Edo State-born Paul Obazele is one consummate actor who has contributed in no small measure in taking Nollywood to the enviable heights it has attained today. Aside being an actor, which he has done for over decades, he is a director and was once the national president of the Association of Movie Producers. He talks about his journey in the entertainment industry in this interview with NGOZI EMEDOLIBE and OLAWALE OLUWADAHUNSI Excerpts:

It has been a long time; what has been happening?

It’s still the old Obazele, still the old actor, the old producer, the old director. I’m just there doing my thing quietly. If you see me I work seriously because if you look at my trend for almost nine years, I have been on sabbatical, intensive four years with the association of music producers anchoring and steering the ship and my acting world was put on a stop; because most of my friends didn’t like it.

But you are part of that movie by Lancelot Imasuen?

I had to because immediately after my stewardship Lancelot called and we had to join the forces together when mean forces together, he produces, directing acting and interpreting the rule which he wanted me which was Uzoma and I remember we had one kind of crazy argument about me playing the Oba then, and he said no that need he needed a virgin face and ‘that Paul your brand is too strong it will undermine the history surrounding the Oba’s character.

Do you buy that idea?

Yes and no; yes because the truth is that people will not see the genuine strength of the Oba. People will want to judge him based on what they have seen Paul Obazale do before and even when he performs whatever film he wants to perform ‘ they will say it is Paul that brought him out’ which is not what the director wanted.

So I saw the logic in his argument and including backing it up to some other people they say ‘na Presido play Ezomo’, that was the war head that gave all the support, to the Oba as at that time to become the mystery it still is till date and I jolly well accepted and by the time myself and Lancelot started talking about Ezomo, I saw the wholesomeness of Ezomo, a man fiercely loyal to a cause and to his own to his society and kingdom true to what is character is.

He is a defense minister who felt that the kingdom should not be desecrated, who felt that the Oba should not be taken for granted, who felt that the white man does not have anything to do in the soil of the Benin Kingdom and therefore by every means necessary had to defend it and stood his ground according to what the Oba told him.

And to by the time the Oba decided to give himself up, Ezomo was so angry and decided to wage on the fight, fought for close to about four years after the submission of the Oba. He was not captured, the Oba gave himself up because of his people. Not that the white man could do him anything because he was actually a mystery but Ezomo stayed and fought on and by the time he felt that instead of being captured, he killed himself. He went into the fiercest of all the battles and knew he was going to die, he died there. And till date according to history, he died at a very tender age, between forty and forty eight. But he was a warlord that people dreaded. According to history today, they say the Ezomos’, the people who bear the title don’t stay beyond fifty four years of age, I don’t really know how true it is. It’s still a mystery because they say he cursed himself if he withdraws by the gods, they strike him. So he fought to death.

Will you say it is coincidental because recently, a certain white man acquired some of the artifacts from Benin kingdom, but his grandson returned them?

I am very well aware of this. You see, the greatest ruler on the face of this earth outside the Queen Elizabeth today is Oba whose story was told in the film. Before then, he was a man who had established trade, he was a man whose kingdom spread across the entire West African coast and he was the man that the animals and forests listened to. They called him a living ancestor. He chose his name and his name speak for him.

The obas by the time they crown them, they choose a name and the name is what destiny has designed for them and that was what it was. He was a man that a leopard, which is still a mysterious animal fight for, in battles. He had the prowess of him being in two to three places at the same time. That was the strength of him and yet he is a gentleman who will not want to hurt a fly. But meanwhile, it does not mean that when his enemies come, he will not crush them. He will. The oil trade had boomed. The true story was that the king that came to seek trade unfortunately came with another notion to take the kingdom from him which have been foretold before, then.

But rather than let Benin go down, he refused. Look at the largeness of a man’s heart; somebody like Obaseki, his closest friend, but he called him a brother. With all the signs of betrayal around him, he did not touch him. Rather, he gave his own daughter to him to get married. As at that time, Obaseki had sold out to the whites completely and the whites wanted what Ovonramwen had and made Obaseki, an interim Oba when they took Ovonramwen away. But for the fear of who Ovonramwen was, Obaseki could not sit on the throne. They had to create another palace for him.

