“When it comes to history and memory … it’s easy to remember Nelson Mandela, because he is Nelson Mandela. Who determines whose story we value above others?” 



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



This was a question asked by Cathy Mohlahlana, the facilitator of a panel discussion at the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MdgBjVvy8Y#action=share">Nelson Mandela Tribute</a> to mark the fifth anniversary of his passing.  



Celebrated author and notable feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was the keynote speaker at the event hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation at the UNISA Ormonde campus in Johannesburg, South Africa on December 12, 2018. 



<ul class="wp-block-gallery columns-3 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex"><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="929" height="611" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture91.png" alt="" data-id="37857" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=37857" class="wp-image-37857" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture91.png 929w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture91-300x197.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture91-600x395.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture91-768x505.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 929px) 100vw, 929px" /><figcaption> Soweto Gospel Choir  at the Nelson Mandela Tribute on  December 12, 2018. Picture: Karen Mwendera</figcaption></figure></li><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="932" height="612" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture4.png" alt="" data-id="37858" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=37858" class="wp-image-37858" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture4.png 932w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture4-300x197.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture4-600x394.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture4-768x504.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 932px) 100vw, 932px" /><figcaption> Soweto Gospel Choir  at the Nelson Mandela Tribute on  December 12, 2018. Picture: Karen Mwendera</figcaption></figure></li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-gallery columns-3 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-3 is-layout-flex"><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="926" height="608" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture71.png" alt="" data-id="37855" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=37855" class="wp-image-37855" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture71.png 926w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture71-300x197.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture71-600x394.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture71-768x504.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 926px) 100vw, 926px" /><figcaption> Soweto Gospel Choir  at the Nelson Mandela Tribute on  December 12, 2018. Picture: Karen Mwendera</figcaption></figure></li><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="925" height="614" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture-3.png" alt="" data-id="37856" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=37856" class="wp-image-37856" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture-3.png 925w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture-3-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture-3-600x398.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture-3-768x510.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 925px) 100vw, 925px" /><figcaption> Soweto Gospel Choir  at the Nelson Mandela Tribute on  December 12, 2018. Picture: Karen Mwendera</figcaption></figure></li></ul>



Before Adichie’s address, the audience was regaled by the sounds of the Soweto Gospel Choir who sang songs such as Thina Sizwe, Lizalise Idinga Lakho, and Brenda Fassie’s Vul’indlela.&nbsp;



In paying homage to other anti-apartheid activists, the choir concluded their performance with the Peter Gabriel song Biko.&nbsp;The song is named after Bantu Stephen Biko who died in police detention in 1977, and was at the forefront of the anti-apartheid campaign the Black Consciousness Movement.



Nelson Mandela Foundation chief executive Sello Hatang also acknowledged Pan Africanist liberation hero Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, who he says was a “towering figure in our history and a man who the apartheid regime tried to erase from memory”. 



<ul class="wp-block-gallery columns-3 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-5 is-layout-flex"><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="932" height="613" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture17.png" alt="" data-id="37859" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=37859" class="wp-image-37859" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture17.png 932w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture17-300x197.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture17-600x395.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture17-768x505.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 932px) 100vw, 932px" /><figcaption> Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave the keynote address  at the Nelson Mandela Tribute on  December 12, 2018. Picture: Karen Mwendera</figcaption></figure></li><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="925" height="615" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture12.png" alt="" data-id="37860" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=37860" class="wp-image-37860" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture12.png 925w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture12-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture12-600x399.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture12-768x511.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 925px) 100vw, 925px" /><figcaption>  Sebabatso Moneli  at the Nelson Mandela Tribute on  December 12, 2018. Picture: Karen Mwendera</figcaption></figure></li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-gallery columns-3 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-7 is-layout-flex"><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="926" height="613" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture-10.png" alt="" data-id="37861" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=37861" class="wp-image-37861" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture-10.png 926w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture-10-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture-10-600x397.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture-10-768x508.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 926px) 100vw, 926px" /><figcaption> Nelson Mandela Foundation chief executive Sello Hatang  at the Nelson Mandela Tribute on  December 12, 2018. Picture: Karen Mwendera</figcaption></figure></li><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="928" height="617" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture18.png" alt="" data-id="37862" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=37862" class="wp-image-37862" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture18.png 928w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture18-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture18-600x399.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture18-768x511.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 928px) 100vw, 928px" /><figcaption> UNISA Principal and Vice-Chancellor Mandla Makhanya at the Nelson Mandela Tribute on  December 12, 2018. Picture: Karen Mwendera</figcaption></figure></li></ul>



