By Nnamdi Okosieme
Today is a sad day for me and I believe for many others who cherish freedom and creativity.
I am diminished that one of Nigeria’s leading culture ambassadors was today humiliated like a criminal who had committed the most heinous crime.
It was painful to me to see Pedro Obsseki, my friend and brother of nearly 40 years stripped to his boxers and dragged through the streets of Benin City by individuals who ordinarily should be in awe of him and his accomplishments.
As an undergraduate at the University of Benin studying Theatre Arts in the mid to late 1980s, there were a few students that fired my zeal to excel.
One of those students was Pedro. Though a year younger than me, he was two years my senior. He was very brilliant.
Underline the word brilliant.
He had books many students didn’t have, played hard and studied hard. I admired him from afar at first and then later started emulating him. I and some of my classmates would pick his brains and always found something worthy to take away.
He was that good. It was thus not surprising that immediately he left the university and completed the mandatory NYSC scheme, he was employed by the Theatre Arts Department at a young age of 21 years.
That job was his spring board as he would later go on to achieve big things. To give you a sense of his accomplishments, I will reproduce excerpts of an article written in the Guardian newspaper to commemorate his 50th birthday eight years ago:
“Educated at the University of Benin and University of Ibadan, Obaseki, who had a teaching stint at the University of Benin and was at a time general manager in charge of programmes at the Degue Broadcasting Network, otherwise DBN television in Lagos, has written several plays and produced and directed a number of home movies and television soaps.
“His first full-length play, Rendezvous at Hell Gate, was performed at the University of Benin in 1989, same year he began a career as a lecturer at just age 21.
“A two-time recipient of the Oba Erediauwa Award for Excellence (2011 and 2013), a recipient of the 2013 ‘Nollywood Distinguished Veteran’ Award and Chief Executive Officer of ACC Broadcast Multimedia Ltd (operators of MTN-ACCMobileTV/PIDGIN-TV), Obaseki grew up in Warri and Agbor, both in Delta State, and Benin City.
“An old boy of the prestigious Unity School, Agbarho, near Warri, Obaseki holds a doctorate degree in Performance and Praxis. A prolific writer of plays, poetry and an accomplished motion picture director, he did his national service in Kaduna and was formerly president of the Filmmakers Cooperative of Nigeria (FCON).
“An award-winning director and one of the very few motion picture practitioners of the Nollywood industry in the professional class, Obaseki directed an international television documentary, Oshogbo and Adunni Olorisha Susanne Wenger, with Dr. Adama Ulrich for ORB Brandenburg, Berlin and with Thorolf Lipp (a German documentary filmmaker) on Adire Batik in 1996.
“An accomplished documentary filmmaker, playwright, stage director and unarguably a pioneer of Nigeria’s film industry, Obaseki has written, produced and directed several movies, television dramas and documentaries.
“The epic adventure movie, Igodo, which he co-directed with Andy Amenechi, earned him a Best Director award at the 1999 edition of the defunct The Movie Awards (THEMA).
“His home-video film, Eziza, was well received and also screened in London, United Kingdom and South Africa. As a playwright, he is well accomplished. His most popular stage work, Obaseki, is presently on high school curricula in parts of Nigeria and in Nigerian universities and was Africa’s entry for the Euro Culture-City ’96 Festival in Copenhagen, Denmark.
“His other play, Azagidi, was performed in the Scandinavia in February and March of 1999 and also used to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the MUSON in October 2003 and was the convocation play of the University of Lagos last year.
“Author of Songs of a Prodigal (an anthology of poems), Idia (a play), The Bridge (a play), Days of Rage (television soap), Eziza (movie), Brave Soldiers (movie) and Tara (movie), Obaseki holds and has held so many management positions, including owning franchises and proprietary rights to the Nollywood movie channel, MoviStar (former Channels 333 and 330 on Sky UK), and 1-MIC (a music channel available via satellite over West Africa).
“He was at a time member of the Governing Board of the Centre of Black and African Arts and Civilization (CBAAC), a parastatal of the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Culture and Tourism…”
I have reproduced this article at length to contextualize the unfortunate event that happened in Benin City. Without sounding hyperbolic, I doubt that there is any scholar or artist in the last three decades who has done more to promote Benin culture and tradition through his craft than Pedro Obaseki.
He has been an excellent ambassador of Benin Culture. He lives it and breathes it. Ordinarily, he should be treasured and honoured by his people. To see him humiliated like he was by those individuals is thus shocking and painful.
What makes it worse is that the individuals who brutalized him claimed to be acting in the interest of the Oba of Benin.
I grew up in Benin City and I can categorically state that the current Oba of Benin is a cultured individual as was his father, Oba Erediauwa. He will not sanction this kind of barbarism. In fact, from the body language of the chiefs when Dr. Obaseki was taken to the palace, it was clear those individuals acted on their own.
The palace should thus immediately disown them and have them handed over to the police for prosecution.
…Okosieme is an accomplished journalist
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