Actors’ Guild of Nigeria, since inception has been depending primarily on the goodwill and creativity of national and state exco to raise money for their day-to-day operations. This places the guild at the mercy of such exco members as they will use every available means to recoup their expenditure before leaving office. In such situations where these excos are hoisted out of office by rival interests due to instance of expiration of office or otherwise, the affected exco members tend to feel cheated and a sense of loss thereby retiring or in some cases resorting to run rival organizations such as production houses in order to get back at the Union.
To members of Actors’ Guild of Nigeria today, the Union is a colossal failure. This notion is due to the seaming prejudice and disregard by other guilds operating in the movie industry towards Actors’ Guild of Nigeria. Actors nationwide are made to understand that Actors’ Guild of Nigeria should be producing movies for her members nationwide. These unscrupulous movie practitioners hold auditions, meetings, seminars etc and brainwash, sometimes very educated actors into seeing Actors’ Guild of Nigeria as a production house in their respective chapters. Questions like “What has Actors’ Guild of Nigeria done for you? Do they give you acting jobs?” is one of the most devastating weapons they use on actors against Actors’ Guild of Nigeria.
Lets’ stop to think about it; what has Actors’ Guild of Nigeria really done to benefit her members? If not for the fact that, state chairmen/excos strive to talk/persuade producers/others to take productions to their respective states, an indulgent which in most cases beclouds the original duties of these AGN officials as they will not be able to checkmate those activities that are detrimental to the welfare of their members. This trend has gradually grind the wills of the Union to a stand-still because producers, directors and other sister guilds in the movie industry show little or no respect to the existence of the Union anywhere in Nigeria.
Internally, lack of administrative skills on the part of the national and state chapter excos brings the Union to a great disrespect in the eyes of her members. This is because, the guild lacks the authority to enforce her rules and regulations on her members. For instance, A-list actors operate on a freelance basis and do not pay dues and a certain percentage of their artist fees to the Union as enshrine in the constitution; they do not attend monthly general meetings; they do not contribute whatsoever to the growth/strength of the Union/AGN.
Another very great setback the Union surfers is the choice of leadership. In recent times, the guild has been brought to her knees by her leaders. Leaders with such misdirected vision and unrepentant electoral prejudice flood the Union thereby stampeding the few ones who could have had the audacity to whisper meaningful suggestions for the way forward for the Union. Today, if you throw an open question to the leadership of the Union concerning which of the constitution is guiding the existence of the Union today, you will be throwing a grenade into an armory. Everyone will speak in diverse tongs. There is the issue of executive highhandedness. Leaders arresting their colleagues and other members at every provocation, without any recourse to the constitution. Impeachment, expulsion, suspension, dissolution of, sometimes very hardworking exco are now a colourful display of veto powers.
The issue of live membership/offices in the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the Union leaves more to be desired. Inadequate geo-political representation and endless period of membership makes the existence of the BOT more or less monopolistic in nature.
END OF PART 1
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