In recognizing the role played by women in the struggle for South Africa’s liberation Hatang said, “we should also remember that this year is about mme (mother) Albertina Sisulu, and those women whose stories and contributions were distorted an minimized by the structures of patriarchy … We should also remember that this is the year we lost mama Winnie Madikizela Mandela.” 



Activist and wife of late former President Nelson Mandela, Graça Machel, was also in attendance and listened attentively as Adichie spoke about the power of memory and public imagination. “When I first came to South African ten years after the fall of apartheid, it felt to me as though the past was not yet passed, but that there was a concerted collective resolve to turn away from this truth. South Africans of all races spoke to me of the rainbow nation, and I did not entirely trust this optimism. Well-choreographed as it was.” &nbsp;&nbsp;



“It felt to me a little too easy … It cannot be so unbearably, terribly tidy this process of peace-making,” Adichie said. 



<ul class="wp-block-gallery columns-3 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-9 is-layout-flex"><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="924" height="612" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture23.png" alt="" data-id="37863" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=37863" class="wp-image-37863" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture23.png 924w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture23-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture23-600x397.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture23-768x509.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 924px) 100vw, 924px" /><figcaption> Cathy Mohlahlana,  Neo Muyanga, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and   Sebabatso Moneli  at the Nelson Mandela Tribute on  December 12, 2018. Picture: Karen Mwendera﻿ </figcaption></figure></li><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="930" height="613" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture35.png" alt="" data-id="37864" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=37864" class="wp-image-37864" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture35.png 930w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture35-300x198.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture35-600x395.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture35-768x506.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 930px) 100vw, 930px" /><figcaption> Cathy Mohlahlana facilitates panel discussion at  the Nelson Mandela Tribute on  December 12, 2018. Picture: Karen Mwendera </figcaption></figure></li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-gallery columns-3 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-11 is-layout-flex"><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="925" height="600" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture241.png" alt="" data-id="37866" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=37866" class="wp-image-37866" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture241.png 925w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture241-300x195.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture241-600x389.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture241-768x498.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 925px) 100vw, 925px" /><figcaption> Njabulo Ndebele, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and  Graça Machel  at the Nelson Mandela Tribute on  December 12, 2018. Picture: Karen Mwendera </figcaption></figure></li><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="926" height="616" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture27.png" alt="" data-id="37867" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=37867" class="wp-image-37867" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture27.png 926w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture27-300x200.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture27-600x399.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture27-768x511.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 926px) 100vw, 926px" /><figcaption> Graça Machel  receives a plaque  at the Nelson Mandela Tribute on  December 12, 2018. Picture: Karen Mwendera </figcaption></figure></li></ul>



&nbsp;Sebabatso Moneli and Neo Muyanga were part of the panel discussion facilitated by Mohlahlana. 



“We are entitled to rage. We are entitled to anger &#8211; to the grief of a painful history. But, we are also invited by history to a breath of stories that expand beyond the stereotypes of slavery and colonialism. 



“African history is vast and I believe that part of the freedom that we are looking for, that our true liberation will not be found in the absence of tension, but in embracing the tension of history,” Moneli said.



