Actor, movie producer and director, Emeka Rollas started acting in 1997, he got introduced into acting by a friend called Nonye Oke Chukwu, he has featured in movies such as not my wealth, Hilda, Anointed, Last Warning, The Mighty Woman, Last Weekend and a host of others.
He is a graduate of Mass Communication from Federal Polytechnic, Oko Anambra State, he is happily married, and the union is blessed with children.
Emeka emerged the National President of Actors Guild of Nigeria in 22nd August 2017, and since then, this very hardworking and peace-loving man has achieved a milestone in the history of the industry.
Actor’s Guild of Nigeria is one among seven other professional guilds that form Nollywood, though it has experienced ups and downs but has also grown stronger over the years.
In the just concluded inauguration and cocktail evening held at Ojez Poolside Ceremony held in honour of the selected Chairman and excos of Actors Guild of Nigeria Lagos Chapter on Sunday, 23rd June 2019, which saw Mojisola Oyetayo as the Chairman of Lagos Chapter, it was witnessed by lots of big names in the industry, and Emeka Rollas was the host of the event he gave an outstanding speech and also talked about the guild’s achievement since he emerged the National President in 2017 and the way forward for the industry. It is a known fact that veterans who have contributed to the development of the industry, most often do not have anything to fall back on after so many years of service, some move on to other businesses while lots of others retire to the villages. The guild has also lost lots of veterans to serious illness, most of them die due to lack of medical attention. Most times actors are seen begging money for ailing and dying members because of huge medical bills.
The Actor’s Guild of Nigeria under the leadership of Emeka Rollas already launched a foundation, which all serve as a platform to unite the actors in Nigeria bringing them together for a common goal especially during community development projects.
The foundation will also take care of the health needs of veterans and celebrities, and also reach out to the downtrodden in the society as part of AGN Corporate Social responsibility and lots of other things. Below are the excerpts of his speech and achievement as President AGN.
It is a new dawn in the Actor Guild of Nigeria we started by launching the Actor Guild of Nigeria Mobile Application, which enables any actor anywhere in Nigeria to access information for the association, pay dues, make registrations without any stress. In accessing the Actors of Nigeria mobile application is at the level which we want this guild to be, whether you have one phone or an android phone, it is just one touch away from your phone, and you will have information about the guild.
We have launched the accident insurance scheme for all members of the Actors Guild Nationwide, which gives actors who have accident during movie shoot, whether you are going home are entitled to benefits of 1 million naira, permanent disability 1 million minor injuries 100,000 naira, all these you can benefit, even as old members at 6500, you can register, just directly from the app.
Actors in Nigeria think they just act just to make money, or even a way to go but the global level for actor, is that, an actor is a role model, he ought to receive a residual or royalty from his works, and there is no way, you can access this information if you are not part of this Actor Guild, that will give you that information. An affiliate of Actors of International Federation resident in Belgium you are entitled as pay television show your films, whether in Iroko, DSTV or any pay TV stations in the whole world, you are supposed to be getting money for what you have done, that is why when people get sick in the industry, we begin to beg for money for them to get better, why? Because, they lost their sense of the information they don’t know that as an actor, they have lots of derivation for being an actor, it is not just acting, then you go away. It is inhuman to human to appear in over 200 movies in Nigeria, and you will retire to your village without anything to show for it. And every day, your movies are shown in the different platform all over the world, and if they come to look for you in Nigeria you will be seen trekking in the street of Lagos or you are sick in your village. It is understanding that we are in the level of knowledge, the world intellectual property organisation has carefully differentiated between the producers and the actor’s right, we don’t care how much the pay television station bought a particular film from a producer but you can not show that film unless you pay the people who actually acted in that movie you need to know all these things and the only way, you can know them is by attending the Actor’s Guild meetings.
So you don’t go and beg somebody to feature in a film and pay so thousand naira, a few years later, you call the same person and tell him to do it for free, we understand that there are lots of things happening in the industry today but we can not solve it in one day, so the best way to start solving them, is to get into the organisation first, late Abiola said, “you can not sweep any dirty house except you are inside the house”. So you can not be far away from us, thinking, your own stardom is bigger than Wesley Sniper and you want to help Actors Guild of Nigeria. The only way you can help us in the come back home so that all of us will begin to work together to match forward.
I do not intend to bore you today with so many words, I just want you to understand the stage at which we are today, a stage where we need to ticket different production houses who have decided to use our members just anyhow. In normal productions in Asaba in River State, in Kano, actors work in the most deplorable conditions where you are not entitled to food, you see actors working, and you see a fellow actor tries to say I am hungry your fellow actor will eye you and be like are you serious at all, why should you ask for food, we have had actors working from morning to the next morning and nobody is fighting for them, nobody is asking or caring for these people, all you see is just a small screen. The only thing you see about us is that you will see an actor on screen as a big star, the moment, that actor falls sick, you will see us with nylon begging for money to take care of such star, and we are saying enough is enough. We must understand the strength of our union, the strength of our association, the strength of our guild understanding what we can do. In recent time we have had affiliation with the military, affiliations with the Police, anywhere you filming in Nigeria, and you are destroying the thing that keeps us together as actor, we will ticket you with the highest force you can ever imagine, to show that you don’t subject us to terrible attitude, just because we are acting for you.
Acting is big business, you are not helping anybody by giving him or her roles, rather, that person is helping you, that person is helping your business you invest 5 million and make 10 million in making a movie, so who has helped the other, so it is the actor that has helped you, and that is why I want you to understand that this clarion call for developing the Actor’s Guild of Nigeria is huge and enormous, we are begging members, whether you have lost touch in the last years, it is high time, we all get together and more together and build the guild together, so that, that name you hear on the screen that Nollywood is giving Nigeria billions of naira, we will come together to raise all these potentials and maximise it to help the Federal Republic of Nigeria and help ourselves at the same time. We are very serious with the business of Actors Guild of Nigeria, lots of things have changed with a few years, we have inaugurated the Actors Guild of Nigeria Foundation, which is aimed at raising 500 million naira to enable us to help actors in distress or sick, so we don’t go to public asking for fun, a lot of corporate organisations are working on this course, I want to also appeal to actors, wherever you are in Nigeria or outside Nigeria that, it is a new dawn in the guild.
We have also set up a special task force to deal with sexual harrassment issues and pay to give roles in the industry. All the randy producer, mushroom producers masquerading under the business of Nollywood trying to exploit money from our innocent members, we have set up a special task force to deal with it, all you need to do is to call that member, send an Email, and we will go and catch that person wherever he is, we are taking this thing seriously, and I want to appeal that the seriousness of what we are doing is the future of where we are going, you can not be an actor for 30 years, you don’t have a house in Nigeria, we have also set up a Nollywood film and home in Ibeju Lekki, which very soon, we are going to unveil to members.
– Biodun Alao
