A veteran Nollywood actor, Adeoye Adewale, popularly known as “Elesho’’, on Friday said that paucity of funds was slowing down the growth of the movie industry in the country.
Elesho told the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos that funding was the only thing that could boost production and enhance the growth of the sector.
He said: “If you have several scripts and ideas but there is no money to implement such, it is like tea without sugar.
“Our government must be ready to stand by us, care for us and help us improve as it is done in other climes.’’
He said that the entertainment sector was a veritable source of revenue generation for any country.
Elesho said: “Any country that tends to destroy the efforts of its artistes does not know what it is losing.
“If the Federal Government is ready to support the artistes, we have many things to do to generate revenue from the sector.”
The actor said that he was into mentoring and training of up-and-coming artistes from his outfit as part of his own contributions to national development.
He said that with government’s support more and experienced artistes could establish their own outfits for the benefits of emerging and existing artistes.
Elesho said that the stakeholders would be generating revenues for themselves and the government from such activities.
He also appealed to the Federal Government to improve on the current standard of the National Theatre in Lagos.
The ace thespian said that the purpose that the theatre was meant to serve would be defeated if not functional.
He said: “There is no standard generator at the theatre in case of power outage. In the middle of production; if there is outage, artistes are usually stranded.’’
NAN reports that Elesho from Osun is one of the veterans in the Yoruba movie industry, with no less than 30 years’ experience.
Some of Elesho’s films are: “Ti Oluwa ni ile’’ (1993); “Abeke’’ (2004); “Eyin Ogongo’’(2000); “Kowope’’(2004); and “Obi Omo’’(2009).
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