<ul class="wp-block-gallery columns-3 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-13 is-layout-flex"><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="928" height="613" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture8.png" alt="" data-id="37868" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=37868" class="wp-image-37868" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture8.png 928w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture8-300x198.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture8-600x396.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture8-768x507.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 928px) 100vw, 928px" /><figcaption> Nelson Mandela Tribute on  December 12, 2018. Picture: Karen Mwendera </figcaption></figure></li><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="927" height="612" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture29.png" alt="" data-id="37869" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=37869" class="wp-image-37869" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture29.png 927w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture29-300x198.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture29-600x396.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture29-768x507.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 927px) 100vw, 927px" /><figcaption> Nelson Mandela Tribute on  December 12, 2018. Picture: Karen Mwendera </figcaption></figure></li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-gallery columns-3 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-15 is-layout-flex"><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="931" height="618" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture30.png" alt="" data-id="37871" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=37871" class="wp-image-37871" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture30.png 931w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture30-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture30-600x398.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture30-768x510.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 931px) 100vw, 931px" /><figcaption> Nelson Mandela Tribute on  December 12, 2018. Picture: Karen Mwendera </figcaption></figure></li><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="930" height="615" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture201.png" alt="" data-id="37872" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=37872" class="wp-image-37872" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture201.png 930w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture201-300x198.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture201-600x397.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Capture201-768x508.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 930px) 100vw, 930px" /><figcaption> Nelson Mandela Tribute on  December 12, 2018. Picture: Karen Mwendera </figcaption></figure></li></ul>



While interrogating the idea of telling the facts and the truth, Muyanga added, “the responsibility is all of ours … The process of colonization which is premised on the idea of erasing the original memory and replacing it with the colonists’ memory. So history begins with the arrival of the colony as opposed to the stories we tell of ourselves before.”

Chima-1

IN PICTURES | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gives Nelson Mandela public lecture

