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Nigerian Actor Blogs That, He Narrowly Escapped A Kidnap In Ghana- Part 2

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Last week, I stumbled upon the blog of  Nigerian actor Kalu Ikeagwu who was pouring out an ordeal that he claimed to have faced whiles  in Ghana .

The actor claimed among other things that,he escaped a KIDNAP attempt in Ghana which sounded bizarre to some of us whose idea and experience of Ghana suggest that Ghana is a peaceful country in which less of such claims hardly occur.( You Can Read the Part 1 From Here)

The actor dropped his narrating of events in Ghana half way and promised to continue later . He has posted the conclusion  bit of his alleged  KIDNAP claims in Ghana.  Read Below from the horse’s own food and then deduct your conclusion…What do you make from all what he has said?…

…..A good week to everyone and many many thanks for the wonderful support you’ve shown me in my good, bad and funny times. You are truly a remarkable bunch! I liked the room; it was spacious and had enough room to practice my new found love; martial taekwondo kicks.

I had a good night’s rest and the next morning after my stretches, I sauntered outside to see what the neighbourhood was like and to my pleasant surprise I met one of my colleagues I’d worked with before in Nigeria and another man I did not know on their way back to the hotel I was lodged.

After exchanging pleasantries I asked them what they were doing in Ghana and they told me they were in the middle of a movie production (the other man was the producer of the project) and were just coming back form the police station. Curious, I asked them what had happened and Victor, the producer said, they had gone to report an armed robbery incident in his hotel room the night before – the very hotel I was checked into the night before!

Shocked, I asked him what had happened. He narrated the story of how the night before at about 2am, he woke suddenly to see two armed men in his room bending over him. They were armed with a machete and an axe and in hushed tones ordered him to bring his suitcase which he did. They rifled through it and took all the tapes he had with him, his passport and little else, then ordered him to get into the bathroom, locked him in and made off into the darkness.

Fortunately for him, he said, he had kept the tapes of the scenes he had shot on the production in a different place and only had the master tapes of old projects on him at the time of the robbery. I didn’t know what to think. What I did know was that I did not feel safe in that hotel and I told my producer as such. We, the director and I, were soon moved to another hotel in the Dzorwulu district of Accra which was much nearer the locations that had been earmarked for shooting in.

We still did not start production until Sunday the 10th of July and when we did, the pace was slow. We did not begin recording until about 11am daily even though some of us were ready for work by 8am. Most of the challenges were due to poor logistics and costuming problems.

The director was very particular about his shots – he was very meticulous about his work – and went to great lengths to rehearse and put the actors through their blockings. We managed a range of two to seven scenes a day. I had told the director I would be starting another job on Monday the 19th of July and would be leaving for Nigeria on Friday the 16th.

If I couldn’t finish my scenes before I left, I could still come back to finish them when I was done with Nigeria. He said no problem and we worked on. On Monday I called the producer and told her I would be leaving on Friday and would appreciate it if the scenes I had to do were given priority so I’d have less time to spend on set were I to have to come back to complete and she told me she’d see to it.

Wednesday came and at the end of production for the day I was called to a meeting with the producer, the production manager and my friend the director. They told me that after checking the schedule and the amount of work I had left, it was clear that my leaving on Friday would be detrimental to their production.

You know that agape feeling you get when you are being blamed for your mother’s (don’t mean to be crude but I’m trying to look for the most monstrous illogic) loss of her virginity? They honestly had to be absolutely mad to brazenly make that request! After two weeks of indolence, and giving them an additional three days? Abeg abeg! Make I no jus vex for here as I just de think am!

I politely told them where to jump into; my set date was fixed and there was no turning back. My friend the director told me he would see to it that I did not leave till I finished his shoot and that I would do well to comply because I would have my good image tarnished in Ghana and he would bring in the bigwigs from either of the two countries to compel me to do my duty.

I told him his threats would fall flat in his face and left before I said or did anything I would regret. The producer and the production ran to my room begging me to give them a few more days and I told them I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to give them an answer but that we could talk at the end of production the next day.

The next day being Thursday, at the end of production at about 1am, the producer came to my room again with her production manager to implore me to give them an extra four days on set. She asked me to think of her situation and think of my own mother and take pity on her. I told her I had obligations as well and would have to pay the other production I was scheduled to work with their money if I didn’t turn up for theirs.

She said she didn’t have any money left and it was back to square one. After prevailing on me for quite a while I agreed to give them three extra days from Friday where I would return Monday’s first flight to Nigeria on the condition that they would buy me a ticket for the first flight to Nigeria on Monday the 19th of July, and that I would have the ticket in my possession by 10am that Friday. They readily agreed thanked me and we called it a night.

