OLU JACOBS: NIGERIA’S GREATEST ACTOR by BOB EJIKE

OLU JACOB: NIGERIA’S GREATEST ACTOR

BOB EJIKE

The bone of contention between Chief Olu Jacob and I, which compelled Director Chico Ejiro and Assistant Director Ruke Amata to momentarily halt the shooting of Aba Riot, a movie that dealt with the shocking phenomenon of the degeneration of the Bakasi Boys vigilante group, was the word ‘Nincompoop’. As far as Olu Jacobs was concerned I was not pronouncing the word right and he was not going to allow me to drag his global reputation to the mud by mispronouncing English words while acting opposite him in a Nollywood film. I also had my own reputation to worry about. Several years of teaching English in Oxford College convinced me that nobody should teach me how to pronounce an English word, not even a celebrated Hollywood superstar!

‘Bob, look at the script again’ Olu Jacob counseled me paternally.

I snatched the production script from the director, (an abominable act in movie production), quickly glanced through the printed dialogue.

‘Can’t you see the final P in Nincompoop?’ The international movie macho man was losing patience with my intransigence, which was delaying the recording process and setting back his busy shooting schedule.

‘The final P is silent sir’, I insisted stubbornly.

‘So in your opinion why is it part of the word?’ Chief Jacob demanded, his left cheek twitching viciously in that typical manner which all the viewers of his films recognize as exasperation.

‘The same reason why other silent letters are part of English words sir’. I replied, adamant.

Ruke Amata’s indignant eyes shifted agitatedly to his wristwatch. In movie production time translates directly to money. He firmly retrieved the production script from me and snapped,  ‘Bob pronounce the last P. Action!’ Thus the bigger film star won the day.

Before I met Olu Jacobs I had watched his expert portrayals in great international movies like Ashanti, Frederick Foresyth’s The Dogs of War, the fugitive Polish director, Roman Polanski’s Pirates, and a Walt Disney flick, perhaps because I was living in Europe. In Nigeria however he was popular because of one single sentence, ‘Ribena children are healthy children’, an unbeatable one-line masterpiece that he pronounced in that evergreen Ribena TV commercial.  Ironically most Nigerians knew his face more from this few seconds advert than for all the box office movies he made in Europe and Hollywood, and many people who watched the brief television clip did not know his name. The fact that Nigerians traditionally recognize and pay homage to Nigerian works of art that are made in Nigeria, representing the African cultural heritage, and are generally indifferent to great conquests abroad that have little to do with them, has been cause for much embarrassment for our international celebrities like Sade, Seal, Obba Babatunde, Dr Alban, Taiwo Ajayi-Lycett and Olu Jacobs, which is why Ajayi-Lycett and Jacobs came home and Dr Alban had to hire the services of Edi Lawani Coy, an entertainment-oriented  public relations outfit to transfer his international fame to Nigeria.

The courageous return of Olu Jacob at the onset of Nollywood was perhaps the best thing that happened to him and the best thing that happened to Nigerian film, because beyond and above anywhere, arts finds unquantifiable fulfillment and relevance at home, and Olu Jacob was the magnetic role model that attracted other internationally acclaimed intellectuals and artistic celebrities to form the energetic cast and crew that ultimately performed the miracle called Nigerian home video. When he started out most people scoffed and scorned, but his age, antecedence, legend, dexterity, tenacity and unflinching tenacity demonstrated to the rest of us that…. Yes if Olu can leave Hollywood to come to Nollywood and remain here against all these terrible odds, surely there must be something in this thing.

 I realized that it does not feel good to be asked your name in your country when you are used to wallowing in the fanatical deification of your autograph-hungry fans abroad, from the stern look that Olu Jacob gave me the first day I met him at NTA, Victoria Island, and asked him what his name was. But this event did not restrict mutual cordiality as I soon honored an invitation to his then Ikeja home with my family, and Olu introduced me to his regal and elegant wife, Joke Silva Jacob, a highly talented and internationally celebrated actress in her own right, and their adolescent son, Gbenga, a photocopy of his father. Later, he told me on a movie set that they had transferred to the aquamarine serenity of Ajah. On my first visit to his tranquil rare redbrick cottage, with a parlor large enough to play tennis in, I began to nurse the desire to share that ambience with him, and as soon as I decided to acquire a plot of land I returned to him for advice towards avoiding the many ‘419’ fraudulent estate agents that popular real estate locations like Ajah had become notorious for. His tips assisted me in no small measure, not only in acquiring a peaceable piece of land, but also in the construction of my home. Since our children ultimately attended Linsy School, which is located by Alpha Beach, Lekki Peninsular, we met regularly at the Parents /Teachers Association events and I was privileged through chit chats with him to collate invaluable materials about his life and art.