There is a slight nip in the air as the sun rises on the horizon and workers join the frenzied rush-hour traffic on the Third Mainland Bridge to Victoria Island. Crawling along the Falomo Bridge towards the mainland, I am joined by Kunle (not their real name), a former ringleader in Nigeria’s lucrative piracy industry. We are on our way to Alaba International Market, the largest electronics market in Nigeria and, incidentally, where it all began for Kunle.
“This is big business. At the top of the food chain is the Igbo movie producers and marketers who control the distribution of all the movies,” says Kunle.
Alaba is typical of most Nigerian markets. The place is heaving with sellers vying for every inch of space available on the streets, forcing people to walk in a straight line, like soldiers going to battle. The ‘area boys’, who are the unofficial tour guides of the market, expertly maneuver through teems of people, shouting frantically to get the attention of potential customers. We stop at Alake Enterprises, a rundown shack selling the latest Nollywood movies and gospel CDs.
“Madam, we get brand new movies, I beg [you to] come inside,” says one of the vendors.
As we enter the dilapidated building, a wall appears out of nowhere adorned with the latest cinema releases.
“There are two types of movies here. Those at the front of the shop are the legal ones, which have been released in the cinema and have now made their way to DVD. What you are seeing at the back are the ones that are currently in the cinema and some that are yet to show,” says Kunle.
<div id="attachment_35134" style="width: 511px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35134" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-35134" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Alaba-Market-Nollywood-e1517299294437-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="501" height="332" />Alaba Market (Photo by Andrew Esiebo/Aljazeera America)</div>
Hiring more than a million people, Nollywood is the country’s second largest employer, according to a United Nations report. The ability of film crews, using guerilla filmmaking, to shoot a full-length feature in a week, has made Nollywood a powerhouse in the world of movies.
The National Bureau for Statistics (NBS) estimates that the Nigerian film industry contributed about 1.4% to the GDP in 2013 and 2014, and employed over 250,000 people directly. According to the World Bank, Nollywood produces up to 50 films a week, surpassing Hollywood in volume. Subsequently, the rise in copyright crimes in the country grows alongside the Nollywood industry.
“A couple of years ago Kunle Afolayan’s movie, October 1, was pirated and sold on the streets for less than $3 before the movie’s premiere in the cinema. He spent $2 million producing that movie. Now tell me, how was he going to make his money back? How many cinemas do we have in the country to help him recoup that amount?” says Bose Oshin, Head of Productions at GAME Productions.
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The incident almost led to the writer and director boycotting Nigeria for good. In 2014, a week after the release of Half of a Yellow Sun, a film adaptation of the award-winning novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, film vendors were hawking pirated copies of the film in Lagos. According to Oshin, you can’t fix the problem without understanding why there is a leak in the supply chain cycle.
“Before a movie shows, they need to send a copy to the cinemas where it will make its debut. The pirates pay the workers in the cinema a lump sum of N1 million ($2,790) to steal the copy. For these culprits, this is more money than they would earn in a year, so the temptation is quite high,” says Oshin.
Kofi Ansah, an emerging Ghanaian movie producer looking to have a piece of the lucrative Nollywood pie, experienced this in what he calls his worst day in business.
“I literally used all my savings to shoot this movie and managed to secure some top stars from Nigeria. We were two weeks away from the movie premiere when I got a call from someone saying they had a copy of my movie and I should pay N5 million ($13,950) to prevent its release on the streets for one month. It was as if someone had just shot me in the stomach. We barely had enough to do our promotion and now we were being blackmailed by these thugs,” says Ansah.
He believes the leak was orchestrated by competing producers who do not want any new names to enter the hugely competitive, and often fickle, world of Nigerian cinema.
“We all use the same production crews so it is easy to get your hands on footage. I couldn’t afford to make the payment, so the movie was on the street before we could even do the premier and we lost all our investment. I ended up having to take the movie to other parts of Africa to try to recoup some of the money,” says Ansah.
<div id="attachment_35135" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35135" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-35135" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Nollywood-movies-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />Nollywood movies for sale in a market (Photo by Andrew Esiebo/Aljazeera America)</div>
In the belly of the beast lies an ongoing war between the ‘New Nollywood’ producers and traditional ‘Asaba’ producers.
“New Nollywood does not make any money. They have the fame, the glitz and the glamour, and they do lavish launches in cinemas, but nobody goes to the cinema to watch a Nollywood production when Captain America is showing. Asaba, or old Nollywood, is where the money is made. Movies are shot on tight production schedules, usually about a week, and then the same movie is broken down into several sequels from part one to sometimes part 16,” says Kunle.
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Asaba movies are for the masses. Storylines are simple, humorous, and movies are mostly shot in the local dialect. The top actors in this sector are in such high demand that they sometimes shoot up to 10 movies a week, jumping from one set to the other.
“As soon as the marketers hear that a New Nollywood movie is about to hit the cinema, the whole gang is on high alert. Once the inside person is paid, and we get a copy of the video, we begin mass-production. Sometimes as many as 20 million copies are created and immediately moved by trucks to Onitsha, Aba, Alaba and Idumota, where agents are there to pick up and distribute to a network of street hawkers and shops in those areas,” says Kunle.
The mass production provides economies of scale, with DVDs as cheap as N100 ($0.30). Contrast this with the N3,000 ($8.30) for a cinema screening and it’s obvious why piracy thrives in Nigeria.
“This is simply a case of supply and demand. The demand is there because people want to watch the same movies that are shown in the cinema for a fraction of the cost, and so long as that demand exists, these pirates will always be in business and that is the unfortunate truth,” says Oshin. 
To combat piracy, the Nigerian government established Project ACT Nollywood, with a N3 billion ($8 million) grant. In a press statement, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, says the proper distribution of movies is important if Nigeria is to win the fight.
But Ansah says it’s not that simple.
“Like any criminal organization, there are those at the top who make the real money and make all the moves. These people have a strong network and they work with the copyright owners or those who have been officially contracted to produce the legitimate DVDs of the new movies, so they have direct access to the source thereby hijacking the market,” he says.
“Piracy works with informal networks and to be honest, there is really no fear of punishment because you hardly hear of anybody who has been arrested on the grounds of video piracy. That is where the law needs to act. Instill a fear of imprisonment and people will behave accordingly.”
But this suggestion may be flawed.
“We have informants in the law enforcement agencies that give us a heads-up so we know all the plans they are making, which means we have enough time to react,” says Kunle.
For now, the clandestine networks continue to grow and as long as they have an insatiable audience looking for the lowest prices for the latest cinematic releases, it is unlikely that piracy in Africa’s largest movie industry will end.

