When a father calls his daughter GOC (General Officer Commanding), then, that daughter must be a special breed. Even as a tot in Enugu where she was born and bred, Amaka Igwe exhibited leadership traits that earned her a special place in the heart of her father.
Those traits earned her very irreplaceable place in the Nigerian movie industry, it saw her succeed in the Nigerian capitalist environment, and also became a role model to many young women in the once male-dominated entertainment/movie production business.
Today, Amaka is no more. Her demise, though a shock to the entertainment industry because it happened while she was on location for an Igbo soap opera in Enugu, is one big blow by the cold hands of death. She was 51 years, and left behind so many unfulfilled dreams, especially the quest to make Igbo films that would show regularly on AfricaMagic like Hausa and Yourba movies.
For those who do not know Amaka, she was everything a father, husband, children and even colleagues would wish a woman to be – a successful daughter, loving wife, caring mother, and an astute business/entertainment personality.
If Isaac Ene, her late father, a retired civil engineer from Obinagu-Udi in Enugu State, was to be alive today, he would query death for snatching his best. Amaka was truly among the best in her chosen career.
Madam BOBTV, as her competitors will call her, Amaka was a foremost producer, writer, director, an entrepreneur, teacher and a leading player in the Nigerian motion picture industry since 1992.
Considering some of her early works such as Checkmate, Fuji House of Commotion, Violated, Rattle Snake, and The Barber’s Wisdom, shot on celluloid, one may ask where she got such amazing creative ingenuity from because then, they were rare in our clime. Those efforts till date have largely remained a watershed in the history of soaps and movie production in Nigeria.
Even when ideas come in a flash of memory, she still captured them. While alive, Amaka disclosed that she conceived Checkmate by watching Mirror in the Sun. She had written a script about an all conquering female hero like Queen Amina and had conceived it like a traditional stage play. But when she saw Mirror in the Sun, she decided to make it a modern all conquering female hero story.
Her love for the motion picture industry was beyond the scripts she wrote, the movies she directed and the money that hit her bank accounts. Amaka also saw the need for a platform that converge all TV programmes in one-stop-shop. She created one and tagged it BOBTV, an annual event that facilitated the buying and selling of audio-visual content, the brokerage of production deals as well as the facilitation of world-class skills transfer and training for African producers.
Best of the Best African Film and Television Programmes market (BOBTV) truly lived up to Amaka’s vision of providing a common access point for good and authentic movies and television programmes.
The late Amaka was truly a successful entrepreneur. Beside founding and organising BOBTV, she was also the CEO of Top Radio 90.9FM based in Lagos mainland, managing director, Amaka Igwe Studios, and chairperson, Q Entertainment Networks, while preparations were underway to launch Q Networks, a DStv channel in a few weeks.
Even in death, Amaka remains grateful to the day she organised variety shows for her school house at Idia College Benin City, Edo State, which attracted a fee paying audience. That was the beginning of her today successful journey in the arts, and from that single variety show, she taught and took her school group to perform the famous Atilogwu dance at the Ogbe Stadium in Benin City.
Though she studied Education and Religious Study at the University of Ife, it was until she returned to Enugu after her NYSC that she learnt television at the studios of the Enugu State Broadcasting Service where classics such as Basi and Company and the New Masquerade were produced.
Of course, her fans across Africa mourn her, and AfricaMagic is refreshing her memory by screening a collection of her most beloved works in the days and weeks ahead for being a giant in our world, a loyal supporter, a committed professional and a valued partner to M-NET Africa.
While all her fans mourn her, they wish Charles, her husband of 21 years, her three children, and an aged mother, the fortitude to bear her loss.
Adieu Amaka Nee Ene!
OBINNA EMELIKE
