…… Why I Quit My Job As A Lecturer & Fled From Northern
Nigeria
Q: It’s been a while you acted in a movie…
YEMI: Help me beg the producers to invite me. In the Alaafin Palace,
there is a group of men called Oyomesi and we know their role
even though they would not get to that level where they have
to open the calabash before the Alaafin. It has never happened
in our time but they are there. They serve as checks and
balances.
I don’t think I would want to pretend about things.
So that is one area I think my colleagues see me as being a
little rigid. I don’t tow their lines and they kind of want to run
away from me. But I think it’s a waste of time to do that.
Some other persons do what I do but because they are not
within the fold, they don’t have any problem with that. It’s not
about not being good enough. I even appear better than I used
to, so if you are looking at people who should look nice in
pictures at my age, I still look very good at 56, even better
than actors who are not 40 yet.
Also, the quality of actors I see these days leave a lot to be
desired. I am not the only one but I speak up and some don’t.
They would rather do it behind the scene, you know in the
Yoruba cosmology it is said that majeki won fi ori e fo agbon
(don’t let your head be used to break a coconut). I’m not a
hypocrite. I say what I feel. I’m a well-grounded thoroughbred
professional in the field, so why shouldn’t I protect my job? I
do more than just act. I’m a social engineer and what that
means is that it is the duty of a dramatist like me to identify
problems within the social cultural milieu, point them out and
proffer solutions.
My solutions have never been well attended to or received by
my colleagues and the power they think they wield is to
ostracise me which, to me, is not even effective and in so
doing I decided that I won’t even do movies anymore. I would
now do television.
Q: With your level of education, why haven’t you taken a foray
into the academics?
YEMI: I was a lecturer till 1992 before I left. I lectured at the
University of Maiduguri, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and
Kaduna Polytechnic. I left the north before M.K.O Abiola’s
election because I knew it won’t be so easy for me sticking up
there. When Ojukwu executed the war between 1967 and
1970, he ran away and came back alive and he was
celebrated.
You don’t widen your chest and say where is the bullet? So, I
was a lecturer for six years. I taught Communications Skills,
English Language, Business Communication and a little bit of
Mass Communication. Being an academic was never my
ambition. I had always wanted to be an entertainer. My foray
into academics was basically what the society could afford me
at that time. NYSC took me to Maiduguri. After that, I wanted
to experience the north for a while but I couldn’t get the kind
of job that I wanted, so I kept reading. I could only stick
within the tertiary world and when I felt I’ve had enough of the
north I came back to Lagos. I had a provisional employment
in my former department in Ife. I didn’t honour it.