The Fortune And Fury Behind Nollywood

You are an established Hollywood actress now – an Oscar winner for 12 Years a Slave, do you have any plans to start your own business, be it a production house or otherwise?
Well, I actually am producing a film, Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and I am putting that hat on my head.
&nbsp;
<h3>And how is it going wearing two hats?</h3>
It is going well, it’s a learning curve for sure. But this is an industry I am very passionate about, I love storytelling. So I am just learning a new way to tell a story.
&nbsp;
The experience of being on the red carpet that night of the Oscars, what goes through your mind when they announce your name?
It was very confusing.
&nbsp;
<h3>In what sense does time stop?</h3>
It’s just I didn’t know if they had said my name or if I had said my name or my brother said my name, and you have no time to figure it out, you have to get up there and say something.
&nbsp;
And in terms of your process for a role, what do you do to embody the character, what is your method as it were?
Each role speaks for itself and you kind of design your preparation, depending on the kind of role. But it always starts with research about the world the character lives in.
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<h3>What kind of research did you do for Queen of Katwe?</h3>
Well, it was about learning as much as I can about these people. I was fortunately privileged enough to have the real Harriet – she is very much alive and kicking – and I sat with her and asked her to tell me about herself from her perspective and that was really cool, to ask her why she let Phiona go to Robert Katende’s chess academy and she was very practical, she said ‘he could give her a cup of porridge when I couldn’t’. So this is a woman who is very practical and principled as well and I felt very honoured to play because her dignity is one that doesn’t have a price tag on it.
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<h3>What is the experience of shooting in Uganda like?</h3>
It was incredible, to be on location shooting in the places where these things transpired, you are doing research as you walk and every day you are learning something new and deepening your understanding of your character and the world you live in. So for me, it was very fertile to be in Kampala, in Katwe, in its environments.
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<h3>As an African actress, you’ve now very much become an icon on this continent, do you feel it’s a big responsibility to shoulder and how do you feel to potentially mentor young girls to get where you’ve gotten to?</h3>
Well I don’t feel a responsibility at all, I feel like it’s my opportunity, it’s a conviction of my heart. I didn’t grow up seeing very many movies like Queen of Katwe, certainly not told by Disney so to have a chance to be that mirror this time feels very meaningful.
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<h3>Marvel’s Black Panther… what is your involvement there, are you are allowed to talk about it?</h3>
I am allowed to say who I am playing which is Nakia, and that’s about it.
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<h3>Is it a big studio film or…?</h3>
It’s Marvel… so it’s in the league of Captain America, Avengers and Iron Man… those kind of movies.
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<h3>Other than that, what are your future plans at this stage?</h3>
I am definitely looking forward to that, I have not shot that yet. So that is coming up shortly, and I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and totally new role for me and I will be producing Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah as well and I hope to do comedy sometime soon.
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<h3>In terms of influences, who are they, be it directors, actors or actresses?</h3>
Oh…I am very fortunate to work with people like J.J Abrams, Mira Nair, and Steve McQueen to name a few. I love Cate Blanchett, I love her work, I loved Elizabeth Taylor as well, Viola Davis is fierce, Sidney Poitier is incomparable, yeah, those are some of them…

Queen of Katwe Movie Premier in South Africa

‘I Hope To Do Comedy Sometime Soon’

