Akure Hots Up, As BON Award 2015 Goes To Ondo

Gov. Mimiko Promises A Five Star Outing 

IT has finally been confirmed that Akure, the capital of Ondo State, will host this year’s edition of Best Of Nollywood (BON) Award billed for December 12.

The announcement was made on Wednesday in Ondo Town, where a team of BON organisers and some Nollywood stars paid a special visit to Governor Olusegun Mimiko to official unveil the State as host for the award ceremony that will certainly paint Akure red in December.

Accepting the hosting right for BON at a breakfast sessions inside his stately country home in Ondo Town, Ondo State, Governor Mimiko assured that the state would give a five star hosting in December. “On behalf of the good people of Ondo State and me, we are set to host the Best of Nollywood Awards this year.

We will give spirit and soul to the awards ceremony because it would be held in the best and only international events centre in Nigeria. Our new Dome would make the Expo Centre in Lagos look like a village kitchen,” he boasted.

On the decision by Ondo State to accept the hosting right for BON Awards 2015, Governor Mimiko said, “my first reaction when the executive producer mentioned hosting BON Awards to me was that these are not the best of times for any state financially but he assured me that it would not cost the state so much.

And I agreed essentially because growing up, we were all victims of cultural imperialism by the West. Of course, at that time, we still had contending views of the East because of the deep-rooted culture in their (Indian and Chinese) films. But as time went by, Nigerian film began to show great promises.”

Though a successful medical doctor before venturing into politics, Dr Mimiko’s robust knowledge of the global film industry was not in doubt, as he called on practitioners to go beyond earning a living through films and make effort to create a working narrative for Nollywood movies. “If there is one area Nigeria has shown the world that she is capable of excelling especially in the last two decades, it is in the creative industry especially the film industry.

So, for me, the celebration of Nollywood is within the context of the cultural, if you like, imperialistic possibilities of Nigeria and why not? So long we talk about our potentials; we could also make Nigerian films a global commodity.

If we want to be a dominant country in Africa and a global player, we need to deliberately create our Nollywood narrative by creating a theme around which other sub-themes would be created to sell our country,” he posited.

Using America’s Hollywood as example, Mimiko said, “Even in Hollywood, there is a constant narrative, whether subtle or otherwise, in all their cinematic outputs. We have to discover our own narrative.

It is amazing the possibilities therein. There is no home in Africa where Nollywood is not celebrated and I think this creates finite possibilities for us to recreate and identify ourselves before the world.”

For the Governor, celebrating Nollywood stars is part of our patriotic drive to ensure that this industry actually helps to actualise the Nigerian dream. “I don’t think there is any nation that has a product and does not package how to sell it.”

In his remark, the executive producer, Seun Oloketuyi, thanked the governor for his leadership examples, understanding, love and support for the entertainment industry, and importantly, for agreeing to host the event. “I was born in Ondo State and I did my primary education here.

I was telling someone that I would have loved to be born in this era; I probably would have been attending one of the model schools and ridding to school free of charge.

Let me use this opportunity to thank Governor Mimiko and the great people of Ondo State for accepting to host this event. With what we’ve seen and what we’ve heard so far, I’m confident that we will have a successful event,” he said.

While urging other governors to take a cue from Governor Mimiko and help the industry grow, Oloketuyi presented Mimiko with a certificate to symbolize the hosting right. Present at the event were Nollywood such as Segun Arinze, Yomi Fash Lanso, Fathia Balogun, Ngozi Nwosu, Alex Ekubo, Ebube Nwagbo, Toyosi Adesanya, Amanda Ebeye and others.