Naijaonpoint

hitherto controversial guild, the charming lady seems to be doing very well so far with no dispute, in the guild. In this chat with lanre odukoya, she talks about the challenges of running the guild and her achievements

OUR ACHIEVEMENTS IN SIX MONTHS...

Everything we achieved is credited to the team. At least, we have some milestones to show for our stewardship in six months; we have united all warring factions, constructed a new multimedia website with online registration/revalidation to enable us know membership strength and we have commenced in earnest. We now have our Health Management Plans and Insurance Schemes for members. I must also add that we have inaugurated two new chapters, founded the first ever veteran's meeting series across the six geo-political zones, redressed the skewed perception of the guild to a more positive one for the general public, government and the press. The list is endless. We are perceived as a better guild now and people from the international community also feel safe to reckon with us. We hope that we can muster the trust of actors with these achievements even as we continue to build bridges across the network of the performing actors in the country.

WHAT I'VE DONE TO UNIFY THE GUILD...

If you follow the way AGN is run, you'd realize that from time immemorial, there have been factions. When I came in as the Guild's president, I tried to unite every-body. The 'A-listers' are on their own, the veterans too are in another camp and it's seemed everyone had given up on this guild. Now, when we came to power, we'd reached out to a lot of people to come back. Part of the reasons for the previous crisis was because the veterans were not too happy with upcoming actors running the Guild. They made me know that they came back because I called them to come and be part of the decisions of the Guild and that if they were going to be part of the guild, they must know what is going on. I made them realize that there was no foul play anywhere that nobody had brought them to insult anybody- Their grouse was that the young man running the body then was only three years old in the guild. And I said that it was improper to use that against him because he had gone through screening with the AGNEC. For the sake of peace, I gave everyone a level playing ground, so that we won't have people throwing daggers at one another.

THE GUILD'S IMMEDIATE PROJEC-TIONS...

Though we have one year and six months to remain in office but we don't feel that there's enough time to address some pivotal issues and nip some threats in the bud. For our duly registered members, we are improving welfare package. Training and re-training of members in all categories are providing standard contract for members with the producers. We also want to institute the first ever actors summit to discuss our challenges and prospects. In the pipeline is also the commencement for the collection of actors' residuals, launch of benevolence funds to support our members amidst several others.

ON THE RECENTLY HELD LAGOS CHAPTER AGN ELECTION...

We had the election last Saturday. It was free and fair until the point when we had to announce the result. Actors 'Guild National Electoral Commission made a mistake. They started announcing from the chairman's point of view. There were two candidates for chairman -Victor Osuagwu and Don Pedro Aganbe. Then they started counting Aganbe's result and when they got to number 45, some boys accosted me. They said 1 was manipulating the results and said how can I let Victor lose'? I asked them to calm down and allow us count the vote in front of everyone there. They refused and I had some personal bouncers. I hired guard's from Voltron Securities. They stopped them from at-tacking me, so I grabbed the ballot box and took off with them. And we had a representative from Nasarawa State with us who jumped inside the car with me. She was even the one who had the ballot box. I got somewhere safe, summoned the AGNEC and they counted the ballot papers. Osuagwu had 80 votes as against 69 votes that the other guy had. So, we went ahead and announced the result so that there wouldn't be any situation where people would complain that the ballot box slept overnight with anyone. I insisted the result must be announced immediately after counting and Osuagwu won. We had to invite all the contestants to come and we counted the votes again. The election held in Surulere Local Government Area. It was there we hired the policemen from the Area C command. Channels Television recorded it live till when the results were announced. Prior to the elections, I'd been sent threat text messages and got even four fake court injunctions and all were not registered and all those who signed them were fake people.

ABOUT THE AGGRIEVED PARTY...

There's nowhere in Nigeria where you won't find aggrieved parties. So, it's only natural, but there's nothing to worry about. Everything is under control. Aganbe ran as chairman and didn't have the whole team with him unlike Victor Osuagwu who had the vice chairman, secretary and in fact, the whole team with him. So even if he had won, you can imagine how he would fare with someone else's team.

WHY THE LAGOS CHAPTER ELECTION WAS SO DEAR TO ME...

It's because of the past EXCOs. It was be-coming militarized. There was so much intimidation that even some people couldn't express themselves freely at the meetings. They didn't give us account of office. And we had done the revalidation. When we do the swearing-in, we'd hand over a cheque to them. So, there's now an account and you'd be accountable for everything you do. I am not particular about Lagos state. All the 26 states matter to me now. I want things to be done right.