Even though you were in the media?
Yes, even though I was in the media. I would contribute to writing news stories, they would have me write it my way and then they say to the black people ‘you see Iloyd over there, he is doing it’. And that is as far as it goes. And meanwhile, for the rest of the day, for the rest of your life, you never see anything different from what they want.
Let’s talk about your coming to Nigeria now. You came when Nigeria was just coming out of colonialism?
I first came in 1969, that was during the civil war. But I came to safety in 1982.
How long did you stay in your first coming?
I stayed for two weeks. I came again in 1979. I had met a Nigerian by name Jimi Solanke, he invited me to come. I stayed for two weeks and during that trip, I actually visited the NTA Ibadan again. I was asked to do a documentary film on black Americans. When I came in 1982, it was a shocking experience. There was absolutely no sign of patriotism in anybody that I saw. Nigeria was the most chaotic place that I had ever seen. Shehu Shagari was the president. This was when the term ‘kill and go’ became public, there were policemen running out on the streets, jumping up and down and beating people. Corruption was at its height, I couldn’t get anything done at NTA.
Though we managed by virtue of our personalities, we saw people but then, politicians were coming and demanding, ‘do this story on me, do that story about me’ and you have been working all day doing a story that makes sense and then it gets prompted by politics. We really travelled and then Nigerians realised the state of things and didn’t think much of themselves and didn’t think much of the possibilities of the nation bringing itself together.
If anything went wrong, the words that would come out of somebody were ‘oh! Nigeria…” it is almost forgotten now but that was the atmosphere at that time. We went all round Nigeria, spending a month at almost every NTA station and that was the first experience in which I got to see all of Nigeria. I was very interested in culture, so all of my off-duty time I was in somebody’s village attending one festival or another or naming or wedding ceremony. So, as far as I am concerned, by the time we finished, I had a better picture of Nigeria than many Nigerians.
You arrived after one coup, then had a civilian administration then sank into another season of coups d’ tat?
Right! We did a good job. Our contract was renewed in 1983 and then after a short time came a guy named Buhari and his partner, Idiagbon. All contracts got cancelled. I was here throughout that transition. A guy who is an actor named Femi Dare was our guardian wherever we went. I remember him saying this was a ‘corrective coup, don’t worry about anything, stay put’. But we were out of job.
By that time we had met so many Nigerians and there was so much goodwill for us particularly this was the very beginning in Nigeria of independent television company. There were two; there was Steve Ojo, with the company named Interpart, he now owns Galaxy Television and there was Cinegraph which was owned by a couple of people which included Tunde Kelani. Steve Ojo was the first Nigeria to break into doing television commercials. The TV commercials were still being done by white companies in Nigeria.
They were at the height of television production, that is why they look so good. In America at that time, black people didn’t do television commercials, it was restricted to specific ethnic groups. I won’t get into that. I had never done that. So, we worked with two other partners, decided to stay on. We worked with Steve Ojo for a while, did our first TV commercial. Steve was getting work by saying that ‘I have some American working with me.” Some of the agencies notably Insight Communications had just begun, Biodun Shobanjo hired Steve Ojo to work with him and then snuck us behind Steve to work with him. I remember Steve was very angry. And that began a career that I wasn’t about to turn my back on. Here I was doing up to three TV commercials of all things a month.
At the same time, a friend at the NTA was doing soap operas. He left NTA and started duplicating their work and putting them on VHS cassettes and that was the beginning of the home movie production in Nigeria. Most of these people were people that we trained at NTA. This was the beginning of my association with the movie industry. My life was interesting as a television producer and as a television journalist. All through that, I remembered what I learnt in the US. I had a purpose; here I was with a craft and experience under my belt that could be used to change millions of Nigerians every day. What was I going to do with the precious thing called airtime that I had access to? Now, I wasn’t working for CBS or anyone else. I was working for Lloyd, I was working for Africa.
And not only that, I found I could convince other people to do the same thing while you are it. It wasn’t as easy as I thought. I just inserted inserts into the TV commercials. Who was the woman using the soap? That is an idealistic person. Instead of putting western dress on her, I said let me put her in African dresses. Instead of choosing the almost white-looking models which was what the white production companies want, I took the blackest model and made her be somebody that is so beautiful, so that maybe black women can look at themselves with pride. Somebody said it wasn’t a bright idea, that when I was leaving the US, I was making between $60, 000 a year and here when I figure it out, I was making something like $9, 000. But I was okay here as time went on, we started a studio called Swift Studios. This involved serious Nigerian television issues.