In the morning on Friday I went on set with the director and other members of the crew and waited for the other actors to turn up. We waited till about 11am and still they hadn’t showed up – and neither had my ticket. I called the producer and asked her what was going on.

She told me she had purchased the ticket and invited the lady at the travel agency she had booked to confirm it to me. She did and I relaxed. 2pm came and still none of the other actors I was to work with had turned up. With quite some irritation and some unease, I called the airline my flight was supposed to be on and asked to confirm my flight.

I was told that my flight had indeed been booked but had not been paid for. I saw red. Here I was on set with a view to finish as many scenes as I could as agreed and the production manager had not even ensured his production was running smoothly by getting all his actors to work on time and worse still, the production did not seem interested in fulfilling its own end of the bargain. I picked my bag and headed for the road and hailed a passing taxi. I got in, told the driver to take me to my hotel but before he could move the production manager and some of the crew members prevented the driver from moving off.

Not many pretty words escaped my mouth that afternoon and I did utter some expletives my mother would be shocked at hearing from me. It seemed someone had alerted the producer on what was going on because a short while later someone came to me and told me the ticket had been paid for. I called the airline again and this they did confirm that the ticket for the flight had been paid. I went back to work but it was not until 5.30pm that the other actors showed up. We could only do two scenes that day.

I got back to the hotel at 12.30am and immediately went to bed, only to be woken up from my sleep a while later by a knock on my door. I checked the time on my watch; it was 1.30am. I went to the door and asked who it was and heard the voice of the producer saying it was she. I opened the door to see the producer and three fierce looking men I had not seen before.

I asked her what she wanted and she told me she wanted to give me my ticket. When I asked her who the men with her where and why they were with her, she told me they were her brothers and they were there to have a talk with me. I was compelled to go downstairs with them to the poolside.

As soon as we got there they brandished a document they called a contract and told me I was going to sign the contract and state that I was going to stay on the producer’s set until I finished the job. I told them I would not sign the contract at that time of the night with people I did not know.

They told me if I did not sign it, they (two of them were soldiers) would drag me to their barracks and deal with me mercilessly there. I explained to them that it would be foolish of me to sign something I didn’t know about without any witness on my side. The younger of the two soldiers( they were in plain clothes) lost his patience. He pushed his chair back, stood up and barked out to his colleagues to allow him bundle me into a waiting SUV that was parked nearby.

I kept my cool, appearing unruffled but inside I was quaking in my sweaty boots. Here I was in the middle of the night, no one to see what was going on, nobody to call, in a country I knew nobody. I could be taken to anywhere and anything could be done to me. My family didn’t even know where I was! I remembered I had God who was everywhere with me and the fear melted away. I sat resolute. Exasperated they called my director friend to come downstairs and talk some sense into his stupid Nigerian brother.

When he came down, they told me I now had a friend I could rely on my side and so I had just found a reliable witness; I should sign. I refused and my friend the director asked for their permission to speak with me in private. We went to a corner and he told me I could be taken anywhere and whatever happened to me, it would be their word against mine – and I would lose because I wasn’t an indigene. Furthermore, they could tarnish my hard earned name I had worked so hard for in a beat.

I was to reconsider my position, sign the contract and let everyone go in peace. It kind of smacked of a ‘good cop’, ‘bad cop’ game to me – my very own director friend who was purported to be on the lookout for me selling me down the river to my face! I chose not to do so and was forced to get into the backseat of the waiting car, a man seated on either side of me. I asked them where they were taking me but they refused to answer me, telling me I would find out soon enough.

We drove for what seemed like ten minutes before we parked in front of a police station. We went in and the producer began to narrate her version of the story to two desk officers in charge. She told them of how I was trying to abandon her job after only six days of work when I was contracted to stay on for sixteen days. My friend the director came to the same station moments later and corroborated her story.

I told the police it was not true, that I had given twenty one days of my time, and was still in the middle of production when I was abducted from my hotel in the middle of the night and forced to sign a document I did not know about.

The police told them that according to the Ghanaian law, I could not be compelled to sign a document against my will and the fact that I had begun working with them and had not refused to work with them, I could not be held. They did insist though, that the time I had spent prior to the commencement of shoot was of no significance and I was to complete the ten remaining days.

I objected to this and we were told we’d have to wait at the station until the senior officer in charge of the station arrived at 9am. We waited. As we waited I noticed the producer having some surreptitious conversation in the darkness behind some trees with a uniformed man whose rank I would later recognise to be that of an inspector.

