Legendary Actor & Singer, Bob Ejike Becomes Brand Ambassador Of Lanova Soft Drinks
Huge trucks log gigantic billboards of Nollywood (Nigerian film industry) founder, Bob Ejikeme, (popularly known as Bob Ejike) advertising Lanova soft drinks, around Nigerian major cities. The choice of model and strategy were made by the management of Emerald Farms, Lekki, makers of the new beverage, in the hope that the famous middle-aged actor, singer and novelist will make his generation consume a drink that was initially designed for children.
No one would have been more appropriate than Bob Ejike, a generational cult figure who dominated TV and radio adverts in the nineties and lent his image to great consumer products like Maltex, Jumbo Maggie and a number of banks, and no one needs the visibility more than Ejike who had been away from the film industry he founded for over a decade. Since Ejike’s return from Europe, East Africa and The Middle East, he has starred in 7 movies including Zeb Ejiro’s Merciful,(whose soundtrack Ejike scored) Chico Ejiro’s Nollywood Scandals (which Ejike wrote) Chico Ejiro’s Ije Uwa (the theme music of which Ejike wrote), Beth Egenti’s Most Beautiful Girl, (theme music by Bob Ejike), Abking Abubakar’s Inikpi, Chioma Okoye’s My Angel and Frank Rajja’s The Gambler. Ejike has since directed and produced 14 music videos which are being gradually released on TV and music websites and he featured in Ferdcy’s So Fine and emceed the launch of SG’s Wado for Bigtime Entertainment.
Bob Ejike, whose daughter’s recent graduation from the prestigious Laugh-borough University in England became a viral national celebration online, needs the mega fee from the Lanova add to keep his son in Cambridge University, England and his second daughter in elite college in Dubai. But more frankly, Ejike is not new to big bucks; he owns swathes of choice property in Lekki, two luxury homes in Milan and lives in Bonnington Towers, in the exclusive Jumeira reserve in Dubai. When he was in Uganda to help craft the local motion picture industry tagged Ugawood, he had two chauffeurs and two jeeps with diplomatic plate numbers, four bodyguards, two cooks and three attack dogs that guarded his six-facility recording studio by Lake Victoria, in Kampala, but the austere introverted artistic technocrat who has sold millions of music, movies and videos, will never admit that he has a dime.
If the Lanova people keep their word and run the mobile billboards for two years, Ejike will be by far the most famous artiste in the country, but the multi-talented artiste who is currently in Dubai shooting the Lanova TV advert, is unmoved by all these razzmatazz and most observers will agree with him that his endorsement was long overdue after forty years in the industry, considering the fact that the Umuahia, Abia State-born Afro-Italian artiste, was already a popular newspaper columnist and theatre director at 13.
In the years that followed, his efforts in poetry, radio drama and the theatre catapulted him into television drama scripting and a spectacular event took place in his life, becoming a turning point, for on NTA Sound City, as a guest, he met another guest, a budding musician called Kris Okotie, and both became friends. Okotie, who would soon become Nigeria’s biggest music star and subsequently one of the most successful televangelists in Africa, taught Ejike how to add melody to his poetry and sing properly and this was the beginning of Ejike’s music career.
Thereafter Bob Ejike rehearsed, performed and recorded with other popular artistes of that epoch like Jake Solo, Oritz Wiliki, Jide Obi, Chis Mba, Loverboy Felix Liberty, Tina Onwudiwe, Onyeka Onwenu, among others.
In 1980, Ejike,who had finished school in Government College, Umuahia, gained admission into University of Port Harcourt to study Theatre Arts. In Uniport he came under the influence of great literary minds like Prof. Ola Rotimi, Gabriel Okara, Elechi Amadi, I.N.C. Aniebo, Chidi Amuta, Kay Williamson, Wilfred Feuser, and performed with celebrated artistes like Daniel Wilson, Dizzy K. Falola, Sweat, Mandy Brown, Cloud 7, who helped sharpen his art.
