IT’S NOT TRUE, GOV AMAECHI DIDN’T INSULT NOLLYWOOD- NIRAN ADEDOKUN, HEAD OF JURY, BON AWARDS

Niran Adedokun

 Niran Adedokun, Head of Jury, Best of Nollywood (BON), has rubbished reports circulating online that Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi, ‘insulted’ Nollywood practitioners and described them as ‘products of circumstances because they had failed in other fields.’ The statement, according to reports, was purportedlytrue made at the BON Awards event held on Thursday night, October 16th, 2014, at the State Government House in Port-Harcourt. 

According to Adedokun, Amaechi was only trying to explain the current situation of the country viz massive job unemployment. He said, “Amaechi never said that. What he said was that a lot of people are into acting because of the situation of things in the country. He said many of them probably studied other courses and didn’t get jobs in those fields. He wasn’t talking about the movie industry alone; he actually mentioned the case of people who read Engineering but work in banks…that was exactly what he was talking about; that because there are no jobs in the country, a lot of people are working in fields they didn’t study for.

Speaking on the quality of the event, Adedokun said, “My assessment of the award ceremony was that everybody was pleased with the event. It went well, and I was glad,” he said.

On reports of low-turnout of actors, he said, “There wasn’t any low turn-out. As a matter of fact, we had a lot of actors in attendance. I really can’t speak much on that because I wasn’t in charge of that aspect, but to be frank with you, I was shocked because 90% of the awards we presented were collected by the recipients themselves, either individually, or by a member of the production team. To say that there were few actors there is totally wrong,” he stated.