Why I stopped flying – Pete Edochie

Weekend Magazine: You have featured in many home-videos and won many awards. Can you tell us which of the films strikes you most and why?
Pete Edochie: Quite honestly, I don’t know. The most challenging was ‘Things Fall Apart,’ no doubt.  It’s difficult to tell because each production I get involved in, I give it my best  shot, so I can’t tell you this is the best I’ve done or things like that. I feel happy, immensely gratified when people go to buy films and they start by saying give us the one with Pete Edochie in it. It gives me a lot of joy. So it may not be easy for me to tell you, well, this is my best or that is my best.
But I think there are some that are very prominent – ‘Rituals,’ which I did for Ken Nebue. ‘Oracle,’ which I did for O.J., ‘Igodo,’ which I did for O.J. ‘Evil Men,’ which I did for Amaco, and quite a good number of them. These were prominent films.
WM: Which do you cherish most of the awards you have received?
Edochie: I got an award in 2001 by a body called PAHBA which was then based in South Africa. I was given that award as the best actor on the continent of Africa. Then also in 2001, I was given an award as the best actor in Nigeria. In 2006, I was given a national award by the then president Olusegun Obasanjo. Then in the same 2006, I was initiated as the pioneer awardee or inductee into the movie makers’ Hall of Fame. Then I have been honoured by the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. I’ve been honoured by the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. I’ve been honoured by the governments of Lagos, Abia, Imo, and then I’ve been given titles too. I have a lot of these things in the house.
WM: Can you recall any moment you may describe as your best or saddest?
Edochie: (Long pause) which was my saddest moment? (Another long pause) I lost my elder brother on the August 4, 1965 and I lost my second son, I think in 1973 or 1974; both of them were very sad moments for me.
WM: Apparently because they were very dear to you?
Edochie: Of course, yes. To lose a son is not a small experience it’s so sad, it so tragic, and to lose a brother. Actually, that was the first experience I had of death, you know, when my elder brother died. I thought death was rather selective, I mean, some of us who witness people die will never die. But progressively, we got mature, we came to realise that it has been appointed unto us to die and that we must all go some day.
WM: As a veteran, what legacy do you want to leave in the industry?
Edochie: Already, the younger ones feel that whenever they star with me, I’m a source of inspiration to them, and that in itself gives me some satisfaction. Whenever I tell any of them that you have not quite done this very well, try make it this way, they always did it that way and it gives me some satisfaction – that these young ones believe that  I ‘m helping to nurture their careers.
WM: Sounds like a legacy of human resource development?
Edochie: That’s right. I want people to say Pete Edochie impacted our lives this way. For people to say give me any film with Pete Edochie in it that in itself, gives me plenty of joy. And the kind of recognition a lot of people hanker after and never get … but I go out to a place and people identify me and they all want to be in a photograph where they surround me. Sometimes I ask myself what have I done that God has blessed me this way? I step out with any of the actors into any environment and all the people are running after Pete Edochie.
WM: Can you assess the home video industry, looking at when you started and now?
Edochie: We have recorded very huge strides, especially technically. We can do whatever we want to do now with the technical knowledge we have. Whatever we want to achieve now by way of effects, we can achieve very easily. When we started it was not that easy. But today, technology has helped us a lot, and we’re doing very well. One big problem we have in the industry is language. A lot of the newcomers in the industry speak very bad English. I guess it’s attributable to the fact that history has been taken out of the curriculum in schools and that is very sad. In our days, we read a lot of history, a lot of literature. In fact, I just picked up a brand new copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare.’ I have one in the house but this is a new one. So I want to go through some of the roles I played. I was the Duke in The Merchant of Venice. I played Richard 111, I did Julius Caesar, I did Macbeth and I had to go through some of them and recall the good old days.
Like I said, our people are poor in terms of language; they are very poor, extremely poor, and it is sad. I was watching a film yesterday and they were mispronouncing words like ‘maidens,’ ‘palace.’ When you listen to Olu Jacobs, he pronounces these words excellently. Olu was in England for a very long time. Look, whenever I’m on set with Olu, come and see the way people watch us and listen to us. Now, why don’t these youngsters pick these things from us? I think they were corrupted by Village Headmaster; that’s where the mispronouncing of palace started. If our people can make time, listen a lot more to radio, particularly to BBC. These are people to whom the English language is indigenous – pick it from them with all the expressions they employ, it will help to energise you, invigorate you, help you to acquire some degree of distinction in elocution and eloquence; if you can combine elocution and eloquence in your presentation, you‘re there. Some of us who were lucky to have graduated from broadcasting into the movie industry, I think we have an edge over others when it comes to language.