In 1982, Ejike’s film Echoes of Wrath, starring Richard Mofe-Damijo, was released. It won the National Festival of Arts and Culture (NAFEST) and became the first known Nigerian commercial film sold in home video format, launching the unprecedented Nigerian video-film renaissance aka Nollywood, that became the third biggest film industry in the world. In the following years Bob Ejike was involved in a number of other commercial film projects that included the comedy series Okpuru Anyanwu, which ultimately opened up the Nigerian market for the home video tradition.
Bob Ejike graduated in 1985 and participated in the National Youth Service Corp as a language teacher in the Federal Government Girls College, Shagamu, in Ogun State, Nigeria. In this period he recorded and released his first music album No Vacancy, which championed the cause of the teeming unemployed. At the end of his service year he joined Ken Saro-Wiwa’s national soap opera Basi and Co as an actor and scriptwriter. He also held musical performances with the British Council, Enugu.
In 1987, he went for a musical concert in Italy and was co-opted into an Italian reggae band, Iree, and was therefore compelled to remain in Italy for their recordings and performances. He also became a scholar and English teacher at Universita Popolare of Rome. A tireless workaholic, Ejike also worked as translator for Italian publishers and newspapers, and anchored columns in several publications in which he popularized Nigerian film and artistic culture. His annual exhibition of Nigerian arts and culture in Rho, Milan, along with his numerous public lectures in various cities helped advertise Nollywood into an international brand.
In 1990, Ejike released his second album Checkin’ Out, and in collaboration with some of his academic colleagues, launched a huge media campaign to further publicize Nigerian arts and culture globally. At the height of his fame, he was chosen to officially present the Italian version of Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savanna to the city of Milan, in a state ceremony.
In 1995, Bob Ejike returned to Nigeria on an educational programme of the Italian Embassy that taught Italian Language and Culture in Queens College, Lagos, and Kings College, Lagos. Ejike also worked as a columnist for The Sun and The Post Express newspapers, and presented Tropical Rhythms, an NTA (Nigerian Television Authority), Channel 5, cultural programme, while also working as an actor, author, singer and model.
He published his book Weapons of Biafra, starred in 40 Nigerian films, and produced and released several music albums and videos. His movies include Wasted Years, with Justus Esiri, Sharon Stone 2, with Genevieve Nnaji, Maximum Risks, with Regina Askia, Confusion, with Kanayo o Kanayo, Deadly Proposal, with Pete Edochie, Polygamy, with Peter Bunor snr, Tears in Heaven, with Susan Patrick, Nightfall, with Charles Okafor, Executive Crime, with Bimbo Manuel, Aba Riot, with Olu Jacob, Wanted Alive, with St. Obi, Next of Kin with Jide Kosoko, Homeless with Clarion Chukwurah and several others.
In 2002, seeking new challenges, Bob Ejike returned to the Italian academia, teaching English as a Foreign Language at Universita Popolare di Roma, a job he combined with working as a translator and International Correspondent for The Sun newspaper. In 2005, the Government of Abia State, (Bob Ejike’s place of birth) brought him back from Rome to Umuahia, honoured him and officially recognized his artistic and intellectual efforts towards the international promotion of Nigerian arts and culture.
In 2006, Ejike was invited to Uganda to work with MP General Elly Tumwine, former Culture and Tourism Minister, on the Ugawood Project, aimed at creating indigenous motion picture industry in the East African country. He spent the next five years working on the project. He also opened the Professor Bob Ejike Foundation for Performing Arts (Probe) a non-profit organization which ran audiovisual studios and marketing outfits to assist indigent artists. He used his position in that country to build a cultural bridge that facilitated the arrival in East Africa of Nigerian performers and artistic products, and vice versa, helping to make Nollywood the most popular font of home entertainment in East Africa.
In 5 years of Uganda, Ejike’s music flowered. He recorded 70 songs and 25 music videos some of which went to the Top Ten and remained popular for a long time. The ordinary people called him ‘Ki Nigeria’, meaning Nigerian film.
In the last ten years Bob Ejike has been a member of the Italian diplomatic mission in Uganda and the United Arab Emirates, but visits Lagos frequently for movie engagements. He recently released a music album entitled Infinite Youth, with a very popular video Darijimi.