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s words cleanse the mind. They are profound, creative and thought provoking.
Adichie is the fifth of six children born to high achieving parents. Her mother, Grace Ifeoma, was the first female registrar at the University of Nigeria and her father, James Nwoye Adichie, was Nigeria’s first professor of statistics. He later became Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the same institution.
With a power couple for parents, Adichie acquired a reading habit by the age of four.
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After secondary school, Adichie studied medicine at the University of Nigeria, switched to pharmacy, and then gave it up to go to the United States (US), when she was 19, a year and a half into her studies. She obtained a scholarship to study communication at Drexel University in Philadelphia for two years, and went on to pursue a degree in communication and political science at Eastern Connecticut State University.
Adichie graduated summa cum laude from Eastern Connecticut State University in 2001. She later completed a master’s degree in creative writing at John Hopkins University. In 2005, she was a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University, and earned a master’s degree in African studies from Yale University in 2008.It was while there that she began writing Purple Hibiscus, published when she was 26. Her work has been translated into 30 languages.
Walk along Fife Street in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, and you will see some of the country’s most expensive schools and scores of students sharing a laugh in the blistering sun. Look closely, and you will see many clutching Purple Hibiscus, a work studied in many high schools across Africa.
“Purple Hibiscus is one of the greatest books I have ever read. There is so much struggle and oppression in the book that I can relate to as an African. The ways she writes and describes things like heat in the book is intriguing and make it a good read. To see an African write like this is very inspiring because it shows that we can all tell our stories no matter where we come from. To think she was just 26 years old when she wrote it makes it even more intriguing,” says pupil, Charmaine Hlatshwayo, from Mzilikazi High School in Bulawayo.
Half of a Yellow Sun and the short story collection, The Thing Around Your Neck, were Adichie’s next great works.
She has won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, the Orange Prize, the New York Times Notable Book prize, a People and Black Issues Book Review Best Book of the Year prize and was a National Book Critics Circle finalist.
Adichie is often described as the successor of the late Chinua Achebe. It’s a fitting coincidence that she grew up in a house that once belonged to Achebe, Nigeria’s most celebrated writer.
“Because of writers like Chinua Achebe, I went through a mental shift in my perception of literature. I realized that people like me, girls with skin the color of chocolate whose kinky hair could not form ponytails, could also exist in literature. I started to write about things I recognized,” said Adichie at her TEDx 2009 talk, The Danger Of A Single Story.
The talk has drawn almost two million views online.
Born in Nsukka, Nigeria, on September 15, 1977, Adichie encountered injustice as she grew up. As a result, for years, the Nigerian author has inspired many with her written work and become part of pop culture. Her speeches are as powerful as her fiction.
“We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls ‘You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful otherwise you will threaten the men.’ Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage; I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important… But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same…”says Adichie at the TEDx Euston talk titled We Should All Be Feminists, in 2012.
This talk made Adichie Beyoncé’s favorite feminist. Beyoncé sampled parts of this speech on her track, Flawless in 2014. The song reportedly topped iTunes charts in 104 countries and sold nearly 850,000 copies in three days.
“I think Chimamanda is the fearless woman’s voice that has become the drumbeat of feminism. She is intelligent, articulate and knows how to use her voice to speak for women on the international stage,” says Zimbabwean author Raisedon Baya.
But that’s not all.
Adichie’s latest book, Americanah, a best-selling novel, is being turned into a movie, with award-winning Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o as lead. Brad Pitt is the producer, through his Plan B production banner along with Nyong’o and Andrea Calderwood.
The founder and treasurer of the Academic and Non-Fiction Authors’ Association of South Africa (ANFASA), Monica Seeber, says “ANFASA is delighted that an author has been selected for the FORBES AFRICA [lifetime achievement award]. This is recognition that authors have the power to influence people, events and thinking far beyond their own personal spheres. The pen is mightier than the sword.”
Adichie is carrying a banner for every woman who has grown up in Africa. In a few years, she has placed African women’s literature on the world map which makes us wonder what she will achieve in the next 20 years.

