The movie industry is agog with the story of a war between the AGN president Mr. Ejike Asiegbu, and the organisers of the first ever Face of Nollywood event. One side of the divide is Bryan Chike and his team at Total TV and on the other side is the AGN and Mr.Obi Godwin Nwachukwu the man the actors guild is backing as the originator of the Face of Nollywood.

Both parties have been trading words over whose right it is to host the event. We spoke to the warring factions and this is the result of the encounter. First we started with Obi Nwachukwu and this is his story.

It's a fight to finish with Ejike Asiegbu— Bryan Chike

Bryan Chike the man at the centre of the Face of Nollywood spared nothing in defence of his right to host the event. He took swap shot at the AGN President accusing him of insincerity and greed.

If the AGN and the other body started their project since 2005, when did you start yours?

Oh! I'm hearing for the first time that there are people behind Ejike and that there is another team from you.

Ejike says he is standing by the other team because they approached him first and as a man of integrity and honour...

The question is if some people had approached him way back in whichever year, what did he tell me when I started? What did he tell me in February when I wrote a letter to him and up till two weeks ago when he began to play the mischief he's playing now.

If he had any agreement with another body in 2005, why did we carry on and why did he go into an MOU which was not signed?

He gave reasons why he went into the MOU which was because he thought he could get both parties to work together..

How can I work with a party I never knew, I'm hearing about another party for the first time. All this while, he didn't tell me there was another party other than the AGN. Before now, all he had said is that the trade mark belongs to AGN.

What he is saying is that somebody had already come to them with the proposal to host Face of Nollywood and which they endorsed ...

I'm not aware of that. When I started the Face of Nollywood also way back in 2006, I had to do my homework and planning. When I was ready to reach the public, I approached the AGN, the Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Script Writers Guild, Directors Guild of Nigeria and ANTP which is the Yoruba association for movie makers, I approached almost all the guilds. It was the same letter I wrote to all this other guild that I wrote to AGN.

All we were seeking was for support and endorsement. I never sought for anybody's collaboration. The other guilds wrote back giving their support but Mr. Asiegbu said he cannot give us support rather he can collaborate with us. And I asked him what kind of collaboration he was looking at. And he asked me what we are going to offer to the guild.

I reminded him that I was the Secretary General of AGN eight years ago and if the association has a programme and my company feels that we should get involved in it then why not, we can support the project or whatever they want to do.

But when he's talking about collaboration that I don't understand it and the discussion broke down at that point and we went our different ways.

Later one of my partners and colleague said he spoke with Ejike and that we have to resume that discussion again and I asked him if he fixed any time and he said yes.

We came to O'Jez restaurant and started talking about it again. In that discussion he asked what we can offer AGN, so I went outside to discuss with my colleague and when we came inside again, I told him we're offering 5% but asked him what AGN is bringing into the event. He said they are bringing their name or is their name not enough?

First, when I told him we were offering 5%, he laughed and said that I'm insulting him. And I told him that 5% is not the issue, but 5% of what are we offering.

At this point my colleague called me aside again and told me that he knows Ejike, that he has a feeling Ejike is not satisfied with what we've offered that we should give him (Ejike) 5% and the guild 5% making it 10%. I told my friend that I don't like this idea of offering this and that so we went back to him and my colleague told him what we've decided. Continued    Source: www.nigeriafilms.com