I know you are from Edo. Apart from this story of Ovonramwen, which other story would you look into if you have the opportunity?

Yes. I have another one again with Frank Rajah. Frank Rajah started from my hands actually. He is like my beloved child. He started from this office and by God’s grace; he has been able to explode so well. When he came in he said, ‘I want to do a story about the Benin Kingdom’ and I told him, ‘you will not go against the traditions of what the sacred seat is’ and I told him we’ll consult and research on so many things and when he went to meet Lancelot, Lanceaflot told him ‘there is only one man that can play Oba for you, go back and meet Paul’ and as God will have it, we did and another big marvelous story which is coming out soon.

It has to do with re-incarnation and unfinished stories of the life before, that somebody has to live some years later and he cannot continue with this new life without ending the other one. So, it’s very intriguing. And it took somebody who has depth of what history is and about the society you are coming from to interpret it.

There were crazy scenes, absolutely crazy, but they were not fetish. If you look at the Benin thing again, you find out that most of the kings are tied down to very strong ruling animals. The Oba he spoke of was an Epe, a lion. He was that kind that could walk into the midst of lions, tame them, and walk out. He lured his enemies into dens of lions and they were devoured. That was his own fighting strategy. So people were scared of him.

You juggle three careers in the movie industry; a producer, an actor and a director. Which one are you most comfortable with?

I will probably say an actor. I was born into a family of broadcasters and you can’t take it away from what talent is. Even when my father opposed seriously in fear of his statement that ‘Journalists don’t have family’, because of the kind of Job they do, moving from one place to the other. And there is every tendency that when they sojourn to another place, a strange woman comes in. that was his fear. He used himself as an example and he would say ‘I would not want my kids not to grow up with their father’.

He was a broadcaster?

Yes. He was one of the biggest in the country…Patrick Obazele and therefore, he orchestrated the kind of courses we read in school and unfortunately, even when he was doing it, I had started in school as at 1985, me and my friends have started doing something with NTA Benin and eventually he found out we quarreled and he told me ‘train yourself’ and I said ‘yes sir, I will do’. He wanted to correct me

He was doing it because art wasn’t lucrative then too?

No, I just told you what his fear was. He felt that if he discourages me, I will leave it and do what he wanted me to do. I finished from Auchi Polytechnic and read Business Administration. I majored in Accounting and Economics. That was what he had marked out for me. He called the shots, I called the bluff. Everyone knew he was a very tough man, but as tough as he was, there was this very soft side of him that made him tilt to my mum. “No tell am say na me give you money o, go pay your school fees’. The day my father embraced me finally: there were these two performances I did in front of IBB, when we were doing productivity week in the nation- myself, Aunty Joke Silva, Uncle Olu Jacobs and Wale Macaulay. First of all, we did a stage play, titled ‘The Storm Within’. I remember very well that we did the first rehearsal, we used to call it technical rehearsal where all the directors will come and watch and they go back to report to the presidency what it was like. What they watched that day was different from what they saw the following day because the day we did it, we had not gotten the lines very well. It was like a comedy, so they told the president. Amazingly, the President came and they saw a different Paul, very stubborn and arrogant, playing something else. I think the character was Steve. I remember that each time he falls back watches with scrutiny, it spurred me on. It was as if I was talking to him. Intentionally, I will leave Uncle Olu, and walk away from him. That was not my direction at all and I will get to where he is and I will throw the lines. It was as if I was using it to stab him more. Guess what, at the end of the play, President Babangida said “are you like that?” I didn’t know he was talking to me, I didn’t respond. If you know the swagger of IBB, he turned back, I doffed my head. I raised my head up and he asked again, ‘Is it true you are arrogant?’, I said ‘ No sir’. He said come again, ‘I said, no your Excellency’. It’s a battle of wits now. ‘They say Patrick is your father?’, I said ‘yes sir’. I didn’t use ‘Excellency’. He said come again; I said ‘yes sir’. And if you know him when he is climbing the aircraft to fly, going for an assignment, he climbs, gets to the end, turns, waves and smiled. He did the same thing and he smiled. I smiled and he whispered something to somebody and he told me to follow them. They gave me a carton of Peak milk and I will not disclose what is inside (laughs!). I noticed my father was a very proud man, sat down and brimming with smiles and for the first time in a long while, my father hugged me. And then Uncle Olu had just paid me. He was shocked and said, ‘Come’. He brought out money from his pocket and added to it. I told him ‘I am grateful’ and he told me to go. Amazingly, we were preparing for my grandmother’s burial. I told him, so he ordered that a car be given to me to take me to the village with some guards in it. I left happily. That was an embrace for me. From then, he became my critic. By the time the issue of wanting to produce came in, it became a battle between two of us. He said ‘No’ and I said ‘The man who trained me, trained me as a producer’