In self preservation I called the director and told him I was willing to sign the documents on the condition that the producer would let me board my flight for Monday to do my one shoot with Tinsel after which I would come back on Thursday for a four day shoot with them. He told them and they readily agreed.

We sat down and I signed the papers; it was 6am. I went to bed at 7am and got up at 11am and went to work. We did quite some work that Saturday but had to strike set early on Sunday – 6pm- because some locations had not been confirmed.

Monday morning came without a hitch. I got to the airport, boarded my plane and got home without any ado. This post wasn’t created to exacerbate the silly (as far as I’m concerned) feud between Nollywood vs Gollywood, Most of my therapy has come from writing about my experience.

There’s something very exorcising about writing about trauma. Everything good or bad is forced to be put in perspective. My relationship with Frieda was sorely tested through this incident, and I have resolved to review the way I do business in future, to be watchful in my dealings with people to weigh their words with their actions.

I must at this point iterate that this was a unique incident borne out of lack of communication, lack of planning and rash decision making on the part of the producer instigated by my friend, the director (who happens to be Nigerian). I say unique because this in no way affects the goodwill I bear towards my beloved Ghanaians with whom I have had benevolent dealings for the past fifteen years and have proved to be exceptional hosts to me in my time in Ghana. I still haven’t abandoned the project but have prudently stayed my hand until we (the production company and my management team) both conclude on the legal matters that will ensure we both work in harmony.

I want to especially thank those of you who have made it this far. I promise you that missives like this will not come often. Let’s pray my next post will be on a much lighter note than this hairy, dreary drudgery. Have a great week everyone!



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20 thoughts on “Nigerian Actor Blogs That, He Narrowly Escapped A Kidnap In Ghana- Part 2”

  1. this does sound like a short story…if i didn’t know better i would say its a movie n not an interest 1 as that…plz Kalu can u kindly just tell us which police station was that where accra police station,tema police station or teshie police station u were there so u should know, don’t say its was drak cause in ghana or i should africa normally its pretty bright out by the time u said u left the ststion…
    one more thing if ur story is true which i highly doubt tell us when they took u in the car what did u think they were going to do KILL U??? i’m sorry but only Nagieria i’m sure they would have killed u or at least leave u…anyways just answer the question which police station was it??

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  2. I jux want u 2 know d director n d producer’s name beside am sori 4 wat u’ve been thru, i wish is jux a story. Dis is really bad, wen will some of our soldiers stop dis 2 know life, pls next tym make sure u sign a contract b4 workin. Wat a shame

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  3. Thats how they are but don’t worry Kalu… there’s always a payback time and their actors should watch their back in Nigeria because we’ll surely fight back..pls can you disclose the director and the producer’s name for us

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  4. cock n bull story.this be envy kalu.not surprising yr renowned actors are crying dat ghanaian actors are taking their job and playing leading roles.if dis is yr plan 4 ghanaian actors to be ban from naija then na lie.one of producers intervied said with the import of ghana actors into nollywood hav boosted sales .Nigerians were fed up with these old face and their naija english.Like of omotola.Nnaji.Desmond.Jimi ike.Ini etc. They wanted new face with better english appealing to the ears not dis broken staff. Majid.Dumelo.Jackie.Van.Nadia etc are making it big over there.Kalu is aware he cannot compete with this new trend and apetite thus y he is writin this rubbish .Nollywood need ghallywood more than the vice versa.every 3 out of 5 naija movies features a ghanaian actor to boost sales locally and abroad. i do admit kalus frustration his job as an actor is under threat. next time dont write rubbish.ghana is a new haven for naija people.

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    • @sam, ur whole comment show traces of inferiority complex,do u think kalu would just wake up one morning and decide to tarnish a whole nations name for no just cause,which ghanaians are taking which nollywood stars job, my friend let me tell u the only artists in nollywood complaning right now are the out dated or about to be out dated ones because i don’t see the top stars complaining, ur stars even play under the big nollywood stars when the co-star together in any movie so why will they complain,rather nollywood is boosting and sustaining the careers of ur stars, and as for the english thing, it is funny how ghanaians keep decieving themselves that they have good accent and speak good english, what a joke, the same way u feel someone from another counry has an accent that is the same way the feel about u too, and the last time i checked accent does not equal to good english, however i hope ur good speaking stars u are talking about are not the ones i know that fake their accents .Funny u should say we are fed up with our stars when there are hundreds if not thousands of them we yet to become used to while u guys just have a handful that appear ur movies over and over again, so which is industry fans are being fed up now. Keep consoling urself with that lie that nollywood needs ghollywood more than ghollywood needs it when u and i know that nollywood not only made ur movie industry but is still as of today helping it out, are u the last person to know that since ur stars started featuring in nollywood movies, the sales of movies in nollywood has drastically decreased thereby recording its worst sales in recent times,yes ur stars star in nollywood movies but they are there to boost there careers of which nollywood is doing excellently, because had they stayed back in ghana they wouldn’t have advanced this much in ghana, nollywood was a phenomenon that got a lot of attention across africa and beyond, this was made so by nollywood stars and pioneers,so with or without ur stars in it, it doesn’t make any difference because it was already a blast and a phenomenon before ur stars started featuring in it,it was this phenomenon nollywood created that let the stake holders in ur movie industry to tap from it in other to jump start the ghanaian movie industry,rather what u should know is that nollywood is doing ur stars a great favor,kalu doesn’t need to compete, he is already a well established actor, and as for ghana being a haven to nigeria, please that couldn’t be possible even in the next life to come.

