Hilda Dokubo: I’m a Church Girl, My Mother, a Sunday School Teacher, My Father, a Lay Preacher

She wears many hats such that they put her in enviable positions. In Nollywood where she towers above her contemporaries, her name remains evergreen three decades after. With a voice so vocal, she holds sway in the polity. A distinguished personality, Hilda Dokubo, Executive Director, Centre for Creative Arts Education, a one stop support centre for women and youths, is readily a subject of delight and one to reckon with in every sense as you would find in this conversation with Ferdinand Ekechukwu. She bares almost all about her facet of engagements and acting career that gave her life

Let me start with what you are known first as an actress, an activist and youth advocate. Can one add any other appendage to these?

(Laughs)… Oh my goodness. You do know I’m an educator.   So, I don’t know there’s just a lot that I do. I’m an entrepreneur, so because I do business as well. But I think that will do for now.

Basically, just these?

Well, is there anything else you want to find out whether I do that I don’t or do not?

Well, for the purpose of those who really don’t know you that much…but if you feel we should leave it at that then

There’s already like a lot okay… So I coach people, I’m a mentor. I’m a humanitarian. I’m an author. Isn’t that like too much? I don’t know. But I wear a lot of shoes than a lot of that.

You are very vocal on happenings in the polity, always giving opinion on issues, what is the motivation for it?

I’m a Nigerian. I live here. I work here. My children are from here. Shouldn’t it be my concern what happens here? It should right because whatever happens here will affect me. So, it’s important that my voice is heard. It’s important that I speak up when things are not working well, and to also speak up when they are working well. So, that’s what the motivation is. Plus we deserve the best. God has actually, really truly blessed this country. So, we should enjoy the best of everything.

To that, based on what you have just said, looking at your younger days compared to what we have now could be seen as far cry. Can you just share with us a bit of your growing up, background and the fond memories you hold of the happenings then in the society, your childhood?

I have fond memories of a lot… My childhood I grew up in Port Harcourt, born to an engineer father and a teacher mother. I attended public schools. My entire life, from age 7, I have been working. I was discovered during a talent hunt programme. And then I went on radio as a 7-year-old presenting a radio programme. From there, I went on to Rivers State Council for Arts and Culture as a kid performer and then from there to Rivers State Television as a continuity announcer. In all of these times, I was in school. As a matter of fact, in the University I was blending my university programme and working with RSTV, owning a small drama club and working with the Rivers State Council for Arts and Culture. I have beautiful memories of what Port Harcourt looks like. But that’s it. So, I can’t say that I know a lot as a child about governance and leadership. Plus, you know it twitched rapidly because it was also military rule. So, it kept changing and I can’t tell you that you know that obviously wasn’t my concern as a young person. What I knew about it was what was taught as history or as civics or as government when we got to late secondary school. But in the university, I was an activist! Gosh. I spoke up because at that point, I had my own voice you know. As a child, your parents and older siblings, if you have them, speak on your behalf. As an adult you have the right to speak up and I did speak up. But then, as an adult, even in Nollywood, they would tell you I was first to complain about welfare. I will always complain about wrong leadership.

Activism has been a part of you from way back. Your acting career, which you are well known for, has been a part of you growing up as far back as when you were a child. Both seem to have a mix kind of?

My acting career has been with me my entire life. My activism parts of me, as a matter of fact, you know thinking about it now, the programme that I anchored as a child – Young Brains – was actually an activism programme for young people because, that’s thinking about it now, but at that time it didn’t look like that to me. Because what Young Brains at about that time was young people discussing things that they wanted around them, things that their teachers or adults did, like we had topics you know stuff like that. And so, teachers and parents used to listen to know what teacher or what adult did what. And you know I remember people teasing and saying to each other ‘don’t let this children discuss you on radio tomorrow’ (laughing). You know but we were very young, it was more entertaining than activism because, anyway, for that age, what did we even know about activism.  So, activism has always been a part of me.

Your journey into Nollywood started in 1992 and that’s some good 30 solid years in the industry. And it’s worth commending really. What’s your staying power? What has the experience been like working in Nollywood?

Well working in Nollywood is like working anywhere in Nigerian (laughing). You have to understand, first of all for me, by training and by experience I know the best things that you do for yourself as a human being, as an actor, is to keep recreating you. You have to always see that ‘yes I did that job it was beautiful’ but you have to upgrade yourself. Two, you need to understand that we all have our emotions and we all come with them. So, humility is the answer.  So, stay humble and know that everybody else on that set is as important as you are. And know that you are who you are because the audience loves you. So, you have to love them too. Thank God for the days of social media you know. When we first started, there was no social media. So, we had nowhere to keep posting things. I wish that we were all posting maybe some of us today I don’t know how many million followers we would have on social media.

And even when I went to do community service and government work, if I had posted my activism in the creeks online, I also don’t know how many followers I would probably had today. And by doing my job well each time I get a good job to do. And by refusing some jobs that I don’t think deserve my time.

Talking about government you served as Special Adviser on youth affairs in your state. What did you take away?

I tell you I leant a few things; some very good, some not so good. One, I learnt proper administration. Don’t forget that up on till then, every job that I have done didn’t give me that opportunity of doing what they call memos. I learnt government kind of administration.  I learnt also that government likes to duplicate things. So, you have offices that you don’t understand why you should have that number of people on the same project. I also found out that there’s what you would call politically right or politically correct statements. Up on till that point, I didn’t know what those things were and if anybody say them to me, I would be wondering what they are talking about. But having served, which was also why I had to like take a leave, and then began to work on the things I had found out that I needed to do. Serving as SA opened up a lot of opportunities. . . I saw that there was a huge gap between the people and the government. So, I breached that gap. Which is the reason why I can go in their midst today and be very safe and protected by them. . . They wanted to do something but they just didn’t know how to start and that was how I started the Street to Star Project.