All of the best talent, in front or behind the camera passed through Swift Studios. And so a lot of people in Nigeria were crediting me with exerting some influence in their development. People that came to Swift to star in TV commercials some of whom are top stars in movie and television industry today and so were a lot of directors, producers and so on; they got their training through us. I campaigned against when they commit a sin against Nigeria as I still do now when they put a juju scene, a witchdoctor scene or everyday someone is trying to steal the inheritance of their father and there are never any heroes in Nigeria movies. In American movies, the protagonists almost goes through ups and downs as a role model, he becomes a role model teaching you how to solve the problems of your life. Nigerian movies never show you a hero. If you see a hero, in the end he dies, so who is going to emulate the guy that dies?
What was your experience with the Nigerian culture, at that time you had go travel round the country while you were out of job?
Strange indeed! Nigerians are strange people to describe. On one hand because of the influence of the west, they would put down every African trait you can think of. On the other hand, especially at that time, you go to Lagos, there was owambe in every place. You go to church on Sunday, the regalia was totally African. So, it was like a sort of transition. You hate something but you love the thing that you hate because it’s you. People talk about the loss of African language, at that time, it wasn’t embarrassing, you would say. I can’t speak Yoruba, Yorubas love their language. They are not taking it easy at all. You can be sitting there with a group of friends and they are going on and on not caring that you don’t understand what they are saying.
The Hausas love the language and the same with Igbo and it’s the same with everybody. So, culture was alive for me to see it, feel it, and for me to weave into the middle of it. Not being from here, I’m interested in the history of my “ancestors” I am very interested in traditional culture, traditional religion. That was very fast disappearing. You said the babalawo is a bad guy, so you mean my ancestor was a bad guy? I don’t believe it, I got to know about the babalawo, I have to learn that they have a scripture. It is sacred and divine just like the Bible and the Holy Koran.
Again, you have somebody elsewhere controlling your attitudes towards these people. The person that gives you God has enslaved you. That further puts you at a psychological disadvantage. You turn on the CNN and you see an advertisement they say “Come to Greece, the home of the gods” you go to Greece everybody is a Christian. They don’t put down their ancestors. They tell you that the Greeks and the Romans are the basis of civilization.
Was the need to connect with your ancestors the reason you decided to marry and have your children here? Was that a deliberate attempt to get them indoctrinated into your belief?
I had no reason to have children in Africa. I didn’t hope to overcome the psychological disadvantages. And since being an African was almost a negative thing, that means that I have to come up with a system that while being kind to them, they had to be in an atmosphere where they could say “Africa has problems, my life could be devoted to solving those problems, I have to love Africa as a person”. I told myself that my children will not leave this country until they had some education here. They must have the advantage of saying, I am an African-American. Americans think differently of their nationality. You have a loyalty to where you come from. America is very ethnicist in nature – you hear of Hungarian-Americans, Anglo-Americans, etc. They function in groups and they compete that way. But when the flag goes up, all of that disappears.
To our disadvantage, our people needed to be proud to be Hausa or Igbo or Yoruba or Kanuri and when the flag goes up, we are all one. That brings me to my present wok. In raising those children, that was when I discovered that history wasn’t even taught in the Nigerian curriculum. I helped my kid do his home work and I asked him ‘where is your history home work?’ He said ‘we don’t offer history’ and I asked him ‘what do you mean you don’t have history?’ in the US, history from the first grade to the second year in the university is mandatory.
And here, I got children who don’t have it at all. And then I realised that why America teaches history the way it does. That’s how you get to be an American. You are taught to think that way. Nigerians are not taught to think that way. So, I decided to teach them. Remember, I was already brainwashed myself before. So, I’m even reading this history differently than Nigerians would. He is reading a negative story, I’m reading a positive story but we are reading the same information. At the same time, I was travelling round the country doing documentaries for different companies, for different state governments.
And every place that I always find all kinds of story tellers with amazing stories. You would find stories of heroes that fought the British. And you begin to get a sense of things. As I’m living in Nigeria, I want to get the thread of heroes, that story of the Nanas, Jajas, Ovoramwen, Kokos. They fought, it was violent, it was tragic in many ways because the British had guns.
The people fought nonetheless all over this country. There are certain areas of this country where there was ethnic cleansing. The reason some parts of this country are sparsely populated is that of the slaughter they suffered in the hands of the British. There is no place in his country where you can’t dig up a hero. And that is the story that Nigeria struggled for independence. What about the 20th century? The Awolowos, the Ziks, the Sardaunas. For the long spell, you only hear about the Sardauna just for the North not having anything to do with anything south, you don’t hear about the things that he said about the British. You hear about Awolowo as a tribalist; the only resources he had were the resources that were given to him by the Western Region and he said I will show you what I mean’ which is why education was free in the region.
Leave a Reply