Adichie Is Africa, Africa  Is Adichie

<h4>Ghana Must Go</h4>
<h4>by Taiye Selasi</h4>
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Afropolitan Taiye Selasi has a way with words, not words themselves, but their emotional coloring when they are woven into syntax. Her vowels shape into afternoon orange, her consonants thread into hues of an exposed heart, wounded pale pink. Memory, with all its good and all its regret, is the main theme of Selasi’s delicately modulated book. Ghana Must Go is beautifully convincing in its flashbacks and forward-thinking dialogue – the romance and rot of the West combine when seen through the eyes of uprooted immigrants. America is noisy, angular and assuming. But gradually it is muted as Selasi’s characters come into the foreground. In essence, this is a consciousness novel, yet the shadow of immigrant insecurity hovers over it. When one of Selasi’s protagonists looks back at “a world that considered her irrelevant with a look that said she considered the world irrelevant, too”, we understand the baggage. It is a collective past; Selasi carries the history of Africa in her lyrical, yearning prose.
<h4>The Shining Girls</h4>
<h4>by Lauren Beukes</h4>
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Winner of science fiction’s prestigious Arthur C Clarke award, Lauren Beukes is probably one of the continent’s best genre writers. The Shining Girls, her third novel, is a thriller about a time-travelling serial killer. It transcends the simulated thriller style, however, because Beukes finds a way to express the realism underneath the murder and sci-fi. At its most basic level, the excitement of the story is in how creative Beukes’s writing can be. Her descriptions and rhythms, the expletives, the improvised twists and turns make The Shinning Girls an authentic global novel, in a way that allows us to realize just how much writing is an art.
<h4>Endings And Beginnings</h4>
<h4>by Redi Tlhabi</h4>
Redi Tlhabi has an extraordinary gift for jotting down personal truths that read like arias. In her quasi-autobiography, Endings and Beginnings, she relates scenes from her childhood that sing from the heart. Tlhabi’s story of her youth and befriending a local gangster, Mabegzo, a 20-something murderer and rapist, is miraculously unfussy. She tells it, not from an embarrassed corner, but out in the open, with none of the flourishes that tend to bog down South African writers of the new millennium. By purifying Mabegzo of stereotype, she brings his character a unification of soul. Their relationship feels so real in its brokenness, their characters so close, that we dare not take our eyes off the page.
<h4>We Need New Names</h4>
<h4>by NoViolet Bulawayo</h4>
NoViolet Bulawayo’s freshness, her sense of ideological ingenuity and her innate understanding of the corruption of Africa’s innocence, gives her debut novel a unique radiance. Her sentences are emotionally strenuous: “leaving their umbilical cords underneath the soil, leaving the bones of their ancestors in the earth, leaving everything that makes them who and what they are, leaving because it is no longer possible to stay”. And they place her firmly among irresistibly visceral writers such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Bulawayo’s thoughts are open to the reader, yet she seems unconcerned by our needs. Like a cat, she is working out her own catharsis. The immigration/refugee question pervades all African writers in one way or another, but the Zimbabwean writer re-conceives the issue by relating it from millennial eyes. One of her protagonists is pre-teen Chipo, raped and pregnant. She is no pan-Africanist lioness. She is innocent, yet subtly unprincipled, overtly conscientious and shallow, yet wise. Bulawayo’s narrative pits readers as naïve outsiders who are no match for the nightmares and hopes that encapsulate this continent. We Need New Names was shortlisted for the 2013 MAN Booker Award, one of the world’s most prestigious literary prizes.
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<h4>Sister-Sister</h4>
<h4>by Rachel Zadok</h4>
Sometimes writing needs come from a place of improvisation instead of consciousness. Rachel Zadok reads not like a writer, but like an instin-ctive storyteller. Her second novel, Sister-Sister, unfurls like an intriguing journey of self-discovery. It relates the story of twin sisters, Sindi and Thuli, who are forced to leave their village and return to their mother’s home, a place of hostility, fear and dark superstition. The narrative sounds simple, yet it is dreamlike and impromptu; it lets loose the subliminal. That is what makes Zadok’s book such a surreal series of surprises. Here is a writer who feels free enough to reach into herself, who listens to her inner voice and who understands the mystery of what it means to be characteristically South African.
<h4>Kabu Kabu</h4>
<h4>by Nnedi Okorafor</h4>
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At first Kabu Kabu, which takes its title from the name given to Nigeria’s illegal taxis, plods along easily, but it quickly becomes about the fantastic and the mystical that sit snugly in the recesses of reality. Nnedi Okorafor is an acclaimed Nigerian fantasy and sci-fi author. This, her debut short story collection, is difficult to get out of your system. Be warned: her pseudo-folktales, which are simultaneously fantastical, sensual and emotionally violent, are likely to upset some readers.
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Tag: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

IN PICTURES | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gives Nelson Mandela public lecture

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‘I Hope To Do Comedy Sometime Soon’

Adichie Is Africa, Africa Is Adichie

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