo Fiberisima, should relinquish her position and shortly after, Emeka Ike dragged her to court over the affair. Today, Emeka claims to be the guild’s acting president. What is your reaction?

I will answer with the name of Chinua Achebe’s book, Things Fall Apart. When things fall apart, the centre can no longer hold. Former president, Goodluck Jonathan, gave Ibinabo Fiberisima the support to bastardise the guild and that has happened. And it’s going to take the overhauling of the guild’s foundation to make things right. Everything from the board of trustees, the executives at state and national level has already been compromised.

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They’re in court already, but if Emeka Ike is favoured to be the guild’s president, would that change anything?

I said the very fabric of the guild has been compromised. It would take laying a new foundation and it’s the best that can happen to the guild. Ibinabo Fiberisima cannot do that because she’s the symbol of the bastardization of the guild. Emeka Ike from all intent and purposes, I think he has a plan but it’s beyond having a plan as an individual.

The industry needs a single guild for the entire film industry. I wanted to become the president of the Actors’ Guild because I wanted to go into consultation with those who call themselves Kannywood (from the north), Association of National Theatre Practitioners (from the southwest) and other factions. The only way the industry can move forward is if the guild is run like in the countries where the idea was borrowed from. The guild arrangement isn’t Nigeria’s original idea, Nollywood borrowed it from the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

The UK has a stage actors’ guild and a screen actors’ guild. The same thing obtains in the USA. Here in Nigeria, just one guild is representing both the screen and the stage actors’ guild. Until things are done the way they should be done, there will continue to be squabble whether Emeka Ike becomes president or Ibinabo Fiberisima uses whatever connection she has to win the case. That will not move the industry or the guild forward. What will move the industry forward is for the government to do the right thing.

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You’ve stopped appearing in Yoruba movies, is this deliberate?

Between year 2000 and 2003, I did a number of Yoruba movies alongside English movies. I decided that I wasn’t going to do Yoruba movies anymore because the logistics were not improving and the quality of production wasn’t moving forward. And soon it became a situation where anybody could just become a producer.

But there are emerging producers now who deploy ultra-modern tools for production and who have improved welfare. Are these sufficient incentives for you?

I think two young Yoruba producers whose works I’ve seen have approached me. Their works are worthy of note but, unfortunately, when one of them approached me, I was on my way to the United States and the second one approached me when I had a line up of movies to do. There was this other lady who made me know that she came into the industry because of me and I did her movie for that singular honour and that was the last movie I did. That was in 2011.