Dickson Igwe. Photo: VINO/File

Amaka Igwe. Photo: sunnewsonline.com

OK. The sight of the white casket of Amaka Igwe, surrounded by a young and grieving family, garnered from a Nigerian blog, hit this Old Boy hard. Even though he never met her, he was deeply saddened. Amaka was a Facebook friend, so this social media user had the opportunity to connect with her online.

Amaka Igwe was also a relative. She is the wife of this Journalist’s first cousin, Charles Igwe, a Nollywood mover and shaker. Amaka Igwe passed away from complications with asthma on April 28, 2014. There is also the matter of a doctor’s strike in the eastern Nigerian city of Enugu that could have made matters worse.

Now, another thing that struck this Eternal Observer was the vast news coverage of Amaka’s untimely death, nationally. Amaka was just 51. And, Amaka’s death spoke to him in another way. Many a visionary and pioneer never see the end result of their hard work and effort. Abraham Lincoln, Walt Disney, Martin Luther King, Patrice Lumumba, and John Kennedy, did not live to see their visions manifest, fully. In death, Amaka has joined that supremely select group.

Her life was a lesson in vision, and the importance of having a purpose. Speaking at a dinner with Nigeria’s President on March 2, 2013, Amaka described how, “Nollywood found the way for liberating Nigeria’s cultural and creative sensibilities.” Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy, and most populous country, with over 160 million people.

Amaka stated how Nollywood had given Africa an avenue for showcasing its culture to the world through storytelling. The avant garde Nollywood movie industry, had also taken African film from the sidelines, placing the industry at the very center of African society. Nollywood was also at the center of entertainment in the African Diaspora.

Beginning in the 1990s, the vision of Amaka Igwe of a global movie industry featuring African culture and society was able to pull along, and then eventually lift to the feet, an embryonic movie culture, and cottage industry, sitting in Nigerian obscurity.

Having a vision and purpose enabled Amaka and others take a fledgling industry, “with no formal structure, no government aid, no government backing, no financial support from the big institutions, solely dependent on informal markets, that were driven largely by importers of electronic appliances,’’ transforming this resource poor, and obscure film culture, into a global phenomenon.”

Nollywood is furthermore a cultural phenomenon, Amaka stated. Scholars and researchers use the Nollywood model in their study of African society, in all of its complexities, nuances, and dimensions. Documentaries, programmes, commentary, and news pieces on Nollywood have established the industry as an African institution. Amaka asserted in her speech that the African movie industry was a field of inquiry and research in its own right. And Nollywood has been described by bright minds as "the most indigenous, and industrious, film making culture, in the black world.’’ Recently, UNESCO named Nollywood the world’s second largest film industry.

Amaka spoke of the continuing mission to ensure the vision of Nollywood as Africa’s number 1 movie industry. Nollywood sits in a country with an annual Gross Domestic Product of $500 billion, and Africa’s largest economy. Global movie sales are a trillion dollar business: 1000 billion USD. The USA earns half of this revenue. The other half is earned by various countries in Europe and Asia. China and India for example, host multibillion dollar movie industries.

Amaka described how Nollywood lacked the requisite commercial infrastructure that ensures industrial and economic continuity in a highly profitable industry. Nollywood was not leveraging itself sufficiently enough to take full advantage of a multibillion dollar global entertainment industry.

This lack of appropriate infrastructure prevented Nollywood from fulfilling its potential. There had furthermore been a failure to establish the type of processes that protect a growing and thriving industry from its own success, an unpredictable economic environment, and ever present predators.

This failure had resulted in a decline in Nollywood’s distribution network. Piracy at 82% was wreaking havoc on the industry. The lack of appropriate infrastructure in Nigeria, in the form of movie theaters, and the type of supporting facilities and resources that help build demand, and deliver supply, in the movie market in developed countries, was a setback to Nollywood.

Illegal activity was also a disaster for Nollywood. Amaka and her fellow movie makers had “identified over 50,000 outlets where Nigerian films, were sold, rented, and viewed illegally.” Effective government intervention was required to end the piracy anomaly.

Amaka’s visionary mindset saw where, “the internet was becoming critical to movie distribution.” Amaka the visionary spoke about the essence of Nollywood. This lay in Nollywood’s rich storytelling tradition. Nollywood’s strength lay in Nigeria’s rich, colorful, historic, and vibrant culture. Marrying this with digital technology was the way ahead.

Global viewers of Nollywood were attracted by the prism the industry offered into African society. Viewers of Nollywood did not want another Hollywood. Viewers wanted African stagecraft, nuance, tradition, culture, comedy, and drama.

Amaka Igwe ended her speech by asserting that Nollywood could become a global “money spinner.” Nollywood, well managed, could earn billions, and create thousands more careers and jobs. The Nollywood brand was becoming a major pillar of the Nigerian and African economy. Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy.

The major lesson from Amaka Igwe’s speech for these Virgin Islands is how a great vision could be hindered by a lack of national planning and an unclear national mission. The vision of Nollywood as a global player, matching the Hollywoods and Bollywoods, was certainly possible, considering the social and economic environment in which Nollywood sat. However, Nigeria’s various idiosyncrasies, such as endemic corruption, political instability, and poor governance, leading to an even poorer social and economic infrastructure, were tying the hands of a very promising movie industry.

Despite decades of war and deprivation, and great poverty, Nigeria and Sub Saharan Africa is a region of large vibrant cities, growing populations, and a rapidly expanding middle class. It is an optimistic region moving through the gates, into a new epoch of prosperity. Sub Saharan Africa is experiencing strong economic growth. And this growth, unlike much of the growth in the aptly named emerging economies, is expected to continue strongly into the foreseeable future.

Africa’s growth is demand driven. As Africa’s poor enter the global middle class, the demand for modern homes, state of the art appliances, computers, digital devices, electronics, cars, education, healthcare, and much more, is generating a multibillion dollar economy. Africa is resource rich. It can sustain this massive demand oriented economy. This owes to a unique combination of additional factors, such as major supply opportunities to satisfy the overwhelming demand of a swiftly growing population, and the great need for modern infrastructure and technology. This in turn creates thousands of new businesses, and millions of new jobs on the continent.

Countries such as China, with similar growing middle classes, are in a symbiotic relationship with Africa. These countries are investing heavily in Africa, further driving economic growth in the Sub Saharan region of the continent. Developed economies such as the United States and Western Europe also see Africa as a great investment opportunity, when compared with their own anemic economies.

Nollywood stands to benefit from this new African economy. Amaka’s vision lives on: may her wonderful soul rest in perfect peace.

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