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      • Tell them my brother. d only reason why nigerian producers re usin ghanaian is bcs they re very cheap and they re fun of settling for less

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        • @joseph,so if naija producers use Ghanaian actors cos they’re cheap, wht does it say of naija producers? also if they can produce the same or even more quality stuff, doesn’t it mean naija actors are over-rated?

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        • opanaian the answer is no, who doesn’t want to cut cost, even in hollywood it happens,since ur stars can act in nollywood to produce good quality movies it says nollywood has some good directors to bring out the best in ur stars,from ur question are u trying to insinuate that the non-americans acting in hollywood to make hit blockbusters shows that the american actors are over rated,u see why helping u guys was a big mistake because u guys are so unappreciative.

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  5. kalu i think is your own naija people who hav relocated to ghana did this to.as a renowned n proffesional actor u did not sign a contract.y did u not report the incident to the police if not faking.what are the names of the so called directors.point of correction there is no place in ghana where u will be caught in trafic for 5 hours.please give us a break with these lies. why do u hate ghanaians soo much.is it envy. this small country they do well in all aspect than your soo called big country.nigerians think ghana suberb of a nigerian state.hell no. am not being ethnocentric but u just visit site like nigeriafilms.com and read stories concerning ghana and c the amount of hatred this naija are habouring

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    • @sam, just like the amount of hatred against nigeria here and other ghanaian websites aswell, my friend do justice to reality, ghanaians are the ones always bringing up topics about nigeria most of the time, take this site for example, more than half of its articles is about nigeria(of which 99% of them is based on negativity), u could probably name this site HATENAIJA.COM, which kalu is not being a proffesional actor, HA! HA! HA! seriously did u just say that, does ur movie indsutry practice or know what is professionalism, OH wait a minute may be they do and that may be producing soft porn movies, yes my dear ghana is just made up of just 100 people that there can’t be prolonged traffic, tell me something better, how many times do u see celebrities mention names of the producers or directors or the media or anybody atall whom they had some kind of fall out with, don’t get me wrong sometimes they do but 99% of the time they don’t.And for ur country being suberb by the nigerian thinking, keep dreaming.

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  6. flint or what ever u call yr self.truth hurts so i can understand yr anger here.the name nigeria is synonimous to negativity.thus a fact which u knw if u wil speak the truth. no country in africa can boost of zero tolerance with social vices but we are talking abt de magnitude.no country competes with u thus what we are talking abt.armrobbery.kidnapping.419.child trafficking.ocultism and the new one terrorism. just try travelling with yr green passport and c the kind of humiliation u wil be subjected to.my broda fact is a fact just not pretend.pray that GOODLUCK may help u people to fight the corruption situation if not then revolution will be the answer.what do u tink flint.reply now ok?truth hurts

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  7. sam or whatever u call urself, truth hurts, that i know for sure, so i can also understand ur grudges and fumings here, the name ghana is synonimous to dependance which is a fact u and i know if u buckle up and face the truth, and as for nigeria being known for negativity, u speak like u don’t know how the western media treats anything africa,well no country competes with u when it comes to dependency and empty boasting,funny a thing u mentioned terrorism,u seem to have forgoten ur terrorist brother KWAKU MANFO ASIEDU(the london metro co terrorist bomber), all those criminal acts u listed out are also synonimous with ghana with everynewspapers in ghana crying a news of one criminal act or the other,talk of kidnaping and corruption, i thought ghana was the so called peaceful haven, how come kalu was almost if not kidanpped by not even nuisance but uniformed officers who were supposed to protect and serve the country, see how corrupt ghanaians could be, like the part of the post where the producer was talking privately to the police, can u imagine that, only God knows what she was planning with the police officer,come see how the ghanaian army being hostile to a visitor that was supposed to be treated appropriately,u should also pray that mills deliver u all from all these corruption,dependency etc. Now sam what do u also think,repl if u wish,HA! HA! HA! THE TRUTH REALLY REALLY REALLY HURTS MY DEAR.