The industry now, is it one you are happy with the way things are generally?

Let’s put it this way. We are not where we started from. We are not yet where we are going. We are on a journey. And when you are on a journey, you expect bumps and potholes here and there. You expect traffic jam at certain points. You expect roadblocks at certain points. And we are experiencing all of it. This journey is very intriguing. But some of us have been able to weather it because we have very scintillating characters amongst us who know how to handle things because they don’t let challenges stop them. They actually stop challenges. Am I happy that we are growing? Yes. We are growing in different directions. People are making a lot of progress financially, some are not. Technically, we are also growing. People are getting to own more equipment. International streaming platforms are coming into the country. Again, like we always say, it is our handlers who mess us up all the time. It is not the organisations. They come in they have their own expectations and then we have handlers who go in there and mess up everything for everybody. You know it’s crazy how some handlers make the real practitioners look small. But it’s okay that people are here. It’s only a question of time. Very soon it will get clearer because a discussion is on.  

 Is there anything you would like to point out that is lacking and how would you love to see it addressed?

When we started Nollywood, we didn’t know it was going to get this big. But we all believed in our talents in our skills and in our trainings. And we saw the opportunity that was there. And we went into it. Luckily, I’m a pioneer. We told African stories which are stories that you and I can relate to as our stories. Now we have historic stories that are ours to tell. That if we don’t tell the world will listen to those stories and try to bend them because we have seen history overtime people want to rewrite history. And some of us, we need to always hold them back to the truth. There are people who came into this industry after ten years of its takeoff…who were already in entertainment; some of them were in the TV stations, or in soaps but they didn’t believe in Nollywood so they stayed away. It took ten years to convince themselves that they can come in and today people call them the “Masters of Nollywood” and we laugh because what they know is from the point they entered. So, the stories we are losing out first on telling our original African stories.

We are losing out in telling the proper history of Nollywood. We are getting those told in bits and pieces. We are leaving out important names.  It’s funny how Africans, not just Nollywood, never know how to celebrate people when they are alive. So, I’m looking forward to us being able to tell African stories the African way and using the right equipment. I’m also looking forward to some of those things being corrected. And some of the award giving bodies doing better than just saying this is viewers’ choice. Award people award for excellence because they are excellent at what they do. It’s also like I’m not against people casting people from social media but I’m against you picking up somebody from social media because the person’s algorithm is high and not training the person or even preparing the person for this character that you want the person to play. It’s an abuse on the profession. These are the few. There are a lot more.

Looking at the movies you have featured so many that one may not easily count. You even I don’t think you personally can…

I can ‘biko’ (please)…

Okay tell me how many movies have you featured? Put a figure to the movies you have featured

Okay let me just tell you about this year. So, about this year this is the eighth month right? And in this eighth month I have done ten movies. So, I’m just looking at just this year alone. And this is me combining it with acting classes, combining it with my other business, combining it with travels, combining family and I have created time to shoot ten movies. And I’m starting another one (laughing).

Which of these movies you featured generally easily comes to your mind?

Okay, before this year, we had counted over a hundred and thirty. And this year alone I just decided that okay let’s just count from this year and say okay these are the new ones so we don’t bother so much about the older ones. Amongst the new ones I tell you the truth all of the ten are solid. Solid in terms of story, they are solid in terms of theme, crew, cast. They are solid in terms of the platform they intend to put them. As they begin to release them, we would see them. But the older ones, I love them by what they are. ‘Another Campus Tale’ was my first production; a true-life story on student cultism at the time when cultism was killing a lot of young people in school. It was my own advocacy for stopping cultism, and stopping the killings in schools. And it did work. We took it to universities across Nigeria and people denounced cultism after watching that movie. It was my goal and we achieved it.

What do you consider the greatest influence in your life?

Hmmm… I want to believe my father. He died early. Fine I had a beautiful childhood. But after my father passed. I knew the meaning of poverty.  But he instilled a whole lot of discipline. My mother is still the disciplinarian in my family. But my father will talk you through your problem and help you see why he’s unhappy with you. And show you all the way out. So that’s a great influence. My parents influenced me in different ways. And then society and what I see. Don’t forget I’m a church girl. My mother was a Sunday school teacher, my father a lay preacher. My both grandparents were reverend.

What’s a typical day like for you?

Wakeup, pray, makeup my room, shower. Well, sometimes shower comes before watching a programme, sometimes the programme comes before shower and then a cup of coffee. And I run off. So, the time that you are using now is the time I usually use in watching a programme. So, that’s why I said this will be the best time. Usually, between by 6am I should either be praying or have just finished praying. So, basically that’s my day. And then in the evening I share with family we just go through our day’s work which was the time I said okay you can call. Because at 9 I can then call anybody except I’m working…

How do you unwind?

I read a lot. I watch TV a lot. I gist with my friends I like to hang out with friends. I love to travel. So, every time I get the opportunity I run. Then I do a lot of experimental cooking (laughing). I tried to create recipes out of things you know something I just say ‘what would this taste like really if I blend this and that together’. And I do this not when people are hungry but when I just want to play around. Sometimes they turn out really beautiful and they become one of the items on our menu. Sometimes they don’t and we laugh over it and say ‘this experiment no work’.