WM: You once called on Prof. Wole Soyinka to institute a prize in the movie industry. What informed the call?
Edochie: Good! I say it again; do something that will inspire people. If you tell some youngsters now, if you are able to walk from here to that tree and back, I will give you N1000, whether the person is disposed to walk or not, that money becomes an incentive, and he goes there, when he comes back, you give him N1000. Tomorrow, when he sees you approach here, he goes to that place because the money is a conviction that you will give him another thousand again.
I like Soyinka for his literary feats. He is a literary giant. Sometimes, his verses are recondite but he has a commanding sonorous voice, and again is an actor, and has collected the Nobel Prize, he should institute a prize that will inspire people. At the end of each year, we go through successful movies, look for consistency; if this person has been outstanding  in the employment of language, reflected a lot of cadence in his or her interpretation as to ensure that, you’re listening to him, that there is  eloquence, elocution and then there’s an enthralling mastery of the language. You single him or her out and give the person an award. Tomorrow, youngsters will look up to the person and they will aspire to get that kind of award; it will encourage them to read. Nobody has done such a thing, right? … So that’s why I said I’m not happy with Soyinka.
Now, sometimes people pretend to be criticising Nollywood whereas in effect they‘re condemning Nollywood. And each time I read such condemnations, I get hurt very much. Why do I feel hurt? In each production, there’re so many points, a blanket condemnation is very unappreciative and I don’t feel happy about it.
First of all, at the risk of sounding immodest, I’m an accomplished actor. And I thank God that I operate at a level others aim at. If you proceed to condemn all of us, that’s unfair. It’s like condemning an entire football team. If they were all that bad, they wouldn’t have qualified to be in the league. You can blame a few individuals for lacking consistency, for not being team players but certainly not the entire team.
WM: What is the future of Nollywood considering the things you have just talked about?
Edochie: Nollywood has an incredible future. Let us concentrate on doing films that will reflect our culture. When I watch some of our films, and I see a young man kneeling down before a girl, and he says will you marry me? Such a thing is not our culture. You don’t kneel down before your wife. As a matter of fact, if you kneel down before your wife, you have surrendered headship of the home to her. The white man can do that, it is part of their culture but it is not our culture.  In Igboland, women never operate as Igwe. When an Igwe joins his ancestors, another Igwe is chosen. Sometimes, when I watch some of our films and see where women are playing Igwe, I feel scandalised but at the end of the day, it’s all drama so you can excuse all that.
WM: You have a phobia for flying such that you don’t even board a plane. At what point in your life did you develop this fear?
Edochie: That’s a very tricky question. There was a day I flew from Algeria, and that was in 1978 when I went for the All Africa Games in Algiers and en-route, the engine of the plane, I think one engine, packed up and the plane became very hot inside and all of us began to pray. Some brought out the Qur’an and others brought out the Bible. The man who was sitting next to me brought out a magazine filled with photographs of naked women and I kept saying to myself, if God wanted to save us, for this man’s sake, God might kill all of us. At the end of the day, I kept telling myself God, if you can get me out of this trouble, I will not fly again. I survived it and then I flew a few times after that and stopped.
When I got stuck in the lift at Abuja, I said, Lord, this is it. If you’ve not been stuck in a lift you’re very lucky; is one of the worst experiences a man can have.
WM: Can you recall what actually happened in the lift ‘episode’?
Edochie: I was in … Sheraton. I was chairman of the National Rebranding Committee that was set up by late Dora Akunyili – God rest her soul. I hopped into the lift, pressed the button and it was going up but mid-way I got stuck. And I said God why will I die in a lift? I don’t steal. I don’t kill. I never touched another man’s wife. Why must I die in a lift? I began to pray and I was reminding God of how much I’ve tried to serve Him within the limits of my ability, and suddenly, the lift started moving again.
WM: And you were then relieved?
Edochie: Surely, I was relieved. And the moment it got to the point where it opened I stepped out. That was not the point I was supposed to step out but I stepped out. In fact, I didn’t even remember the floor I was going to again but I needed to step out of the lift.