Baba Salah, Ajimajasan to be honored posthumously

As BON Awards 2018 gathers steam, three eminent stakeholders and top cadre players in Nollywood have been named as recipients of Special Recognition Awards for the December 8 event, billed to happen at Kakanfo Inn, Ibadan Oyo State; a press statement signed by Seun Oloketuyi, BON Awards Executive Producer has revealed.

The Special Recognition Award Plaques will be presented by H.E. Senator Abiola Ajimobi, Executive Governor of Oyo State. (Chief Host for BON Awards 2018) and the recipients will be Jason Njokwu, Co-founder and CEO of Iroko Partners, Kene Mkparu, Co-founder and former Managing Director of FilmOne Distribution Limited, owners of FilmOne Cinemas and Alhaji Abdulrasaq Abdullahi of Cooperate Pictures.

According to the statement, the choices of these esteemed individuals were arrived at after a critical evaluation of their individual contribution to the growth of our domestically developed movie industry.

The choice of Njokwu was arrived at to applaud his pioneering efforts at developing a digitalised distribution model for local movie contents in Nigeria. He launched Iroko TV as a Video-On-demand platform, to be to Africa what Netflix and Hulu was to the West. The platform is one of Africa’s first mainstream online movie streaming portal, giving instant access to nearly 10,000 film titles.

Mkparu relocated to Nigeria from the United Kingdom where he runs a stable cinema business, to take a chance on Nigeria’s unpredictable and murky cinema entertainment business terrain; at a time when many had dismissed it as non-bankable.

The re-awakening of the cinema culture in Nigeria and the growth in that sector can be credited to contributions of brilliant minds like Mkparu.

Nigerian movies are now making more money from cinema exhibitions than they were at anytime in our history. He also set up West Africa’s first IMAX theatre experience, adjudged one of the top three IMAX theatre in the world.

With an experience spanning nearly three decades, in the business of film and home video marketing and distribution, Alhaji Abdullahi Rasaq, the CEO of Corporate Pictures, and former president of the Yoruba Video Film Producers and Marketers Association of Nigeria has continually raised standards for the distribution and consumption of Nigerian movies made in Yoruba indigenous language.

His Corporate Pictures outfit majors in the marketing and distribution of Yoruba movies, churning out at least 60 percent of blockbuster movies from that sub-sector of Nollywood.

These movies are a viewer’s delight to most Nigerian homes who enjoy Yoruba movies, and to the community of Nigerians ( mostly Yorubas) in the Diaspora that sought to connect with home and culture.

A good number of big names, both actors and producers, owe their success story and big break into the mainstream filmmaking to Alhaji Rasaq, for availing them the opportunity and financial resources needed to churn out their Production.

Highlighted to be recognized posthumously are late theatre veterans and comedy luminaries, Ola Omonitan, Ajimajasan and Moses Adejumo, Baba Sala in recognition of their sacrificial contribution in laying the founding blocks for the comedy and film industry now enjoyed by generations after them.