Who is the man you are referring to?

Late Pastor Segun Adeoye, the man who did Fido Dido. I lied to him then that I didn’t go to school because I wanted to learn production and I started by carrying wires and cables. Then one day, we went to Ministry of Information and the then minister saw me and was like ‘Ah, what are you doing here?’, and I pretended not to be who I was. He then called me my native name. My boss looked at him and asked ‘Do you know him?’ and he answered ‘This is Patrick’s son now’. I said ‘I don’t know him sir’. He looked at me again and said, ‘Agbonze, you dey craze?’.

I looked at him and didn’t answer. He said ‘Tony, let us see tomorrow’. I didn’t know he was setting me up. I left. The next day, we came back, and my father was in the meeting. I and my boss came in. my father asked me ‘Wetin you dey do here?’, I greeted him by force (laughs). At the end of the day we got home, I told my dad “I want to learn. If I stay on top there, I will not learn’. My late boss was about six feet, seven inches in height. He was big. He gave me two good punches to my shoulder and to my head and he told me to kneel down, and he told me that I lied to him and I told him why I lied.

If you were to advice a young person on lies?

(Laughs) Don’t lie o! He was usually surprised on how I got the story I got and basically, we were into commercials. Right there on the spot, he changed my status. He made me an assistant producer, then to line producer. Unconsciously, he emptied himself in me and it worked

Let’s get a bit personal, I heard a story of how you met your wife. That you were given bad service in a bank and you were complaining?

I owe this to Chico Ejiro. What happened was that Chico gave me a cheque, I did not know it was a post dated cheque. So I went to the bank at Aromire, where Zenith Bank is now. I went to drop the cheque and they refused to pay me and that day I didn’t even have up to a hundred naira in my pocket. I was very broke.

Meanwhile, the lady at operations, I used to know her as school mates. The cash officer now said if I can talk to the operations officer and I said it’s a small thing since I know her. I walked in there, lo and behold, it was a different lady. I was shocked and I had to press other buttons I know how to press and someone said ‘You see that girl, she stubborn well well. You cannot push her. That is the reason why they brought her here’. I went to her and begged and begged. She told me ‘I’ll rather lend you money than sign this cheque’.

I looked at her and said smallish, petty girl. I made up my mind to sleep with her and we exchanged contacts. I paid her three visits. I told her to pay back my visits and she refused. She started ‘posting me’ and I got angrier. Amazingly when she came finally, my sisters who were supposed to be in connivance with me fell for her. So the story started changing. My kid brother now liked her specially. I found out that she was dishing orders and my sisters were happy.

On my birthday, my late Pastor’s wife saw her and asked me ‘wetin you dey wait for?’. My dad saw her and asked me the same question and said ‘this na the babe o’ and my senior sisters held me and said ‘It’s either you kill me or I kill you, this na the babe’. And we continued. To God be the glory, she has been a blessed woman.

How has it been?

She’s been an amazing woman who decides what I put on, what I eat and she backs me up on whatever decision I make… good or bad