Where Are The Isoko-Urhobo Comedians In Nigeria?

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The history of 21st century comedy in Nigeria cannot be completed without mentioning a renowned Isoko comedy producer, Opa Williams who birthed and discovered great Nigerian comedians. The stand up comedy popularly shown on TVC which is produced by Bunmi Davies and other comedy platforms were all came after ‘Night of a Thousand Laugh’ created by Opa Williams. The question here is that how many Isoko-Urhobo comedians were discovered from this noble platform in Nigeria?

If you go to Urhobo or Isoko region today, many young people are fast-becoming comedians but lack financial sponsorship to utilize their talents to greater heights of life. If Opa Williams could build non Urhobo-Isoko comedians in Nigeria, what is the offence of these up-and-coming comedians in the region?

While living in Isoko then as a child to teenager, I discovered that most of our Masters of Ceremonies were also doing little of comedies to make the occasions liveable. If our major home video producers like Zeb Ejiro,Fred Amata,Jeta Amata and others should take the lead of developing young Urhobo-Isoko people on 21st century knowledge of acting then what stop Opa Williams and other comedy producers who had made names in the entertainment not to groom Isoko-Urhobo young comedians for great exploits.

If Zeb Ejiro and others could have invested massively on Urhobo-Isoko actors and actresses then, today, the movie industry would have more of Urhobo-Isoko people but the reverse is now the case. The South East region saw the opportunities and brought their people into the business.90 percent of Nigeria home videos are largely produced from the South East as a result of fertile ground was given to these opportunists.

Again, one of the facebook pages I liked recently was ‘Sons and daughters ‘directly created by Delta people where they are planning to organise a world-class comedy progamme for Urhobo and Isoko comedians in Lagos. It is a welcome development to see the progress of Delta comedians in Nigeria.

The fact remains that if Opa Williams would have discovered young comedians from Urhobo-Isoko, the Night of a Thousand Laugh would have grown beyond bounds. Though he had every opportunity to groom Isoko-Urhobo young comedians to limelight but abysmally failed to project the regions.

Though, some of great philanthropists failed to promote our own comedians which only Opa Williams cannot do it alone to nurse this creative vision. It is only Urhobo-Isoko regions you would see rich people paying heavily for non-Deltan artist and comedian to perform in their events. This is a sheer wickedness in the high places! The Basket Mouths, Klint the Drunks, Julius Agwus,Ali Baba,I go dies and others were all products of Opa Williams.

It is hard today to count successful comedians from Isoko-Urhobo except Bovi Ugboma, the Ivrogbo-Irri born comedian whose destiny acclimatized with Lagos State soil; I go die and host of others. The comedy success ratio is 1:20 in Urhobo-Isoko regions.

Since Opa Williama has failed to discover young comedians from Urhobo-Isoko, though it is capital-intensive but with his comedy influence in Nigeria, Isoko-Urhobo nation can grow easily in the comedy business in Nigeria.Bovi Ugboma is a resourceful comedian that can also pave way for other Isoko-Urhobo comedians to grow their talents in Nigeria.

I met Bovi Ugboma at Inside-Out with Agatha Amata trying to use that platform to make his way into stardom then. In as far every successful comedian has story to tell every up-and –coming comedians in Nigeria, there is need for our Deltan comedians to remember their roots and nothing more.

One thing that shocked my writing imagination recently when I saw Opa Williams’s singlehandedly creating a TV series on non-speaking Urhobo- Isoko promoting other regions than his own region but the fact remains that our so-called celebrated Urhobo-Isoko philanthropists can hardly coughed out millions from their pockets to sponsor such creative events.

Let our rich Deltan personalities changed their mindsets to invest on the lives of Urhobo-Isoko comedians than praising them with empty pockets. No region grows well in the world without adding creativity and passion to it. Most of our Urhobo-Isoko comedians need to be rebranded at all levels through creative comedy platforms in Nigeria. Let all Urhobo-Isoko comedy producers promote their own comedians now.

Godday Odidi
Social Media Analyst/Mindset Media Limited
08058124798
Lagos

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Articles by Godday Odidi