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  8. hey.am aware the western media portray africans black but what about yr own media .are they also sidin with the western media? my friend flint i wil not be surprise u have relocated 2 ghana thus why u are enjoying smooth flow of electricity.i learnt is always dark in lagos and abuja and flows 4hrs a day.nigeria jagajaga.every tin scata scata.all u can hear is gun shot pooaapooaa.flint stop it cos yu go wound oo

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    • @suram, our media does fair critizism to our govt. Well my dear friend sam, relocating to ghana is not a bad idea, as u see me, i can decided to relcate to any part of africa be it zambia,kenya,uganda,sierra leone etc.But sam before we start talking of relocation to anywhere or to be specific in this case ghana,do u think steady electricity is the only factor that will motivate me to move to ghana, please tell me something better, last time i checked ghana was still undeveloped and still recieving foreign aid, and lets not forget that part of ur telecomunication services is being provided by nigeria’s globacom.Kalu’s plight which he recounts with this post gives enough evidence that ghana is not after all the angel they claim to be.Sam listen !!! GHANA MUST GO NOW OH !!! or wahala go dey.

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  9. whats the meaning of ghana must go.is it a derogatory word or what.ask yr mum for a little history.ghana were those who sent you packing.you left behind all your properties which most were buildings which we took it for free.i mean free.may be is time we sack you people in ghana but we wont do dat but xploit yu people.do u know the number of naija students in ghana?take legon or knust(university).take for instance average ghanaian student reading medicine at legon pays about $650 for tuition fees and $100 for hostel for academic year.yr fellow naija pay at least $6000 and and $2000 for hostel the same academic year i know if yor dad is not a corrupt official he cannot afford. my man we.make millions of dollars from yr collapse institution.i learnt it wi ll take u a decade to complete a university in naija.(strike)dont u knw the smooth flow of electricity is the back bone of every country.dont open yr mouth again ok. just wait and see ghana for fews year.you will need a visa before u can travel to ghana. what do u people hav.not oil huh.wait and see how we gonna use our oil resources.shut up

    Reply
    • @sam, and whats the mening of nigeria jajaja, is that also a derogatory word or what, yes ghana might have thrown nigeria out first but it didn’t have as much complicated effect on us as u guys did when we threw u guys out,u could even tell by how much grudge and bitterness u guys still have about it,nigeria throwing ghana made more headlines and raised more eyebrows,just as u guys took our properites we also took urs for free without paying a dime,do u want to know the truth, u guys can’t send the nigerians out now because they own ur economy, if the leave ur econmomy crashes,talk about students and university, nigerians school everywhere even in zambia,uganda,malawi etc so does other people from other countries school in nigeria ghana inclusive, i for one know a lot of ghanaians schooling in nigeria, yes u guys highly fine our students, companies and businesses but u know what, u guys are still they ones going to vomit it back because guess what after those heavy fines and charges,who are the consumers of these companies and businesses products, is it not the ghanaians, these companies and businesses will in turn raise there own prises,rates,and interests aswell and this time the will raise it times ten of what it should be,maybe then ur corrupt poor he-goat of a father together with the rest of ur country people will see why nigeria is millions of miles ahead of u ghanaians and then will u guys stop all this stupid and idiotic childs play,since u are so dump to see the big picture let me make it clear for u, nigeria including nollywood is making a lot of money off ghana and also taking very good advantage of ghana, yes there are strikes in nigeria and all that bla bla bla u keep ranting here about nigerian schools, but i guess at the end of the day nigeria still has better schools than ghana, this can be justified from the recent ranking of the best school in africa 2010 where two schools from nigeria ranked above all the ghanaian schools, seriously are kidding me when you say smooth flow of electricity is the back bone of every country,what century are u from, please go and mak a proper search on what it takes to build a well organised and developed country,and few years from now ghana will not be anywhere close to nigeria becuase nigeria will still be far ahead of ghana, i can tell u what else we have apart from oil, we have agriculture,coal.steal,etc and ofcourse nollywood,what about u guys apart from gold and the little oil u guys found what do u have, oh yes i know, ur soft porn movies, we should wait and see what, its been three years since ghana discovered oil and what has happened, the answer is nothing, my friend shut up and and tell me something better, wait a few years indeed.

      Reply

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