 Oludotun Jacob, son of Josiah Jacob, and Juliana Akoke Jacob, from Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria, was the first black man to push down the racial brick wall of many British stages. His journey unto the stage commenced when he was a little boy growing up with his parents and seven other siblings, (four of the children died), as an Anglican church chorister and a boy scout in Kano. He had been greatly inspired by the pioneer Nigerian filmmaker Herbert Ogunde, who was touring Kano, and other Northern cities, and this experience concretised his resolve to become a performing artiste. His parents were encouraging as Olu started acting in school, but his mother was shocked when the youth revealed his intention, requesting permission and financial support for dramatic studies in England. Understanding his determination, she connived with him to deceive his father into believing that he was going abroad to study Law. Only on that premise did the trip get Mr. Josiah Jacob’s blessing. His father eventually accepted his choice, albeit reluctantly. Thus Olu was educated at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, (RADA).

 Immediately after his graduation, he faced a typical British dilemma. To get acting jobs he needed an agent, to get an agent he needed acting jobs, to get an acting job he needed the union membership, and to get union membership he needed an agent, which meant a job! One day he was invited to a BBC audition by a friend, he was both apprehensive and enthusiastic because BBC could hire non-union members. Olu won the audition and that was the beginning of his artistic odyssey in England. In spite of initial preoccupation about the reaction of a dominantly white audience, he did many theater jobs, mostly from other places like, Liverpool, Coventry, Gilford Birmingham, Manchester Sheffield, Edinburgh, Colchester, Ireland, the Irish National Theatre, the Gait Theater, with excellent reception, conducting himself in such a gentlemanly manner that he opened the door for other black performers. Four years later, Olu returned to London with a portfolio full of experience, and by then London had become the beehive of UK theater activity. His career took another turn when he appeared in Ashanti, a film shot by Universal Pictures in Israel, Kenya and the Sahara desert, with such international Hollywood celebrities as Omar Sheriff, Michael Kane, William Holden, and Peter Enstinmot.

Although all the world may not really be a stage as William Shakespeare claimed, Olu Jacob surely treats it as such, which is why his meeting with his wife Joke has all the trappings of high instant breathtaking drama: The very young and ravishingly beautiful actress Joke Silva walks into a production board meeting in the National Theater, Iganmu, Lagos, where Olu is in attendance. Olu’s eyes lift from the board members to the dazzling damsel. He has never seen her before, but he immediately announces to everybody that this is his future wife. Just like that! The bashful, reserved Joke Silva does not share the humor. She turns round and stages a walkout. This initial rebuff however does not prevent a friendship to develop between the two artistic practitioners, which ultimately ends up in holy matrimony, despite parental reservations about their generation gap. Marriage brought the couple closer, because Olu is a typical  family man who relishes in cooking and changing babies’ nappies. It was this special intimacy that helped them survive the devastating effect of the death of their 11 years old daughter, after an operation to correct her bowleg.

Olu Jacob who has starred in over 100 movies, produced a film on a Sierra Leonian national hero, entitled Bybure Goes To War, in conjunction with a Sierra Leonian executive producer.  The movie which was directed by Fred Amata had 40, 000 people in attendance at the premiere in Freetown!

Olu Jacob is optimistic about the future of the Nigerian film renaissance that he pioneered. The ideal he patiently envisages is eventual government involvement in the internationalization of the lucrative movie industry, as a major foreign exchange earner for the country, as is obtainable in America, India and Hong Kong, and the Federal Government provision of essential infrastructure that will attract proper investment to the vital sector. With incessant table casting and numerous film releases Olu Jacob has since gone on to become Nigeria's greatest actor.

Bob Ejike