I Wanted to Unmask Charles Taylor in My Film, Says, Sam Kargbo, Producer of 'Blood Diamonds'

Lawyer, law teacher, social commentator and film maker, Sam Kargbo is many things to many people. Although a regular TV guest on many topical issues and a newspaper columnist,  Kargbo carries about his life with utmost modesty. He loves his beautiful wife from Akwa Ibom State and adores his mentors with a passion. He is the maker of Blood Diamonds, arguably one of the highest budget films in Nollywood, the Nigerian Home Video Industry. Yet, he insists film making is just an avenue for him to pass his message across to a target audience. In this interview with UGOCHUKWU EJINKEONYE (February 2005), he talks about his involvement in film making and the bold efforts of private investors that have taken the good image of Nigeria across continents.

Excerpts:

Sam Kargbo on Channels TV

Most people are familiar with Sam Kargbo the lawyer, not the script writer and film producer, at what point did this other side of you come up?

Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye In Conversation With Placid Aguwa

 PLACID AGUWA, a New York-based attorney, is the Managing Partner of the law firm, Placid and Emmanuel, P.C., and former president of the Nigerian Lawyers Association (NLA).  Since 1991, he has practiced law in state and federal courts in New York and Nigeria. In this interview with UGOCHUKWU EJINKEONYE (March 2007), he speaks on the activities of the NLA, and some of the challenges faced by Nigeria in its tortuous journey to democratic and economic stability. 

Excerpts: 

*Placid Aguwa 

UGOCHUKWU EJINKEONYE: When was the Nigerian Lawyers Association (NLA) formed, and what are its objectives? 

PLACID AGUWA: Thank you for your interest in learning more about the Nigerian Lawyers Association (NLA).  NLA was incorporated in 1999 as a not-for-profit, non-partisan association of attorneys. NLA represents the interests of attorneys mainly of Nigerian descent both in the United States and all over the world. It advances the professional needs of its growing members and provides leadership and advocacy for the legal needs of and interests of the minority community in the United States and around the world.

NLA's principal objectives are to cultivate the science of jurisprudence, facilitate and advance the fair and equitable administration of justice, serve the needs of the members of the Nigerian legal community, as well as the minority communities as a whole, in their understanding and access to the law and to educate and assist such persons in their day to day dealings with the law.  

The African Writer Is An Orphan, Says Chinedu Ogoke, Nigerian Writer

[In 2002, CHINEDU OGOKE, a Nigerian writer, academic and translator resident in Germany published his first novel, Under Fire. His second novel is being awaited. In this interview with UGOCHUKWU EJINKEONYE, Mr. Ogoke speaks on his work and the state of African Literature in relation to the still thorny issue of audience definition]

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*Chinedu Ogoke

When we talked in September 2003, after the publication of your first novel, Under Fire (2002), you said you already had the outline of another novel, how soon should we expect to read the novel? 

2003! That is already an age. You mean I have allowed so much time to pass without coming up with another work? Phew, in that time, two novels ought to have been breathing on the table.

I had thought that what I had had been brought to a stage and so laid out that one should just do a smooth drive and that would be it. How wrong I was. Some pages of the outline, which is elaborate, have gone missing. Snatched away by the wind of time. I built a pattern, though simple, that requires a reorientation to keep it going. I have found myself in an undesirable situation whereby I have to walk through the worlds I meant to depict, or replay events in those contexts. I have to rediscover our people’s speech habits and choice of words to construct such scenes. Something like that. They are not inconclusive outlines, but whole portions gone missing. You cannot insert peanuts for perm kernels and expect a flow. The right attitudes have to be found in the appropriate places.

Besides, my current research work came in and has to get priority attention. That naturally, caused some delays. Unless this current project gets out of the way, the manuscript will be lying where it is at the moment. The research work is boring. I detest conventions, and this is what I am forced to do. Rules here and there. Flowery language may be unwelcome here, which takes away the fun and the urge to move ahead with it. Assuming it were a novel, I wouldn’t need a driving license in every corner or adhering to a thousand traffic rules.

In fact, I work on the novel once in a while as a kind of push for the project at hand. Else even the project will be there, with nothing going. One third of the novel has been written, which includes the last page. Let’s see; by the end of this year, 2008, we can be talking about a conclusion of a second novel. Publishing is something else, for obvious reasons.