In this recent interview with Yes International Magazine, the actor explains why he has been absent from Nollywood and what has been keeping him so far. See Excerpts below;
What has been happening to Saint Obi, you’ve been so quiet?
Well, as you journey through life, you get to a point where you ask yourself some tough but radical questions. I sat down, and had my usual rare deep one on one with God and decided to take a break from the entertainment industry.
The splash a diver makes at low diving level is far less than when the dive is from a higher plane.
I decided it was time to take a very deep dive into the next level of my career, business strategies and objectives. So, I might have been quiet, but I have been very loud with ground breaking visionary strides. For instance, my company is about to launch Agwhyte Global Entertainment Network (AGEN); Africa’s largest film distribution network; with over 190,000 outlets (4,800 in Nigeria) across 55 countries, globally.
AGEN takes care of a major gap in Nollywood: Distribution. Fix distribution and flooding of the market with sub standard movies will reduce drastically. Not too long ago, I was a resource person for the Goodluck/Sambo Presidential Campaign Organization. Before I joined the organization, the airwaves were dominated by the song ‘Goodluck to you… goodluck to everybody’. That was nice, but didn’t cover every segment of the society. I felt there was a missing link: Who is President Goodluck Jonathan, what makes him thick, what separates him from the pack?
I got my team and we put together a tight package and when we got to Goodluck/Sambo Campaign office in Abuja and showed them our concepts, we didn’t spend 10 minutes before we were asked to join the team. My company developed and produced over 15 television and radio commercials for the campaign organization.
I’ve also been busy fathering, mentoring and ‘husbanding’ my two boys and wife.
In a nutshell, I went back to the drawing board, developing ingenious ways of raising Nollywood from darkness to sparkling sunlight.
We heard you are planning a programme, tell us about it?
You sure have your ears to the ground. Anyway, I am not surprised, you are the guru, the ‘agafe’ (insurmountable) of soft sell journalism in Nigeria.Yes, we are planning a programme; not just a programme, but the very programme. It is tagged Entertainment Extravaganza.
You see, my wife works in the corporate world, so I understand the dynamics, the challenges and the strains they go through daily. There’s an old saying: all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. So, AGEN is putting together an event strictly for the business community in Nigeria.
Entertainment Extravaganza is a night of fun, relaxation, reinvigoration, networking and above all, unity. Entertainment Extravaganza will dish out a ‘full course meal’ of entertainment with A-list acts bringing exciting performances to the audience.
The event is only for top-notch corporate organizations, their staff and high-end clients. Therefore, it is not an all-comer’s affair.
We equally have other shows packaged for other strata of the society coming soon.